Product Description

Recent years have seen the rise to prominence of ever more sophisticated philosophical and scientific critiques of the ideas marketed under the name of Darwinism. In Uncommon Dissent, mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski brings together essays by leading intellectuals who find one or more aspects of Darwinism unpersuasive. As Dembski explains, Darwinism has gathered around itself an aura of invincibility that is inhospitable to rational discussion—to say the least: "Darwinism, its proponents assure us, has been overwhelmingly vindicated. Any resistance to it is futile and indicates bad faith or worse." Indeed, those who question the Darwinian synthesis are supposed, in the famous formulation of Richard Dawkins, to be ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked.

The hostility of dogmatic Darwinians like Dawkins has not, however, prevented the advent of a growing cadre of scholarly critics of metaphysical Darwinism. The measured, thought-provoking essays in Uncommon Dissent make it increasingly obvious that these critics are not the brainwashed fundamentalist buffoons that Darwinism’s defenders suggest they are, but rather serious, skeptical, open-minded inquirers whose challenges pose serious questions about the viability of Darwinist ideology. The intellectual power of their contributions to Uncommon Dissent is bracing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #522993 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 366 pages

From Publishers Weekly
If you’ve never heard the term "post-Darwinian," welcome to the world of thinkers who reject evolutionary theory and its reliance on the notion of chance (i.e. "random mutation"). In this provocative volume, biologists, mathematicians and physicists as well as theologians and other intellectuals—many affiliated with the Discovery Institute, which espouses the concept of intelligent design—argue, as editor Dembski writes, that "the preponderance of evidence goes against Darwinism." The contributors invoke mathematics and statistics to support their theory that an "intelligent cause is necessary to explain at least some of the diversity of life." In other words, the degree of diversity and complexity in life forms implies the need for an intelligent designer. The nature and identity of this designer is not discussed by all the writers; others call this intelligence God. Supporters of intelligent design differentiate themselves from creationists, but they, too, argue that their theory should be taught in high school biology courses. Anyone interested in these debates and their implications for education will find this collection to be important reading.
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About the Author
William A. Dembski is associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. The author of numerous articles on intelligent design and mathematical, philosophical, and theological matters, his books include The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence.

John Wilson is the founding editor of the bimonthly review, Books & Culture, and an editor at large for Christianity Today.

Customer Reviews

Uncommonly Excellent . . .
"Uncommon Dissent" is a great read. The contributors to the volume provide critiques of the neo-Darwinian synthesis from a variety of angles. Accordingly, the best way to read the book is to look at the table of contents, flip to the back to read about the contributors, and then choose the chapter that seems the most compelling. This is the way I've read it and have found it entertaining and rewarding.

Besides the great look, feel, and organization of this volume from ISI, readers will get a bracing charge from the sheer controversy inside. Challenges to Darwin have long been stock material in religious bookstores, but since the publication of "Darwin on Trial" well over a decade ago, the critiques have become increasingly sophisticated. "Uncommon Dissent" captures much of the best critical material.

Although many of the chapters are worth special mention, the best is the last, which is a reprint of a famous Commentary essay by David Berlinski. His arguments are rhetorically devasting and come from a non-religious point of view. As much fun as his piece is to read, the letters written in response to it and his responses to them constitute a spectacular battle of the brainiacs with Berlinski returning fire magnificently.

If you are interested in the "evolving" controversy over biological origins, "Uncommon Dissent" is an indispensable addition to your collection.

Outstanding-Impressive in its intellectual depth
This book is better than I could have hoped for. There are a variety of different topics relating to Intelligent Design (ID) covered here and the depth of thought is impressive. It is really impossible, in the space of a short review, to cover the richness and breadth of everything in this book.

Particularly enjoyable for me were the essays that don't deal with ID or Darwinism as such, but with the related issues, such as argumentation tactics and intellectual culture. Edward Sisson analyses the rhetoric and argumentation tactics of the anti-ID/pro-Darwin crowd and shows how they are often invalid and unfair. Frank Tippler takes on the peer review system (which is often used as club to beat on ID), and shows how it is both historically anomalous and is used to enforce ideological correctness. Dembski does a nice job of showing how, often, supposed scientific refutations of ID cited by its opponents amount to little more than intellectual bluffing. When the bluff is called there is nothing behind it. Rob Koons has an excellent essay on why the burden of proof should lie with those who wish to deny the basic human intuition towards accepting design. He also lays out nicely how the Darwinian crowd has actually done very little in terms of meeting this burden of proof, whatever their claims may be.

Also very interesting and encouraging is the fact that, contrary to the (bogus) claims regularly made by Darwinists, the contributors to this book do not display a uniformity concerning religious beliefs. They run the spectrum from evangelical Christians like William Dembski and Nancy Pearcey to completely irreligious folks like David Berlinski and Christopher Michael Lanagan, who proposes the idea of a non-supernatural, teleological universe. Also of particular interest in this regard is the section of the book in which Michael Behe, Michael Denton, and James Barham tell their personal stories regarding how they came to question the truth of Darwinism. Of these three, only Behe seems to hold to any kind of serious tradititional religious belief.This spectrum of varying beliefs gives the lie to claims often made by the anti-ID crowd that ID is nothing but religious creationism is disguise, and that IDers are nothing but rabid fundamentalists who wish to overthrow America and establish a theocracy. Such claims reveal more about the anti-religious fervor of many Darwinists than they do about intelligent design.

