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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172501 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-09
• Released on: 2006-05-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Writer and editor Brockman (What We Believe but Cannot Prove), who publishes the online magazine Edge, has assembled sixteen short essays by prominent scientists on current thinking about evolution. A few of the contributors, such as Jerry A. Coyne and Daniel C. Dennett, use close readings of Intelligent Design (ID) advocates' claims to argue that ID is a political or ideological movement without scientific legitimacy. These arguments are concise and persuasive, if sometimes familiar; strong evidence and wide acceptance in the scientific community have made evolution central to biology and related branches. The most fresh and interesting essays essentially ignore ID to explore aspects of evolutionary biology, including paleontologist Tim D. White considering evidence for Homo sapiens' evolution, psychologist Steven Pinker on the compatibility of evolution and ethics, and geologist Scott D. Sampson proposing primary science education that links evolution and ecology. As a whole, this sampler makes a powerful cross-discipline case for teaching evolution as an accepted biological consensus-as opposed to "teaching the debate"-and offers glimpses into how the science behind the theory continues to evolve in a range of fields.
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Review
“Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all.” –Daniel C. Dennett, Philosopher

“Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity.” –Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist

“An evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one.” –Steven Pinker, Psychologist

Not only is ID markedly inferior to Darwinism at explaining and understanding nature but in many ways it does not even fulfill the requirements of a scientific theory. –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist

The geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously declared, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” One might add that nothing in biology makes sense in the light of intelligent design. –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist

Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all. —Daniel C. Dennett, philosopher and cognitive scientist

A denial of evolution–however motivated–is a denial of evidence, a retreat from reason to ignorance. —Tim D. White, paleontologist

Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity. —Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

The supernatural explanation fails to explain because it ducks the responsibility to explain itself.—Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

Review
“Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all.” –Daniel C. Dennett, Philosopher

“Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity.” –Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist

“An evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one.” –Steven Pinker, Psychologist

Not only is ID markedly inferior to Darwinism at explaining and understanding nature but in many ways it does not even fulfill the requirements of a scientific theory. –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist

The geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously declared, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” One might add that nothing in biology makes sense in the light of intelligent design. –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist

Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all. —Daniel C. Dennett, philosopher and cognitive scientist

A denial of evolution–however motivated–is a denial of evidence, a retreat from reason to ignorance. —Tim D. White, paleontologist

Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hits you between the eyes with a stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity. —Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

The supernatural explanation fails to explain because it ducks the responsibility to explain itself.—Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

Nothing indicates that people who believe that life arose by chance also believe that morality is haphazard. —Scott Atran, anthropologist and psychologist

An evolutionary understanding of the human condition, far from being incompatible with a moral sense, can explain why we have one. —Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist

To state that a given organ is so improbable that it requires design is just ill founded. The argument uses standard probability, which does not apply to the evolution of the biosphere. —Stuart A. Kauffman, theoretical biologist

We don’t have an intelligent designer (ID), we have a bungling consistent evolver (BCE). Or maybe an adaptive changer (AC). In fact, what we have in the most economical interpretation is, of course, evolution. —Lisa Randall, physicist

What counts as a controversy must be delineated with care, as we want students to distinguish between scientific challenges and sociopolitical ones. —Marc D. Hauser, evolutionary psychologist

Incredulity doesn’t count as an alternative position or critique. —Marc D. Hauser, evolutionary psychologist

Rather than removing meaning from life, an evolutionary perspective can and should fill us with a sense of wonder at the rich sequence of natural systems that gave us birth and continues to sustain us. —Scott D. Sampson, paleontologist

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.

Papers that challenge the reader to think and argue
This book contains papers about creationism and the thought process of Intelligent design. Each paper is written by an expert in a differentt filed and sometimes I found myself agreeing outloud and sometimes I found myself in certain disbelief. That is the beuaty of this book. It stirs you to think and challenge.

A Mixed Bag
I wish I could review each essay individually as it bears on the sub-title. If it was not for the importance of getting works like this out, I might have been tempted to only give three.

The book is a collection of 16 essays, some of which deal directly with the "Intelligent Design" (ID) movement, some of which discuss the ramifications of neo-Darwinism. And some that go quite far afield.

The first essay, by Coyne, is about the fallicy of calling ID a science. He does a great job of describing what science is, why evolution meets that definition, and why ID does not. Basic and easy to follow, this was one of my favorite in the book because it goes straight to the heart of the "controversy".

Susskind writes well, but the main thrust of his essay is about the science-religion conflict and the politics that exist to prolong it, not about the crisis of trying to teach religion in science class.

The third review, by Dennett, covers why people are turned off by evolutionary theory's complexities and become convinced by ID'd PR that it has a valid point to make. It's a good overview of how a nonexistant "scientific debate" has been misrepresented to the public.

In the fourth essay, Humphrey discusses the evolution of human consciousness. This piece was confusing and a bit too philosophical for my liking. I know it was a reply to the ID idea that consciousness must have been designed in, but when he starts showing that consciousness is an illousion of mental activity, he lost me.

Paleotologist White rambles about various digs in Africa to show humans have changed over time.

Shubin does a great job of showing that the great transition at the start of the Cambrian wasn't so great, it was just successful. He covers the fish to tetrapod shift very well, showing that evolution is testable, but that's as close as he gets to dealing with ID.

In his essay, Dawkins starts off by showing that ID's claim that maybe aliens designed us begs the question of where did they come from. He writes mostly about the difficulty of finding alien life, but returns to ID at the very end, albeit briefly.

Next, Sulloway reviews Darwin's thought process from the creation idea that was the prime paradigm of his time to natural selection. More of a history of Darwin's change of mind and methods, it doesn't really address the ID topic.

Atran starts off well, showing that if there was a designer, he sure did a crappy job in some places. He provides several examples of anatomy that could have been designed much better, but make sense with evolution using what's available. Alas, he then turns off into a discussion of the role of religion that rambles off the stating point.

Pinker shows that morality can "evolve" in a society without the interferance of a mandate from a creator. I thought this whole thing was off the topic of the book.

Physicist Smolin discusses the possible origin of our universe and ways it might happen absent the creator's hand. It was a bit hard to follow, and, again, I'm not sure this essay belonged in this collection.

The next piece, by Kauffman, was about self-organization and assembly being possible without outside help. It was confusing.

According to Lloyd in the next essay, the universe is so big and so many chemical reactions, or information processing, happen that it was inevitable that life would arise, no help needed. Some good ideas, but boring.

Randall wrote a rambling piece about part of the history of the evolutionary debate, finishing with some comments about how science is almost never 100% sure, but it's still science.

Hauser chimes in with a piece about how the government shouldn't force subjects outside of a diciplin to be taught within the subject's curriculum. While a course on scientific controversies would be interesting, it shouldn't be part of an actual high-school science course for fear it would confuse the students as to what was accepted science and what is not. This was a good piece about education and the importance of keeping to the curriculum needed at that level.

And last, Sampson describes why it's important for evolution not only to be understood itself, but also in tandem with ecology.

Overall, the book was a good read, but some of the essays seemed out of place in this work. Still, I liked it. The addition of excerpts from the anti-ID decision in Kitzmiller vs Dover School District at the end was a nice touch.