- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Free Press (3 Dec 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0684870592
- ISBN-13: 978-0684870595
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 16 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,249,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Bryce Christensen "Booklist" Schroeder takes the widespread perception that science disproves religion and turns it on its head....This book deserves widespread circulation among readers still alive to the hidden harmonies of the universe.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
A tour of modern science, from the universe as a whole to the smallest particle of matter, to show that there is an underlying wisdom beneath it all. The book combines physics, biology and neuroscience to illuminate the unity of the great plan behind the universe. It draws on traditional religious topics such as free will, evil and man's place in the universe to show that scientists have sometimes changed the surface debates on these issues, but have mainly deepened our appreciation and understanding of the ultimate questions and God's place in the world.
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First Sentence
When I picture the earth and solar system hanging in the vastness of space, I feel an anxious need to grab hold of something stable. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
When I picture the earth and solar system hanging in the vastness of space, I feel an anxious need to grab hold of something stable. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I will just quote one verse from Koran:
"We will show them Our signs in the horizons, and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over all things?" (41: 53)
This is exactly what the author has figured out that His face is hidden but is surely there and is manifested in His signs.
"We will show them Our signs in the horizons, and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is witness over all things?" (41: 53)
This is exactly what the author has figured out that His face is hidden but is surely there and is manifested in His signs.
6 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First of all, you must know that I could not read the book through. After the first couple of pages I kept making promises to myself that if the next two pages won't improve I will dispose this book - again and again. Eventually I sold it to a second-hand bookshop, being somewhat ashamed of having this book on my shelf.
On every page one can find sentences that are either inaccurate or smudged over or simply do not state anything while making the impression of doing so. Just one instance of the many: the author brings up the example of ATP cycle that happens inside cells of living organisms. This cycle allegedly consumes some ATP in order to produce more - I am not a biochemist, but I guess this is true. Now, Mr Schroeder makes rhetorics like "And guess what does this cycle need in order to produce ATP? That's right: ATP!" without making a specific conclusion or a statement to complete this thought. Did he mean that obviously this cycle cannot maintain itself? Probably not since he also states that the cycle creates more ATP than it consumes, and any layman would laugh at this, since similar phenomena are all around us: you need people to make people, you need investment to make profit, etc. Did he mean that this cycle must have been initiated manually by God? At this point, a layman, of course is at loss, he or she may not have heard about the whole branch "evolutionary biochemistry" which tries to solve problems related exactly to how complex metabolic processes found in modern cells may have evolved.
Which begs the question: is this really the best an MIT trained scientist can do or was this deliberate?
Finally, why should specific aramic phrases in the book of Genesis have any significance? Why should it matter that if you translate a particular word like this instead of that then it sounds very much like something modern science says? Why the Genesis and not the Vedic literature or Alice in Wonderland? Everyone has convictions of their own, me too, and that is exactly why a scientist should make his arguments impartial so that they make equal sense to atheists, arabs or australian aborigins.
If you are interested in popular science books I suggest you spend your money on ones deserving it, like The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins, or The Constants Of Nature by Barrow - this second one at least explains the anthropic principle in detail and tells about its usual misinterpretations instead of actually misinterpreting it in passing references.
On every page one can find sentences that are either inaccurate or smudged over or simply do not state anything while making the impression of doing so. Just one instance of the many: the author brings up the example of ATP cycle that happens inside cells of living organisms. This cycle allegedly consumes some ATP in order to produce more - I am not a biochemist, but I guess this is true. Now, Mr Schroeder makes rhetorics like "And guess what does this cycle need in order to produce ATP? That's right: ATP!" without making a specific conclusion or a statement to complete this thought. Did he mean that obviously this cycle cannot maintain itself? Probably not since he also states that the cycle creates more ATP than it consumes, and any layman would laugh at this, since similar phenomena are all around us: you need people to make people, you need investment to make profit, etc. Did he mean that this cycle must have been initiated manually by God? At this point, a layman, of course is at loss, he or she may not have heard about the whole branch "evolutionary biochemistry" which tries to solve problems related exactly to how complex metabolic processes found in modern cells may have evolved.
Which begs the question: is this really the best an MIT trained scientist can do or was this deliberate?
