Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement |  | Creator: John Brockman
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
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Rating:  25 reviews
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Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
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Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385244886
Dewey Decimal Number: 231.7652
EAN: 9780385244886
ASIN: 0307277224
Publication Date: May 9, 2006
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Product Description
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 design of living things, but highlights the importance of a scientific understanding in our culture and in our lives.
Recently the movement known as “Intelligent Design” has attracted the attention of journalists, educators, and legislators. The scientific community is puzzled and saddened by this trend–not only because it distorts modern biology, but also because it diverts people from the truly fascinating ideas emerging from the real science of evolution. Here, join fifteen of our preeminent thinkers whose clear, accessible, and passionate essays reveal the fact and power of Darwin’s theory, and the beauty of the scientific quest to understand our world.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 Interesting essays on a wide variety of topics June 16, 2006
Tim Beazley (San Diego, CA United States)
82 out of 92 found this review helpful
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, perhaps Dembski himself, simply deleted the post. Like I said, sleazy, especially for people who supposedly support 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 many people think. (Hint: contrary to the cutthroat implications of "survival of the fittest," evolution has no problem explaining the emergence of moral behavior.)
Lee Smolin discussed the anthropic principle and the significance of multiverse theories.
Seth Lloyd's essay on the computational power of the universe included examples of how Dembski's "No Free Lunch" arguments fail on several key points. (Dembski is so well educated, it's hard to believe that he could make so many obvious mistakes by accident. The inference to sleazy dishonesty seems a much more plausible explanation.)
Judge Jones' decision in the Kitzmiller case, excerpted in this book, is likely to be a legal landmark. While there are always nits to pick in a 139-page decision about a complex, wide-ranging controversy, Jones' decision got so many major points right that ID-proponents have no other option but to resort to blatant misrepresentations and other illogical arguments. (See my review of the Discovery Institute's critique of Jones' opinion, "Traipsing Into Evolution," co-written by spokesmen from the so-called "Discovery" Institute. As I said in that review, there is literally a major error of fact, law, or logic on virtually every single page of Traipsing.) The seriousness of the problems that ID-proponents face is demonstrated by the fact that many of Jones' most severe criticisms of ID simply echo statements that Behe himself made, a fact which the authors of "Traipsing" conveniently ignore. (See my review of "Darwin's Nemesis" for examples.)
One last point: The essays in this book covered a wide range of ideas, but all of them were written by experts in the particular fields that were the subject of their respective essays. That contrasts sharply with books published by ID-proponents, who typically have little or no educational or professional background in the relevant fields that they discuss.
Terse, Well-Written Rebukes of Intelligent Design from Eminent Scientists and Philosophers June 3, 2008
John Kwok (New York, NY USA)
25 out of 27 found this review helpful
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.
Novel Perspectives on the Utility of Darwin's Theory June 1, 2006
Daniel Rhoads (Nicosia, Cyprus)
48 out of 56 found this review helpful
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 skeptical at first.
Psychologist Scott Atran and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker together dispel the notion that morality comes from religion, instead showing the evolutionary roots of morals and other social values, and simulateously criticizes the anthropomorphization of biological change in favor of recognizing that H. sapiens is not the pinnacle of Earth's biosphere - just a haphazard byproduct of Evolution - and that these two observations are completely compatible.
Physicist Lee Smolin and quantum mechanical engineer Seth Lloyd also takes a routes that's entirely new to me - Smolin applies the notion of "Decent with modification by natural selection" to cosmology in a convincing manner; while Lloyd reduces the Universe to bits and computations to demonstrate that the Universe itself is "Intelligent" and biofriendly, adding in a free debunking of Dembski and a list of "Free Lunch Theorems."
And lastly, evolutionary psychologist Marc Hauser and chief curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History Scott Sampson make a case for restoring the integrity of science to America's educational system, and leading a campaign for science literacy directed especially towards ecology and evolution.
My only suggestion to the editor, John Brockman, is that a broader repository of essays by eminent scientists, supporting scientific integrity, science literacy, and evolution, in particular, would be a wonderful resource to have.
The book fundamentalists won't read. July 25, 2006
Joseph P. Porter (St. Louis, Missouri United States)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
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.
Amounts to a destruction of Intelligent Design September 8, 2006
Dennis Littrell (SoCal)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
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 the dictates of a supernatural deity." (p. 143) --cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker
This is the point of Pinker's essay, a refutation of the religious idea that human beings cannot be moral without the fear of retribution from God, or that religion is what teaches morality. His striking and very persuasive argument includes the idea that, "an evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one." (p. 152)
One of the delusive ideas of the ID people is the notion of "irreducible complexity." The problem with that, as Dawkins has observed, is, how can we be sure that something is irreducibly complex? Physicist Seth Lloyd's essay "How Smart Is the Universe?" demonstrates that the universe is plenty smart enough to handle any sort of "irreducible complexity" on its own without any help from supernatural beings. He notes, "Because of the universe's information-processing power and diversity, it was virtually certain to hit upon life sooner or later." (p. 187)
If you haven't encountered this line of reasoning before--the universe as an information processing computer--(and I hadn't) reading this essay should be most interesting. Lloyd estimates that the universe has performed around 10 to the 122th operations in its 13.8 billion years of existence. (p. 180) Add this computing power (call it the ability to perform trial and error experiments at random) to the self-organizing aspects of matter and energy (as presented in Stuart A. Kauffman's essay, "Intelligent Design, Science or Not?") and the appearance of life in the universe seems well nigh inevitable--which I believe is the majority opinion of scientists today. Kauffman believes it would contribute to a better understanding if evolution were "recast as a marriage of self-organization and selection." (p. 177) I think this is already being done.
By the way, Kauffman shows how the ID people could make a testable prediction (although, of course, they dare not). He writes, "The intelligent-design advocate must predict that in NO CASE will...intermediate forms [of life] with diverse functionalities be found." His point is that intermediate forms are "evidence against irreducible complexity demanding a Designer." (p. 173) His conclusion is that such forms exist and "count as disconfirming evidence" not pleasing to ID "scientists."
It is interesting to note how the essays and their arguments from diverse fields support one another and amount to unified support for the fact of evolution. This is the strength of the book, brilliantly conceived and nicely put together by John Brockman who is a science editor par excellence.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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