The authors of this book are very straightforward about the assumptions underlying their approach to science: they believe the Bible is true and authoritative, that it should be interpreted literally, and that it should inform every aspect of one’s life, including forming your paradigm for approaching science. Even if you disagree with their starting points (or conclusions), it’s refreshing to hear scientists articulate their a priori assumptions so clearly and unashamedly from the get-go. I wish everyone in this debate would do so. There is, in truth, no such thing as totally neutral science.

The most valuable lesson that any reader can take away from this book, whether he is sympathetic to it’s viewpoint or not, is the recognition that paradigms are integral to one’s view on any subject. Paradigms provide the entire intellectual framework for how one evaluates data and what “makes sense” to classify something as reasonable or not. In other words, paradigms provide a context for understanding the world. They are inescapable, but they are often unrecognized. For more, see Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Anyway, in the paradigm of these researchers, the history in Genesis is all true, the Flood really happened, and the Tower of Babel was the source of human civilization’s spread throughout the globe. If you accept this premise and work your way outward from it, the book argues, all of a sudden a lot of otherwise unexplainable historical anomalies make sense and find a place in science and history. The modern naturalistic evolutionary worldview, which assumes a linear progression of human cultural development over millions of years, cannot account for the evidence of advanced civilization at many of the places in history that we find it, nor can it make sense of the similarities among ancient cultures that arose—apparently independently—thousands of miles apart, separated by oceans and continents. For example, there are scores of ancient architectural works that today’s scientists still can’t explain how they were built because the degree of advanced knowledge and understanding required is far ahead of what the evolutionary paradigm allows for. Another example is the commonality of various creation myths and religious laws. If Babel is true, and if this diaspora was indeed the headwater of a global expansion of highly civilized man, these commonalities make sense.

This book was obviously prepared by a team of college students overseen by one or more professors. The voice and writing quality varied by chapter. I also found some pretty unforgivable typos. This may be nit-picky, but a book about rigorous and intellectually honest science should set the bar high.

This book is neither a comprehensive defense of creationism nor a complete dismantling of evolution. It’s simply an exploration of an sideline approach to some of the issues involved, and an exposition of how a different paradigm from the “mainstream scientific consensus” can explain the otherwise unexplainable. It definitely stretched my thinking

The basic thesis is pretty self explanatory from the title alone; what makes it extra fascinating is that Nagel is an atheist. He argues that evolutionary natural selection has enormous obstacles to overcome in plausibly explaining man’s consciousness, his ability to reason, and his recognition of objective moral values—both in how they can currently exist within its framework of natural and unintelligent processes, and in explaining how they came about at all. These are obstacles that, Nagel argues, naturalistic Darwinism simply hasn’t adequately addressed (yet)—and likely never will. He teases the “secular establishment,” wishing it would

wean itself of the materialism and Darwinism of the gaps—to adapt one of its own pejorative tabs. I have tried to show that this approach is incapable of providing an adequate account, either constitutive or historical, of our universe. (127)

He calls the naturalistic materialism of the day “a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense.” (128) Of course, the philosophical contender at the opposite side of the ring is some form of theism, which Nagel also denies as insufficient. He does discuss some of the challenges facing theism, but since the reigning consensus (at least among professional scientists and philosophers) is that of naturalistic materialism, this is where Nagel spends most of his time.

I will readily admit that a good bit of this 128-page book was over my head. Nagel is not writing popular-level philosophy, and I had to read and digest it slowly. But it’s valuable to engage and follow arguments advanced by an intellectual heavyweight, especially from someone outside the fold of theism.

Had the Pope said what Hawking did, the media would be screaming about the Catholic War on Science or ridiculing Benedict as a medieval boob terrified that ET was going to dislodge us from our Most-Favored Species status in the eyes of the Almighty. But since it’s Hawking saying these silly things, the press sits around and pulls its chin at the wisdom of this great Arch-Priest of Science.

The modern world will accept no dogmas upon any authority; but it will accept any dogmas on no authority. Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with “they say” or “don’t you know that?” or try (and fail) to remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say. – G.K. Chesterton

Post-modern culture still has a lot of lingering faith in the Enlightenment Project floating around in it. Big Name Scientists still get treated as Priestly figures capable of mediating All Truth to us on whatever subject they choose to hold forth on, rather than as specialized technicians who know a lot about a very narrow spectrum and, on the rest of life, are as prone to ignorance, stupidity, and sheer daftness as the rest of us. You’d think Richard Dawkins would have taught us better, but lots of people still believe that specialized knowledge of wasps confers upon Arch-Priests of Science the knowledge of the deepest truths of existence.

~ Mark Shea

• The case for ID is based on empirical evidence.
• Advocates of ID use established scientific methods.
• ID is a testable theory.
• The case for ID exemplified historical scientific reasoning.
• ID addresses a specific question in evolutionary biology.
• ID is supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature.

via Stephen C. Meyer in Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.

Of course, Meyer explains/defends all these in detail.