Why Intelligent Design Fails edited by Matt Young and Taner Edis, Rutgers, $39.95/拢26.95, ISBN 081353433X
The Cultures of Creationism edited by Simon Coleman and Leslie Carlin, Ashgate, $79.95/拢45, ISBN 075460912X Reviewed by Mike Holderness
A DOCUMENT entitled The Wedge Strategy, circulating since 1999 in creationist circles, declares its goals are 鈥渢o defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies [and] to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God鈥�.
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The thin end of 鈥渢he wedge鈥� is to induce US states to 鈥渞ectify ideological imbalance in their science curricula鈥�. That, decoded, means getting 鈥渋ntelligent design鈥� theories into classrooms. The partisans of intelligent design typically deny in public that they have any particular designer in mind. Biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, proposes that certain biological systems exhibit an 鈥渋rreducible complexity鈥�. This is the old false argument 鈥� about the eye having no selection benefit until all its parts are in place 鈥� dressed up with molecular biology.
William Dembski is 鈥渁ssociate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science鈥� at the Baptist Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His supporters compare him to Isaac Newton and Ludwig Boltzmann for his proposal that there is a category 鈥渃omplex specified information鈥�, whose detection is proof of a designer at work.
Each of the 13 chapters of Why Intelligent Design Fails is a patient and clear specialist rebuttal of the relevant part of these claims, in fields from molecular biology to the philosophy of science. It is an essential tool for anyone inclined to resist the wedge.
Those who want to understand it could start with The Cultures of Creationism. Its discussion of the difference between evangelical creationism and that of the original peoples of Australia, is especially thought-provoking. The latter has gained recognition in the highest courts 鈥� but only within its domain, as a means of determining collective land rights, not as a universal prescription.
Both books would have been enriched by input from lawyers. Intelligent design is clearly an attempt to turn the free speech provision of the US constitution against its ban on establishing religion. A legalistic rather than a scientific concept of truth is in play here: and what is at stake is a choice between rationality and theocracy.