Niall Shanks

The argument Niall is well presented. He managed to list all of the controversial subjects of creation vs mindless nature in a logical organized way. I’ve respected his scientific approach to counter the creation theory for the universe in calm and a detailed methodology with an open mind. A rare approach from similar atheists writers. Agreeing with his arguments is a different matter. I believe that he didn’t manage to personally convince me that this vast universe, the amazing human body, the perfectly balanced ecosystem could be just by “ luck” or an accident by a “dumb” mindless nature. To the contrary, he managed to display in the several cases he discussed from the Behe argument, closed systems and perfectly balanced universe to the big bang that all of this is impossible for a logical, reasonable and scientific person to believe that it just happened without an intelligent creator.
Yes, If i see a watch i would still believe someone has created it. William Paley’s example is still valid centuries after he discussed it. Niall and most atheists ignore the simplest logic that Paley has presented brillianty. It's a simple founded logic that is hard to refute. Niall also totally ignores the most important question the source of life itself. What is driving all the creatures in the universe? The essences of life that until today science theories fails to answer. Resting the answer that we still have gaps in our knowledge is not satisfactory enough. What Niall misses and his fellow atheists writers that believing in an intelligent creator for the universe is not necessarily against believing in evolution. My faith in a creator is well established through science. Science presentes how complex, integrated and massive is the human body and the universe that simply no mindless nature can create.
… (mer)

It is almost impossible to mention evolutionary theory without hearing echoes of the creationist ideology. In a country where opinions and ideas are tragically polarized, so too are theories on the creation on the universe and the beginnings of the human race. The interesting middle ground of the evolutionary debate is the rise of the idea of intelligent design. The central tenet of intelligent design is that the existence of Earth, its inhabitants, and the universe around it are best explained by the presence of some intelligent creator or cause. Traditional science holds that life emerged from an interesting, fortuitous, and random combination of proteins in the primordial soup of Earth around a billion years ago which then developped over the ages into the variety we see all around us. Intelligent design does not hold to the randomness of evolutionists, but rather to ascribes the origin of life to a guiding hand. Niall Shanks’s God, the Devil, and Darwin takes a look at the arguments of those who support intelligent design and argues for a different interpretation of their beliefs.

The one thing Shanks does very well is to thoroughly lay out all the arguments and beliefs of the supporters of intelligent design. Because his ultimate goal is to show through rational dialogue and measured arguments where the hypothesis of intelligent design is flawed, he gives intelligent design its fair day in court. Each argument of the proponents of intelligent design, unfortunately, simply does not hold up when set against actual experimentation and evidentiary exploration. In the end, intelligent design’s base argument that some molecular structures and biological events are too complex to be completely natural does not hold water. Shanks accomplishes a two-pronged feat: a fair and complete rebuttal of proposed pseudoscience AND manages to keep a level head while doing it. An interesting and detailed read.… (mer)

This is certainly the best analysis of ID -- and of Creationism in general -- that I've come across. Shanks has actually, as an evolutionary biologist teaching at East Tennessee State University, fought in the front lines against Creationist claptrap -- you can find his very funny essay about these experiences, "Fighting for Our Sanity in Tennessee", by googling. He brings some of that battle-hardenedness to this far more sombre work; although there could hardly help but be a few moments worth chuckling over, his intent here is deadly serious. He also manages to explain the principles of ID more clearly than any IDer I've read! I'd shyly suggest this is a very important book, and, if you care at all about trying to push back against those forces who'd like to see us enter another Dark Age of ignorance and deprivation, one you should put on your reading list.
… (mer)

Overall, a good review of Intelligent Design and Evolution. The author covers familiar ground for those who have read on this topic; for those who haven't, this probably isn't a good starting book, because it's a bit technical at times. The mathematics, while limited, could be offputting for someone who wants to get a grip on the controversy. The book is also a bit dated, but the information is general enough that there are only a few spots where that matters. Overall, it's a solid entry into the genre, but the author could have benefitted by leaving off his paeans to the free market. These fall off after the first few chapters, but it's a bit disconcerting to have a biology book that states flatly, as though it were accepted by all, that the market is basically an organic entity that evolved and was not intelligently designed. This is by no means certain, and even if it did evolve, it is not certain that natural selection is as good an analogy as artificial selection.… (mer)