Product Description

You think you know about Darwinism and intelligent design, but did you know: *There is no overwhelming evidence for Darwinism; *Intelligent design is based on scientific evidence, not religious belief; *What many public schools teach about Darwinism is based on known falsehoods; *Scientists at major universities believe in intelligent design; *Scientists who question Darwinism are punished--by public institutions using your tax dollars. Battle-hardened veteran with doctorates in biology and theology sets the record straight in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22800 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From the Back Cover
Why Darwinism—like Marxism and Freudianism before it—is headed for extinction

In the 1925 Scopes trial, the American Civil Liberties Union sued to allow the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools. Seventy-five years later, in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the ACLU sued to prevent the teaching of an alternative to Darwin’s theory known as "Intelligent Design"—and won. Why did the ACLU turn from defending the free-speech rights of Darwinists to silencing their opponents? Jonathan Wells reveals that, for today’s Darwinists, there may be no other choice: unable to fend off growing challenges from scientists, or to compete with rival theories better adapted to the latest evidence, Darwinism—like Marxism and Freudianism before it—is simply unfit to survive.

Wells begins by explaining the basic tenets of Darwinism, and the evidence both for and against it. He reveals, for instance, that the fossil record, which according to Darwin should be teeming with "transitional" fossils showing the development of one species to the next, so far hasn’t produced a single incontestable example. On the other hand, certain well-documented aspects of the fossil record—such as the Cambrian explosion, in which innumerable new species suddenly appeared fully formed—directly contradict Darwin’s theory. Wells also shows how most of the other "evidence" for evolution— including textbook "icons" such as peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, Haeckel’s embryos, and the Tree of Life—has been exaggerated, distorted . . . and even faked.

Wells then turns to the theory of intelligent design (ID), the idea that some features of the natural world, such as the internal machinery of cells, are too "irreducibly complex" to have resulted from unguided natural processes alone. In clear-cut layman’s language, he reveals the growing evidence for ID coming out of scientific specialties from microbiology to astrophysics. As Wells explains, religion does play a role in the debate over Darwin—though not in the way evolutionists claim. Wells shows how Darwin reasoned that evolution is true because divine creation "must" be false—a theological assumption oddly out of place in a scientific debate. In other words, Darwinists’ materialistic, atheistic assumptions rule out any theories but their own, and account for their willingness to explain away the evidence—or lack of it.

Darwin is an emperor who has no clothes— but it takes a brave man to say so. Jonathan Wells, a microbiologist with two Ph.D.s (from Berkeley and Yale), is that brave man. Most textbooks on evolution are written by Darwinists with an ideological ax to grind. Brave dissidents—qualified scientists—who try to teach or write about intelligent design are silenced and sent to the academic gulag. But fear not: Jonathan Wells is a liberator. He unmasks the truth about Darwinism— why it is wrong and what the real evidence is. He also supplies a revealing list of "Books You’re Not Supposed to Read" (as far as the Darwinists are concerned) and puts at your fingertips all the evidence you need to challenge the most closed-minded Darwinist.

About the Author
Jonathan Wells is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University. He is the author of Icons of Evolution: Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution Is Wrong (Regnery) and is currently doing intelligent design–related scientific research.

Customer Reviews

An Excellent expose on the politics of Darwinism
Start by ignoring the ad-hominem attacks of some reviewers. This book is an excellent expose on the underlying politics and protectionism of the Darwinists. Reading the book exposes the common tactics or those on shaky ground be they AGW Warmaholics or evolutionists.

This book is primarily one that exposes many of the underlying flaws and limitations in the current state of study in evolutionary processes. It highlights the same kinds of attacks made on say deniers of anthropogenic global warming as made on anyone who supports the consideration of Intelligent Design (ID).

The fundamentals of ID are mentioned but not in detail and this is why I only gave the book 4 stars. After reading this book, at the very least you should be questioning the tactics of the Darwinists in the US and encourage you to start asking questions about the possibility of ID. There is also no requirement to believe in God to think about the scientific principles behind ID.

Any argument that goes "evolution is true so anything else is false and you have no right to question it" is not science or a scientific process, it is sociology.

Lying to the choir
The title of the book does not do it justice. Not only is it politically incorrect, it is scientifically, factually, logically, academically and morally incorrect.

Once again Jonathan Wells has clearly outlined that Intelligent Design is nothing but a series of well refuted "negative evidence" for evolution. For those that disagree, when you read this book, please try to find one piece of evidence FOR design. Let's assume for a moment that evolution is actually false - now please tell me what Intelligent Design predicts. One scientifically testable prediction is all I ask.

It is telling to see these arguments hammered out in the popular press. I am all for legitimate scientific debate - it is what science thrives on. However, when scientists have a genuine debate they argue in peer reviewed journals, not popular books.

Argument Ad Populum? Not for me.
One can make a good living going against the mainstream. Sometimes the minority is indeed right, but other times the minority is a minority because everyone else is right. The publishers of the Politically Incorrect Guides are reaping the rewards of giving the minority voices an outlet. Other Guides enable important overlooked facts to reach the general public, but this Guide enables an Argument from Incredulity to reach the general public.

