Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement

Book Overview

Evolutionary science lies at the heart of a modern understanding of the natural world. Darwin's theory has withstood 150 years of scientific scrutiny, and today it not only explains the origin and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307277224
• ISBN13: 9780307277220
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Terse, Well-Written Rebukes of Intelligent Design from Eminent Scientists and Philosophers

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.

Amounts to a destruction of Intelligent Design

As Editor John Brockman writes in his introduction, this book, a collection of 16 essays by eminent scientists, "is a thoughtful response to the bizarre claims made by the ID movement's advocates, whose only interest in science appears to be to replace it with beliefs consistent with those of the Middle Ages." (p. x) What the ID people are about is a power grab, an attempt to install themselves as The Authority on who we are and how we got that way. God is the puppet for whom they speak. As Brockman further notes, theirs "is a duplicitous public-relations campaign funded by Christian fundamentalist interests." (p. x) Following the original and very interesting essays by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Lee Smolin, Stuart Kauffman and eleven others is an incisive excerpt from the "Memorandum Opinion of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania" in the case of Kitzmiller v. the Dover Area School District, dated December 20, 2005. Judge John E. Jones III, in ruling for the Plaintiffs, makes it abundantly clear that ID is not science and has no business being taught in science classes. He chastised some members of the Dover School Board (who have since been voted out of office), noting that "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." (p. 254) Dawkins, whose essay is entitled, "Intelligent Aliens" has warned us before about the dishonesty of creationists and ID proponents. One might ask, why are they so dishonest? Why do they bully and misrepresent? One suspects they think they have license since theirs is the work of God. At least, if you tell yourself that, as suicide bombers do, and you believe it, then whatever means you use are justified. Which is the reason that it is a waste of time to argue with ID people. They already have the truth and any argument is totally beside the point. They pretend to some spurious debate only for propaganda purposes. Brockman knows all of this and instead of getting involved in a phony "debate" with the "intelligent design cabal" (Dawkins' designation) what he has done is persuade these sixteen distinguished scientists to explain from various disciplines (philosophy, psychology, biology, paleontology, ecology, even physics) just why, as Theodonsius Dobzhansky so succinctly put it, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." And they do a great job of that. Additionally, the essays offer insight into the evidence for evolution and further our understanding. Some excerpts: "A denial of evolution--however motivated--is a denial of evidence, a retreat from reason to ignorance." (p. 80) --paleontologist Tim D. White "An understanding of morality is to be found through secular moral reasoning and lies in fundamental facts about the human condition, not in t

The book fundamentalists won't read.

This book is a collection of essays by professional scientists and scholars who are intent on showing how it is possible (in fact, likely) that all life on earth is the product of millenia of evolution, and not the product of one moment of divine inspiration. It is not, however, an attempt to show that there is no God. In fact, the writers (for the most part) take some pains to show that evolution itself could be a product of divine inspiration (a surprising number of scientists are very faithfully religious). Each essay is written by a well-established scientist (or, in the case of Dennett, philosopher), and is written to be accessible to the non-scientist. What is noteworthy of the book is that none of the authors talk down to the reader, nor do they "dumb down" the material they are writing about - they are honest, unpretentious and sincerely interested in sharing their ideas with the public at large. This book is very readable, very interesting, and very accessible to anyone with a solid high school education, although a year or two of college (and/or a course or two in philosophy) might help. It is certainly important reading, given the efforts being made to turn "intelligent design" into a "science." I highly recommend it.

