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By Design Or By Chance?: The Growing Controversy On The Origins Of Life In The Universe
O'Leary provides by far the broadast overview yet of the ID movement. she quotes ID leaders such as Phillip Johnson, William Dembski and Michael Behe. she also quotes their sternest critics, including Richard Dawkins, Stephen J. Gould and Michael Ruse. She writes about the Wedge movement, DNA, the age of the Earth, the search for extraterrestrial life, the teaching of ID in schools, and the monarch butterfly. She anticipates the culmination of the ID revolution by writing that Darwinism "was part of our folklore." Yet the evolutionary tales she relates are still widely taught as fact in many schools. This well organized guidebook of O'Leary's journey through the world of Intelligent Design has the potential to lead many of the next generation away from the evolutionary fables that now pass for science. Her book is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the history and significance of the Intelligent Design movement. It also belongs in college and even high school classrooms. Forrest M. Mims III, U.S. science journalist Denyse O'Leary has been a freelance writer since 1971. She specializes in science news of interest to faith communities for such publications as Christianity Today, Faith Today, and the Christian Times. She is the author of several titles including Faith@ Why Science Needs Faith in the Twenty-First Century, and it the Faith and Science columnist for ChristianWeek. She has written for newspapers, magazines, book publishers, and trade jounals, including the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, and Canadian Living.
352 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2004
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October 23, 2024
A CANADIAN JOURNALIST SURVEYS THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIANITY
Denyse O'Leary is a Toronto-based journalist, author, and blogger. She wrote in the Preface to this 2004 book, "As a freelance journalist... I have frequently been asked to write on science topics. One such topic was Darwinian evolution and the new, competing theory of intelligent design... I had no clear convictions about it.... I am a Christian [later, she describes herself as an `evangelical Anglican'; pg. 239), but my church does not require any position on evolution... I began to see clearly that Darwinism is a theory of evolution that explicitly denies design in biology in order to leave God out of the picture---at a point in history when, from the science evidence available, it appears that the whole universe is screaming DESIGN!... But the implications of this state of affairs seemed worth a book... Its topic is huge: the slow, sure---and strongly opposed---reorganization of sciences around the theme of design, as opposed to no-design."
She notes that most Christians reacted to Darwin's theory of evolution, and the geological interpretation of the antiquity of the earth, by assuming that the Bible either taught the "Day-Age theory," or the "gap theory." She says, "Christians have fond these assumptions reasonable because the Bible does not give an age for the earth. As Bible scholar P.A. Zimmerman notes [in Darwin, Evolution, and Creation]: `The Bible does not anywhere make an explicit statement in which the age of the earth is given. It tells us how long the Children of Israel were in Egypt, the length of time from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple, the duration of the Babylonian Captivity, etc.
"But nowhere is there a statement of how many years it was from creation to the time of Abraham or any other date that can be correlated with secular history... Any estimate of the age of the earth based on the Bible rests on deductions drawn from information contained in Holy Scriptures. If the deductions are valid, the conclusions are likewise valid. The reverse is true if the deductions are in error." (Pg. 123-124)
She says of the famous/infamous tracks at the Paluxy River in Glen Rose, Texas: "In 1971, Eden Films ... distributed a movie ... called `Footprints in Stone,' Shown in hundreds of schools and churches, this documentary convinced many that dinosaurs and humans had once lived together. In 1980, John Morris... published Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs and the People Who Knew Them, promoting the `mantracks,' as Glenrose residents called them... Under pressure from investigators with less emotional investment in the story, a different explanation for the mantracks emerged. It seems that Cretaceous dinosaurs usually walked on their toes, like cats... However, for unknown reasons, they sometimes walked on the entire foot, like humans... When they did so, their tracks resembled human tracks. In 1986, John Morris began to retract the Paluxy claims, and the film was withdrawn." (Pg. 143-144)
She also points out, "Young earth creationists are often ridiculed for the mantracks episode, but other paleontologists have also been the victims of self-delusion in recent years and could do well to take a hard look in the mirror. Consider the feathered dinosaur fraud. In November 1999, National Geographic published an amazing find: a fossil of a feathered dinosaur, dubbed `Archaeoraptor,' appeared to prove that birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs.... In January 2000, the prestigious magazine quietly retracted its claim. The fossil turned out to be a composite of different animals cleverly joined---not dinosaur feathers, after all, but horsefeathers." (Pg. 144-145)
In her discussion of Intelligent Design (ID), she acknowledges, "The designer does not have to be God. Intelligent design does not require an omnipotent or omniscient designer; only an intelligent one. This may be the single thorniest problem that intelligent design theory poses. To their credit, the ID advocates do not back away from it... just because a system may show evidence of intelligence does not mean that it is directly authored by God. Intermediaries of self-organization may play a role." (Pg. 212-213)
Of Philip Johnson's infamous "Wedge" strategy, she notes, "[William] Dembski was clearly unhappy with Philip Johnson's `Wedge' and strove to distance himself from it. The street drama of rejection by a Darwinist establishment played well in the 1990s, but it became a liability because `wedges break things rather than build them up.' Design needs to be nuanced as a scientific concept before it can succeed as a social or cultural concept, he warned." (Pg. 229)
Those looking for a "journalistic overview" of the creation/ID/evolution controversy will be pleased with this book; but those looking for detailed arguments (particularly "scientific" ones) critically addressing one or both sides may want to look elsewhere.