Because that is what this is, a defense of Intelligent Design against Evolutionary Theory.

Ultimately this book comes down to Wells saying "I cannot believe this happened on it's own, so it must have been the work of a designer." That is not a scientific argument. The most ironic thing about this book is that Intelligent Design - by necessity - accepts evolution, just not the Theory of Evolution. The ultimate difference between Intelligent Design and the Theory of Evolution is that one of them posits natural causes and the other posits active intelligence for the exact same event. Homo Sapiens evolving from Australopiticus Afarensis? One says it happened by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, the other says it happened because a designer caused the mutations. Call it "Designed Mutation" and "Designed Selection", it still has Common Descent! There is no contradiction with the data (which Wells turns to and away from whenever he thinks it helps his argument), just the cause of the data. Did this mutation happen naturally or because of a designer? This is not talked about among Intelligent Design supporters.

What exactly is Wells defending? Well, there are several arguments made in favor of Intelligent Design, and none of them hold up under much closer examination. First is the argument of Irreducible Complexity - that if we could find any system wherein all the parts are fully necessary and NONE of those parts have other uses, then you have an Irreducibly Complex system. That is true, except for all the searching not a single Irreducibly complex system has been found. It's not even true that complexity implies design, as per a snowflake.

What of the argument of Methodological Naturalism? Methodological Naturalism insists that if you cannot find a natural explanation, then you cannot explain the event observed - nothing less, nothing more. A scientists who cannot find a natural explanation will write "I cannot find a natural explanation" and that will be the end of that note and the beginning of more investigations. Objecting to Methodological Naturalism is objecting to the basic process of attempting to find out, and attempting to find out is exactly what science is.

Does that mean that evolutionary theory is linked to atheism? Not at all, there is no atheist agenda to promote evolution, evolution is no more in conflict with theology any more than science as a whole of science is, and the two are not in conflict. The reviewer who discussed an "atheist utopia on earth" was not talking about anything that is happening in the real world ... which is ironic because that is what the "Darwinists" are accused. I do fail to see what "Right" versus "Left" have to do with the debate, as another reviewer commented with "humanists/Christianphobic Left and the Religious Right". Such comments make no sense to me, as I fail to see how Natural Selection, Random Mutation, and Common Descent have anything to do with politics.

Wells critiqued the lack of fossil evidence. What lack of fossil evidence? It is true that only a small percentage of deceased animals fossilize, but there have been so many animals that the lack of evidence has not been a problem. Or there are the few items that were actual frauds, as revealed by scientists, such as the fameous Piltdown Man. The reason scientists distrusted it from the very start is because they weren't allowed to investigate it, and before the fraud was revealed it was already distrusted and ultimately disregarded. After scientists were allowed to investigate it, it became the creationists favorite fossil. Yes, there are frauds, but the fraudulent status of Piltdown has had exactly what impact on Australopiticus Africanus? None, really. The moths? That's not even an actual fraud.

As I wrote, this book is ultimately ironic, as it is a division between Random Mutation and Designed Mutation, between Natural Selection and Designed Selection, preserving Common Descent. Many people who praise this book would not be so praiseful if it was understood that this does not contradict evolution, only the Theory of Evolution. What Intelligent Design does, and its sole contribution to the debate is to introduce a designer who might or might not be a deity. It doesn't have to be a deity, say the advocates of Intelligent Design, and therefore Intelligent Design can be a theory.

True, it doesn't have to be a deity. It could be aliens. Of course, these aliens were either designed by a deity, designed by other aliens, or evolved on their own. If they evolved on their own, there goes the whole purpose of Intelligent Design. If designed by other aliens, it's turtles all the way down until you get to the undesigned intelligent alien. If it is a deity, there go the claims to being not religious. Then again, even if it were designed by deity, it could still be scientific - if there were any evidence that it was designed by deity. If you can come up with something truly unexplainable, there you have your proof - the irreducably complex system for example. ID could be testable, if we could find something that tests as truly unexplainable. So far we have not. There is no evidence for design.

Then there is the trump card of ID, that the intelligent designer did not leave evidence of design. THAT is truly untestable, no matter what arguments Wells and other Intelligent Design advocate might marshal against it, and THAT is what makes Intelligent Design a religious position, and THAT is what makes Intelligent Design akin to full fledged Creationism.

No evidence can be marshalled for or against any religious proposition, and no evidence can be marshalled for or against the idea of an undetectable designer.

Intelligent Design is not the same as creationism, but it is similar in that both are religious instead of scientific.

Occasionally some ID proponent does make a claim that is scientifically testable. "See, we found an irreducably complex system." Unfortunately for Intelligent Design, the tests show it is not irreducably complex, making ID "theory" a testable theory in the same sense as Phlogiston, another disproven theory.

Finally, what is a "Darwinist"?