The interview with Marcel Schulzenberger, and Berlinski's "The Deniable Darwin" are both fun reads, and particularly fun are the critical responses to Berlinski's article by many in the mainstream scientific community and his responses to their criticisms. This part of the book also reveals Berlinski's sense of humour in contrast to the often humorless, mean spiritedness of many of the most prominent Darwinists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. In fact, for an excellent example of the difference in substance and tone between the output of IDers as opposed to that of Darwinists, I highly recommend reading this book alongside of Niall Shanks' "God, the Devil, and Darwin." The one is thoughtful, substantial, and well reasoned while the other amounts to little more than a mean spirited, often dishonest, polemic. Shanks' book also provides an excellent example of what Edward Sisson discusses in his chapter of the book.

I'm not overly hopeful about the ultimate success of ID, given our present cultural and intellectual climate, but books like this show that even if ID does fail in the end, it won't necessarily be because it's proponents have failed to make an impressive, well-reasoned presentation of their perspective. Highly recommended.

Depth, Breadth and Clarity
In any field marked by an endless proliferation of droning monographs and marred by polemical debates, a collection of honest and well-thought essays written by various authors is always refreshing. Each contributor has a unique perspective, and because the essay format allows each one only limited space in which to express his or her views, the writing tends to be clear and punchy. And if the collection is skilfully compiled, it can reveal a broad spectrum of viewpoints while baring the cutting edge of the field in full gleam. Uncommon Dissent realizes all of these advantages.

Uncommon Dissent is divided into four sections: (1) A Crisis of Confidence, (2) Darwinism's Cultural Inroads, (3) Leaving the Darwinian Fold, and (4) Auditing the Books. The oddly-numbered sections contain three essays each; the even ones contain four each. Section 1 deals with the question of why an increasing number of people question Darwinian premises and conclusions. Section 2 deals with the effect that these premises and conclusions have had and are having on society and culture, largely through the offices of public and higher education. Section 3 deals with the intellectual transformations of three contributors (Behe, Denton and Barham) who have embraced and rejected Darwinism at different times in their lives. Finally, Section 4 - in my opinion, the section of greatest scientific and philosophical interest - deals with the internal and external consistency of Darwinism, offering more detailed analyses of the profoundly circular relationship between Darwinian premises, models, and conclusions.

The highlights of the book will be different for everyone. For me, they are too numerous to list here. A few of my favorites: an interview with world-class mathematician Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger, whose intelligence positively glitters off the page as he succinctly explains the mathematical failings of Darwinism vis-a-vis the critical dependence of biological science on various branches of applied mathematics (Section 1); an eye-opening expose on the failings and inequities of peer review by physicist Frank Tipler (Section 2); the wars fought between religious faith and scientific orthodoxy in the minds and careers of Michael "irreducible complexity" Behe and Michael Denton (Section 3); and every one of the essays in Section 4. Of particular interest to me in Section 4 were Roland Hirsch's evaluation of findings from the Human Genome Project, and an uncommonly penetrating discussion in Chapter 13 (Christopher Langan) of problems and potential solutions in the modeling of causal processes.

Finally, I think it appropriate to caution potential readers against overly pejorative, polemical or dismissive reviews. The kind of person who could write that kind of review regarding this kind of book is the kind least likely to have given it a fair reading, or having read it, to have fairly evaluated its contents. Accordingly, the complaints and motives of anyone impugning the contributors' intellectual honesty or denying the scientific relevance of their analyses should be viewed with suspicion. Not only do some of its authors write eloquently and with stunning honesty regarding their personal intellectual journeys, but the book also contains original and deeply-thought analyses of the models, methods and reasoning processes commonly employed by Darwinian scientists. Such analyses are both original and scientifically relevant; if they are not classified as "science" in the most restrictive sense of the word, then the word should be rethought, and in fact this point is one of many that the book convincingly makes.

As those familiar with the evolution controversy are already well aware, the Darwinism-versus-ID debate is politically supercharged. As in all politically-charged debates, those with the heaviest axes to grind are often the first to leap onto their own side of the balance in hopes of flinging the other side right off the beam. Obviously, this is not how scientific or public opinion should be shaped; meaningful opinions are formed not through the preemptive closing of minds by those whose minds are already closed, but only after close attention has been paid by all concerned to all sides of the debate. It would be well to remember this before giving much weight to the opinions of people who are plainly attempting to discourage a fair hearing for the opposition, especially when some of "the opposition" do not so clearly fit that description.

This book is worth every one of the five stars I'm giving it. If I had to choose one book from the entire library of books written on the "anti-Darwinian" side of the evolutionary debate - and after reading chapter 13, for example, I'm not so sure that "trans-Darwinian" wouldn't be a better descriptor - this would be it. It offers the clearest writing, the greatest variety of perspectives, some of the deepest insight, and holds the reader's attention like few others in the genre. Very highly recommended.