Denyse O'Leary is a Toronto-based journalist, author, and blogger. She wrote in the Preface to this 2004 book, "As a freelance journalist... I have frequently been asked to write on science topics. One such topic was Darwinian evolution and the new, competing theory of intelligent design... I had no clear convictions about it.... I am a Christian [later, she describes herself as an `evangelical Anglican'; pg. 239), but my church does not require any position on evolution... I began to see clearly that Darwinism is a theory of evolution that explicitly denies design in biology in order to leave God out of the picture---at a point in history when, from the science evidence available, it appears that the whole universe is screaming DESIGN!... But the implications of this state of affairs seemed worth a book... Its topic is huge: the slow, sure---and strongly opposed---reorganization of sciences around the theme of design, as opposed to no-design."
She notes that most Christians reacted to Darwin's theory of evolution, and the geological interpretation of the antiquity of the earth, by assuming that the Bible either taught the "Day-Age theory," or the "gap theory." She says, "Christians have fond these assumptions reasonable because the Bible does not give an age for the earth. As Bible scholar P.A. Zimmerman notes [in Darwin, Evolution, and Creation]: `The Bible does not anywhere make an explicit statement in which the age of the earth is given. It tells us how long the Children of Israel were in Egypt, the length of time from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple, the duration of the Babylonian Captivity, etc.
"But nowhere is there a statement of how many years it was from creation to the time of Abraham or any other date that can be correlated with secular history... Any estimate of the age of the earth based on the Bible rests on deductions drawn from information contained in Holy Scriptures. If the deductions are valid, the conclusions are likewise valid. The reverse is true if the deductions are in error." (Pg. 123-124)
She says of the famous/infamous tracks at the Paluxy River in Glen Rose, Texas: "In 1971, Eden Films ... distributed a movie ... called `Footprints in Stone,' Shown in hundreds of schools and churches, this documentary convinced many that dinosaurs and humans had once lived together. In 1980, John Morris... published Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs and the People Who Knew Them, promoting the `mantracks,' as Glenrose residents called them... Under pressure from investigators with less emotional investment in the story, a different explanation for the mantracks emerged. It seems that Cretaceous dinosaurs usually walked on their toes, like cats... However, for unknown reasons, they sometimes walked on the entire foot, like humans... When they did so, their tracks resembled human tracks. In 1986, John Morris began to retract the Paluxy claims, and the film was withdrawn." (Pg. 143-144)
She also points out, "Young earth creationists are often ridiculed for the mantracks episode, but other paleontologists have also been the victims of self-delusion in recent years and could do well to take a hard look in the mirror. Consider the feathered dinosaur fraud. In November 1999, National Geographic published an amazing find: a fossil of a feathered dinosaur, dubbed `Archaeoraptor,' appeared to prove that birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs.... In January 2000, the prestigious magazine quietly retracted its claim. The fossil turned out to be a composite of different animals cleverly joined---not dinosaur feathers, after all, but horsefeathers." (Pg. 144-145)
In her discussion of Intelligent Design (ID), she acknowledges, "The designer does not have to be God. Intelligent design does not require an omnipotent or omniscient designer; only an intelligent one. This may be the single thorniest problem that intelligent design theory poses. To their credit, the ID advocates do not back away from it... just because a system may show evidence of intelligence does not mean that it is directly authored by God. Intermediaries of self-organization may play a role." (Pg. 212-213)
Of Philip Johnson's infamous "Wedge" strategy, she notes, "[William] Dembski was clearly unhappy with Philip Johnson's `Wedge' and strove to distance himself from it. The street drama of rejection by a Darwinist establishment played well in the 1990s, but it became a liability because `wedges break things rather than build them up.' Design needs to be nuanced as a scientific concept before it can succeed as a social or cultural concept, he warned." (Pg. 229)
Those looking for a "journalistic overview" of the creation/ID/evolution controversy will be pleased with this book; but those looking for detailed arguments (particularly "scientific" ones) critically addressing one or both sides may want to look elsewhere.
January 27, 2023
Un libro que expone los argumentos del diseño inteligente y otras teorías del origen de la vida y el universo.
Está bastante interesante leerlo. Buena investigación periodística la que hace la autora del libro.
Está bastante interesante leerlo. Buena investigación periodística la que hace la autora del libro.
May 10, 2009
Concise overview of the Evolution/Creationism/Intelligent Design issues from their inception until now. Extremely readable--written by a journalist who appears to have done her research. Paints ID in a favorable light, casting both evolution and creationism as too heavily swayed by religious presupposition.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews