Mere Creation: Science, Faith Intelligent Design

by William A. Dembski (Editor)

Overview

For over a century, the scientific establishment has ignored challenges to the theory of evolution. But in the last decade such complacency about its scientific and philosophical foundations has been shaken. As cracks in the Darwinian edifice have begun to appear, many are asking whether a defensible alternative exists. In response to this growing crisis, a movement has emerged among scholars exploring the possibility of intelligent design as an explanatory theory in scientific descriptions of the universe. As Michael Behe has proposed in his landmark Darwin's Black Box, at the cellular level there appears to be a high level of irreducible complexity that suggests design. In this book Behe is joined by eighteen other expert academics trained in mathematics, mechanical engineering, philosophy, physical anthropology, physics, astrophysics, biology, ecology and evolutionary biology to investigate the prospects for this emerging school of thought. Challenging the reigning ideology of materialistic naturalism on both scientific and philosophical grounds, these scholars press the case for a radical rethinknig of established evolutionary assumptions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780830815159
Publisher:	InterVarsity Press
Publication date:	09/28/1998
Edition description:	Special Edition
Pages:	475
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

William Dembski (Ph.D., mathematics, University of Chicago; Ph.D., philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago) is senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He has previously taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University, and he has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and postdoctoral fellow. Dembski has written numerous scholarly articles and is the author of the critically acclaimed The Design Inference (Cambridge), Intelligent Design (InterVarsity Press) and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (Rowman and Littlefield).

Table of Contents

Foreword/Henry F. Schaefer III

Introduction: Mere Creation/William A. Dembski

Part One: Unseating Naturalism
1. Nature: Designed or Designoid/Walter L. Bradley
2. Unseating Naturalism/Jonathan Wells

Part Two: Design Theory
3. "You Guys Lost"/Nancy R. Pearcey
4. Redesigning Science/William A. Dembski
5. The Explanatory Power of Design/Steven C. Meyer
6. Applying Design Within Biology/Paul A. Nelson

Part Three: Biological Design
7. Intelligent Design Theory as a Tool for Analyzing Biochemical Systems/Michael J. Behe
8. Basic Types of Life/Siegfried Scherer
9. Apes of Ancestors?/Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer
10. Evolutionary Accounts of Altruism the Problem of Goodness by Design/Jeffrey P. Schloss

Part Four: Philosophy Design
11. The Explanatory Relevance of Libertarian Agency as a Model of Theistic Design/J. P. Moreland
12. Design, Chance Theistic Evolution/Del Ratzsch
13. God of the Gaps/John Mark Reynolds
14. Design the Cosmological Argument/William Lane Craig

Part Five: Design in the Universe
15. Big Bang Model Refined by Fire/Hugh Ross
16. Design in Physics Biology/Robert Kaita
17. Gödel's Question/David Berlinski
18. Artificial Life Cellular Automata/Robert C. Newman

Afterword: How to Sink a Battleship/Phillip E. Johnson

Postscript: The Twenty-first Century Has Arrived/Bruce Chapman

Contributors

Index

What People are Saying About This

Patrick Reardon

"Mere Creation goes far beyond the limitations of classical natural theology, . . . and it effectively cuts off at the knees the misguided notion of creative evolution. . . . This book, which requires rigorous thinking on every page, is essential reading for the contemporary Christian discussion with science. Skip this volume at your own risk."
— Patrick Reardon, senior editor, Touchstone

Richard John Neuhaus

"This book resonates with the excitement of reopening urgent questions that have long been suppressed by the dead hand of philosophical dogmas disguised as scientific truth. It should be welcomed as an invitation to a more honest exploration of the world of which we are part."
— Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief, First Things

Dean L. Overman

"This extremely important and insightful book should be studied by every thoughtful person who is interested in an honest inquiry into the origin and existence of life."
— Dean L. Overman, author of A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization

Diogenes Allen

"This collection not only brings one up to date on a vital issue, but it is so stimulating that it should lead to more groundbreaking investigations."
— Diogenes Allen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Princeton Theological Seminary

Charles W. Colson

"This book shows the robustness of the emerging design paradigm and demonstrates that it is a workable research program across a broad range of disciplines. A great introduction to this exciting new movement."
— Charles W. Colson, chairman, Prison Fellowship Ministries