I really love the two books on intelligent design written by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, but they are just so big that you can’t really give them to a co-worker or a family member or a friend to read. I’ve been looking for a decent book that explains the issues in a compelling way, and now it looks like I’ve found one.
First, a review of the new book from Amazon:
Possibly the best ID book to read first
For those with a specific interest, there are many other excellent ID books that take a deep dive into a particular topic. Heretic stands out as being excellent as an introductory doorway into considering Intelligent Design.
One doesn’t need to be involved in the sciences to benefit greatly from this clearly written book. The great majority of the material can be readily understood by a general audience and the authors provide guidance if you want it on how to skim or skip ahead when the next part has more technical details.
That said, this is now my preferred and recommended first book for any scientist who has just assumed Darwin’s grand claim must be true and who hasn’t yet given any serious consideration to the possibility that design is real, not merely an appearance of design.
The book allows one to follow along as the main author begins from that same point of assuming Darwinism, but then must grapple and struggle with the hard realities of the evidence. Along the way, this book provides one of the clearest and most illuminating examinations of the influence of assumptions (and of career considerations) upon what people are willing to consider.
Ultimately the book invites the reader to make the same commitment made early on by the main author to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
I don’t know of a book that does a better job of calling scientists away from blind faith in an assumed paradigm and toward a return to sound science based on following the observed evidence — including those most troublesome facts that don’t agree with old assumptions.
OK, so this review gave me some hope, but it’s what Dr. Sean McDowell had to say that really caught my attention.
He writes:
Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design is the most recent book published by the Discovery Institute, the foremost Intelligent Design (ID) organization. If you are looking for a good, introductory text to help understand the current debate, this is an excellent place to start.
Unlike other recent book on intelligent design (such as Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer or Undeniable by Doug Axe) this book does not offer a fresh argument for intelligent design. But this is hardly a criticism, because the book does not aim to. Rather, it tells the story of Matti Leisola—an accomplished scientist, professor, and researcher from Finland—and how he became disillusioned with the Darwinian paradigm and came to embrace design.
The storied nature of this book is one of its greatest strengths. Rather than weeding into difficult scientific details (that can distract the non-specialist reader), Heretic takes readers on Leisola’s personal journey of wrestling with important issues like the fossil record and the origin of life (It is also co-written with Jonathan Witt). Leisola does discuss relevant scientific issues, but with full awareness of his primarily lay audience.
I am thrilled to see the Discovery Institute publishing books that take a narrative approach to origin questions. In our book Understanding Intelligent Design, William Dembski and I include a plethora of stories and examples. But Heretic is told entirely as a story, and my suspicion is that it may incite new readers to consider the arguments for intelligent design.
Heretic would be an excellent book to give to someone who is new to discussions over Darwin and design. Along with being interesting, the narrative approach is also much “softer” to read. Rather than directly trying to persuade readers, Leisola simply shares his personal conclusions regarding origins. And yet it is impossible for the thoughtful reader to miss the force of many of his arguments, even if he or she ultimately disagrees with Leisola’s conclusions.
Just in passing, I didn’t like “Undeniable” at all, although I’m a great admirer of Doug Axe and his story of getting his PhD from Caltech, and then post-doctoral research on protein formation at Cambridge University. He was able to get his research published multiple times in the peer-reviewed Journal of Molecular Biology. But I just don’t find him to be a good writer, especially for ordinary people.
OK, so after reading the Amazon review and then having it confirmed with Dr. McDowell’s review, I am officially excited. I decided to buy a copy of the book, but not for me. I have lots of friends who are voracious readers who can read it and then tell me what they thought of it. So, I bought a copy of it for my very best friend Dina – she has a couple of STEM degrees and a STEM career, so she’ll be able to make short work of it, and then she’ll tell me whether it is worth giving away to my friends and co-workers.
If anyone else has read the book and wants to send me a review, please do. My e-mail is in the About Me section. There have been so many good books coming out lately that I haven’t even gotten through them all: “A Fortunate Universe” (Cambridge University Press), “The Case for Miracles” (by Lee Strobel), “Why Does God Allow Evil?” (by Clay Jones), “Five Proofs of the Existence of God” (by Ed Feser), “Discrimination and Disparities” (by Thomas Sowell), etc. I hope everyone knows about these books and gets one or two or all to read.
WINTERY KNIGHT 