Finally, why should specific aramic phrases in the book of Genesis have any significance? Why should it matter that if you translate a particular word like this instead of that then it sounds very much like something modern science says? Why the Genesis and not the Vedic literature or Alice in Wonderland? Everyone has convictions of their own, me too, and that is exactly why a scientist should make his arguments impartial so that they make equal sense to atheists, arabs or australian aborigins.
If you are interested in popular science books I suggest you spend your money on ones deserving it, like The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins, or The Constants Of Nature by Barrow - this second one at least explains the anthropic principle in detail and tells about its usual misinterpretations instead of actually misinterpreting it in passing references.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
58 reviews
190 of 201 people found the following review helpful
Awe and mystery
17 May 2002
Format:Hardcover
As a physicist, I have been seduced by the awe and mystery (to borrow from "The Outer Limits") of quantum mechanics for years. Still, the esoteric nature of subatomic physics was never adequate to convince me of an intelligent design of the universe. Schroeder, however, has succeeded in convincing me of an underlying wisdom in nature through his eloquent description of the mind-boggling complexity of molecular biology. I came away from this book with a perplexing and contradictory sense of calm and breathlessness.
Schroeder succeeds where others have failed; namely, he has convinced me that an honest and compelling argument can be made for the existence of God/Creator/universal intelligence without resorting to fundamentalist dogma or pseudo-science.
Be warned: parts of the book are tedious; Schroeder admits this. If you are unwilling to put some thought behind the subject matter, then this book isn't for you. But if you're not afraid to think, then by all means read his book; your soul will thank you.
50 of 54 people found the following review helpful
Reductionism and teleology.
27 Aug 2003
Format:Hardcover
Noted Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder presents a compelling case that our universe is readily reducible to simply this -- an immaterial wisdom. "The solidity of iron is actually 99.9999999999999 percent startlingly vacuous space made to feel solid by ethereal fields of force having no material reality at all." And what is that tiny portion of an "atom" of matter that we describe as supposedly being "matter", that is, the quarks and electrons? They are incredibly precise (i.e., specified) packets of 'frozen' energy, highly tuned to interact with these highly tuned "ethereal fields." It seems that such objects are essentially intellectual constructs, as are all the "objects" of the so-called particle zoo. We call "something" a quark (or a photon, electron, etc) only because we can assign a certain behavior to "it". But what is "it"? Apart from saying that "it" is specified information, nobody knows. Within the quantum mechanical framework, these "objects" are essentially mathematical objects. As Einstein told us, what we call matter is merely condensed ("frozen") energy. And it turns out that energy is merely information. But what incredibly elegant information it is! (If it were not, neither people nor stars nor any "material" thing could exist). The materialist paradigm of our age is decidedly uneasy with the revelation that "matter" is but an elegant creation of a nonmaterial and extra cosmic entity. Why should we have an "Elegant Universe"? Philosophical pre-commitments seek a "blind" non-thing as an explanation, actually demanding a clumsy series of explanations other than the theist's Creator. (Interestingly, this approach is mislabeled "reductionism" and/or "positivism"!) "Consider the 'coincidences'" of nature's wisdom, asks Schroeder, and explanations other than a wise Creator "must seem a bit forced," even to the atheist.
The only detraction that I will offer is that the author subscribes to a kind of 'process theology'. Overall, this may be a minor problem. Schroeder's central thesis is itself elegant (and modestly eloquent, and yes, obvious to anyone who isn't psychologically pre-committed to rejecting it out of hand).
The only detraction that I will offer is that the author subscribes to a kind of 'process theology'. Overall, this may be a minor problem. Schroeder's central thesis is itself elegant (and modestly eloquent, and yes, obvious to anyone who isn't psychologically pre-committed to rejecting it out of hand).
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
A First Rate Teacher
4 Dec 2003
Format:Paperback
Schroeder is a wonderful teacher. He sees the sublime in science and his prose is at times beautifully poetic. He delves in both the macrocosm as well as microcosm using both to show that there is an inherent design to the universe and the life within it. This is a book that is well suited to those who would run from the usual creationist palaver yet feel that all of the wonder we see in this universe has to be more than an accident.
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