Interesting essays on a wide variety of topics

IT's 16 short essays by 16 scholars plus the section of Judge Jones' Kitzmiller decision dealing with ID's scientific status cover a wide range of topics and make for interesting reading. Obviously not all topics are equally interesting or equally well written, but most of them were very worthwhile. Some of the tidbits I particularly liked were: Jerry Coyne distinguished between a weak and a strong form of ID, showed how ID-proponents flip-flop arbitrarily between them, and explained why neither is competent science. Leonard Susskind examined possible psychological explanations for why ID-proponents cling so tightly to what is obviously a useless scientific theory and offered a sensible approach to dealing with them. Scott Atran's essay on possible evolutionary explanations for religion and other aspects of psychology and behavior was also interesting. Daniel Dennett proposed that "design" has two entirely different meanings, i.e., "process" and "purpose" and that it is simply an equivocation (illogically using the same word to mean two different things) for ID-proponents to draw conclusions about design-process simply because they find design-purpose in nature. I think "origin" and "function" would have been much better word-choices, respectively, but Dennett's point is well taken. It is indeed illogical to infer intelligent origin merely from finding that an object has some function in nature. Dennett also reported an example of Dembski's flagrant dishonesty. The more I study Dembski's work, the more I think he's a sleazy con artist. For example, in one of Dembski's moderated chat rooms, "Uncommon Dissent," he or one of his colleagues made an absolutely ridiculous argument that Dover's liability for attorney fees was the fault of the new, pro-evolution board. When a participant posted a response showing that the initial argument was contrary to well established legal principles and court precedents, the moderator, presumably Dembski himself, simply deleted the post. Like I said, sleazy, especially for someone who is supposed to be promoting the idea of "teaching the controversy." Apparently, Dembski wants only his version of the controversy to be taught. Nicholas Humphrey wrote an interesting essay on the evolution of consciousness, starting with the opening epigram "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against my conscious self . . . " Neil Shubin's chapter on the "great transition" from water to land animals was fascinating, and I liked the point he made at the end, that evolution's predictions can be tested. Although Shubin left it unstated, the contrast with ID in that regard is pretty obvious. The importance of biogeography (the geographic distribution of species), a major topic about which ID, naturally, is completely silent, was a highlight of Frank Sulloway's essay. Another fascinating essay was Stephen Pinker's argument that the actual basis for morality and ethics is completely different from what ma

Novel Perspectives on the Utility of Darwin's Theory

Over 200 years after the Enlightenment, and about 150 years after Darwin's theory revolutionized biology, most of the United States (among other countries) remains incredulous towards biology and scientifically illiterate. Coupled with a popular conservative movement, dedicated to actively fighting progress in the biological sciences, and intellectual thought in general, the capacity of future generations to advance science and technology is being threatened. This threat is called Intelligent Design, and slowly the science community is recognizing that to combat this threat, they as scientists must reach out to the public at large to proactively explain the utility and necessity of their chosen fields, and in relation to Evolution, in particular. In that vein steps John Brockman and a list of 16 highly-respected contemporary scientists, with exceptionally well-written essays. Intelligent Thought's greatest weakness is that it only offers 16 essays - the scope, impact, and supporting evidence of Darwin's The Origin of Species could accommodate many more discussions. As such, this book will not convert the radical devotees and preachers of Intelligent Design, but you can count on it to bring to focus at least a few concepts related to Evolutionary Theory that all but the most well-read readers will find eye-opening. Among them: Several of the authors in this collection of essays address ID's two-faced propaganda and intellectual dishonesty. While often-discussed in the public forum, here these problems with ID are discussed in a fresh way that reinvigorated my view of such tired discussions, and I suspect will persuasively summarize such discussions for newer readers of the Evo/ID Wars discourse. Psychologist Nicholas Humphrey explores a topic completely novel to me: the problem of consciousness and Darwin's theory, including the modern interpretations of Wallace, Descartes, and others, and balancing the dichotomy of special creation's supposed "moral lesson" with the evolutionary benefits of human consciousness. Elsewhere, paleontologist Tim White tells the stories of seminal discoveries along the path to reconstructing the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, as well as the anthropological importance and undeniable logic of such discoveries. Evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin explains the discovery and study of fossils important to the fish-to-reptiles transition in Devonian times, showing that such a transition was not only possible, but nearly inevitable, given the diversity of fish fossils that have been discovered dating back some 370 million years. Historian of science Frank Sulloway tells the story of Darwin's conversion from creationism to "descent with modification by natural selection" with fascinating details I'd not heard before. Dispelling dramaticized versions of Darwin's Galapagos trip, Sulloway adds tremendous insight into how real scientific discoveries are often stumbled upon, with even their own discoverers being highly