Product Description

Darwin's greatest accomplishment was to show how life might be explained as the result of natural selection. But does Darwin's theory mean that life was unintended? William A. Dembski argues that it does not. As the leading proponent of intelligent design, Dembski reveals a designer capable of originating the complexity and specificity found throughout the cosmos. Scientists and theologians alike will find this book of interest as it brings the question of creation firmly into the realm of scientific debate. It is updated with a new preface by the author.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114837 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

Makes Sense of the Data
This work by Professor Dembski attempts to defend the idea that life not only is, but must be, the product of intelligence. As a cell biologist, my graduate course work and teaching experience has demonstrated this over and over, but Dembski in this book looks at the mathematics and logic that supports this premise. He also does an excellent job responding to the arguments against the irreducible complexity concept. In my opinion, this is one of the strongest arguments for ID. The arguments concocted against it have, in my mind, only confirmed this concept. Dembski also does an excellent job responding to Dawkins and his ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL analogy, which proves the opposite of what Dawkins intended. A common claim is that Dembski (and the ID movement as a whole) is only concerned about polemics and propaganda, and the movement lacks a genuine interest and competence to do real science (which I assume refers to empirical research and collecting data). I have spent much of my career collecting data. This requires a special skill but more important in science is the ability to understand and integrate this data, which takes a skill that I have come to appreciate is less common and more important than doing number crunching of measurements. There is a place for both, but a clear need exists to make sense of the data we already have. I find that students can gather date fairly effectively, but the real challenge and talent is to make sense of that data. In grading their labs I always stress this. Dembski has done an invaluable service in making sense of the extant data. The only factor preventing acceptance of his conclusions is an emotional commitment to fundamentalist Darwinism.

Potent, persuasive
Although the reading may be a bit difficult for some, the ideas and arguments presented in this book should be able convince intelligent, open-minded individuals that Intelligent Design offers a better scientific framework than Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Dogmatic Darwinian apologists, however, will not be moved from their cherished preconceptions.

An early contestant for Book of the Millenium
Darwin is dead. Let's get on with it and keep science within the realm of REAL alternatives in origins research.

That pretty well summarizes No Free Lunch, which brings the reader up to date with the latest in mathematical research and design theory. The "No Free Lunch" theorems establish that information does not arise by either chance or order - the two mechanisms available to naturalism, AKA atheistic Darwinism. The only thing left is intelligence as the source of information.

This is hardly the first book to make this claim (cf. Werner Gitt's In the Beginning was Information - or for that matter, the ancient Greek philosophers had it figured out). But in a world saturated with the religion of naturalism, this blunt work destroying that religion at its very foundation stands out. When the last Darwinist is dead and buried, William Dembski will be highly ranked among those who laid the evolutionary ideology to rest.

Demski's handling of Darwinian critics, blinded by their own preconceptions and faith commitments, is excellent. While the book as a whole is too technical for many readers, Dembski outlines the main themes very well, limiting the mathematical proofs to some sections so that the remainder of the work can be read profitably by just about anyone.