Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement [Paperback]

The book is a collection of brief essays written by different and eminent scientists belonging to different fields. All of them cooperate to an enjoyable and sharp critic of the creationism, from different point of view, with a substantial irony which is a sort of a leitmotiv for the whole book. This is a three days book where every non-expert can find many fast answers to the aberrant hoax build-up by the creationists during the last decade. And it is also a practical mini-guide for some important (and scientific) views about main questions like intelligence, universe or self-consciousness. Eventually the book with its reliable bibliography is a good starting point to go into the big world of real science. On the other hand it can be just a funny way to spend few hours of our time. Recommended.

In "Intelligent Thought: Science Versus The Intelligent Design Movement" editor and literary agent John Brockman has assembled sixteen insightful, quite well-written, essays from leading scientists and philosophers regarding the so-called "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design creationism" debate. While most essays offer ample refutations of Intelligent Design, others explore other, related issues, ranging from the evolution of human consciousness and whether there is indeed evidence supporting the very idea of a "designed" universe. Noted evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne distinguishes between "soft" scientific Intelligent Design, and its harder "religious" version, in the opening essay, "Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name". Eminent philosopher David Dennett explains why Intelligent Design is a hoax in "The Hoax of Intelligent Design and How It Was Perpetrated", discussing at length, favorite Intelligent Design rhetorical techniques like "insisting" that a scientific controversy exists when one doesn't, simply by criticizing or misinterpreting valid published scientific research (One that is clearly a favorite pastime of Discovery Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer William Dembski.). Paleontologists Tim D. White and Neil H. Shubin weigh in with succinct essays on, respectively, the hominoid fossil record ("Human Evolution: The Evidence") and the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods ("The `Great" Transition"). Historian of science Frank J. Sulloway explains "Why Darwin Rejected Intelligent Design". Distinguished physicist Lisa Randall compares and contrasts evolutionary theory with Intelligent Design ("Designing Words"), discussing both the extensive evidence for evolution and the history of evolutionary thought, while also noting why Intelligent Design fails scientifically. These sixteen essays are an excellent overview of the mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design; for this very reason alone, they deserve to be read by as wide a readership as possible.

If certain "terrorist" groups hold the USA to be "The Great Satan", then people in that country have a "Great Satan" of their own - Charles Robert Darwin. David Quammen declares that "81 per cent to 87 per cent of Americans reject Darwin's view" of the evolution of life. So what do all those millions of people accept as the basis for life and its changing aspects? Apparently, some kind of divine intervention. A generation ago, it was one of the versions of the Book of Genesis. Somewhat later, that view was "supported" by a movement known as "creation science". Thrown out of US schools as unconstitutional, "creation science" itself evolved [irony of ironies] into something called "Intelligent Design". This collection of essays examines ID from various perspectives. All find "eye dee" wanting.

Jerry Coyne opens the series by exposing the basic fallacy of ID - it's a religious movement that denies its own roots. In the United States, public schools are supposed to keep religion out on the street. While "official" ID documents are careful to keep their "designer" unnamed, their spokesmen are less cautious. Their ambition to modify US education along lines they define as "Christian" has been manifested without hesitation. Even with this exposure, which counters US law, ID has continued to seek popular acceptance.

More to the point of Brockman's subtitle, however, is the theme of the remaining essays. ID declares itself to be "scientific" and has co-opted some trained scholars into the movement. With degrees trailing behind their names, they seem to have credibility in their claims of certitude. Several of the essayists examine the claims of ID and how those were derived. Neither research nor logic support the thesis that an "intelligent agent" either caused life to originate nor "tweaked" it with various "upgrades" over the passage of time. The evidence from fossils and genomes, as several of these writers point out, precludes any modifications not attributable to natural forces. Scott Atran explains how natural selection has built on each organism's antecedents in dealing with change in conditions. The lineage of life, these authors demonstrate effectively, is long. Yet, given that duration, life conserves what's useful over many millennia. There's no place here for a "designer". Even the conditions in deep space and time show no need for a divinity to have been involved.

Advocates of ID claim their efforts are not to establish religious ideologies in classrooms, but the works of their writers, however, belie their true foundation. Daniel Dennett shows the propaganda methods ID uses to appear "disinterested". Nicholas Humphrey demonstrates how the "argument from design" has a long lineage, and how Darwin's concept demolished it. Raising the concept anew doesn't give it validity. Worse, the "Intelligent Design" proponents can't even validate their own proposals. No research, not even a theoretical statement, has ever been produced by any of ID's adherents. Merely declarations that "such things can't be" without an outside agency are forthcoming. One needn't be a scientist to understand that "Intelligent Design" isn't. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]