The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer

I will make a few remarks about the question of the "scientific"status of the Intelligent Design Theory, which is the issue most discussed in the book (which is not about religion, contrary to what some reviewers claim, and of whom I doubt that they ever even had the book in their hands.) The first chapters of the books deal with the philosophy of the natural sciences. Among others, the authors review all the leading philosophers of the natural sciences and show that it is impossible to define what "science" is (and I would argue that this is due the current use of the word "science" in the Anglo-Saxon world, which is an inheritance of positivism.) Also using all the criteria that have been advanced to demarcate "science" from "non-science" they show that Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) has to be considered as science. BTW, also specially interesting is William Dembski's (a thinker who seems to have a very promising academic career) essay where he shows that it is possible to empirically detect intelligence in nature. Dembski's computational model does not consider quantum physics, but moving to the quantum scale would not change anything to the idea of his argument, given that there are mathematical computation that would exhaust the possible numbers of quantum states.The authors are successful in their argumentation for the scientific status of design. I have followed the angry books & articles that have since then attacked design, and I am still awaiting a succesful rebutal (and not a dishonest strawman attack or name-calling IDT theology or creationism) of their arguments. The absence of honest and valid rebuttals confirm the success of their arguments, and this is no wonder since they were in line with the leading philosophers of Science, such as Larrry Laudan, etc. However I have a critic: the authors could have been much stronger in their argumentation. They have accepted the current use of the word "science" in the Anglo-saxon world, not seeing that this use results from the influence of positivism and pragmatism. They could have been much stronger by refuting this positivist use, and even simply rejecting it. The word "science" comes from the Latin "scientia" which means knowledge, and was used to designate organized, systematized knowledge (that is academic disciplines uncovering knowledge.) In most European countries, in languages like French, German, Dutch, (I am a French who works in the Netherlands, and part of my academic education was in Germany), the word "science" ("science" also in French, "Wissenschaft" in German and "wetenschap" in Dutch) is applicable for all academic disciplines. For example we speak in French (and the same is true with Dutch and German) of the "sciences religieuses" (religious sciences", which include theological disciplines for example) and the "sciences humaines" ("human sciences", which include for example history, psychology, sociologie, etc.) The same used to be true of the English language before this was changed in English by the domination of positivism and pragmatism (at the beginning of the 20th century? ) (the meaning of the word "science"has been kept in a few words like "omniscience" which still means "knowledge of everything"). Positivism and pragmatism are now dead, and it would have been quite easy and powerful to challenge the current Anglo-Saxon positivist use of the word "science." And besides, the authors could have pointed out that most of those who nowadays pass for "scientists" have been educated to make some computations and some experiences, but have no training in philosophy so that they know nothing of the structure and justification of knowledge, many are in some respects more technicians who are not so able to really "think" like a true scientist (dealing with knowledge) should (look at collection of philosophical absurdities and naivety in the "scientific" popular books of Dawkins, Davies and Hawking, and even the metaphysical absurdity of Hawking's use of imaginary time in his famous no-boundary proposal), and in this way no real "scientists" (capable of truly dealing with knowledge). And I do not speak as an outsider, but I say this having myself had such a so-called "scientific" education, and now that I have been reading much philosophy I realize how much I missed.I will stop it here and will not discuss the other part of the book, where IDT is applied succesfully (and so far without valid rebuttal that I know of) to some specific fields (astrophysics, biochemistry, natural history and linguistics / anthropology.)

I bought this book for a gift. So I did not read it. I received the book in good condition. The book was listed as new and had no markings, but had a couple creases on the corner of some pages. The shipping took a little longer than I expected, but I received it.

A 'must read' for everyone who wants an intelligent and balanced presentation for creation.

Scientific hypothesisPeople refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis, often called an "educated guess" because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Some scientists reject the term "educated guess" as incorrect, however. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.According to Schick and Vaughn, researchers weighing up alternative hypotheses may take into consideration: * Testability (compare falsifiability as discussed above) * Parsimony (as in the application of "Occam's razor", discouraging the postulation of excessive numbers of entities) * Scope – the apparent application of the hypothesis to multiple cases of phenomena * Fruitfulness – the prospect that a hypothesis may explain further phenomena in the future * Conservatism – the degree of "fit" with existing recognized knowledge-systems. SOURCE: [...]From Web definitions...Scientific theory a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable" SOURCE: [..]Regarding falsifiability..."Evolution, when viewed in the modern context of a huge volume of convincing empirical data, entirely qualifies as a rigorously testable theory. And in fact it has survived decades of withering testing. This is precisely why evolution is taken so seriously as the governing paradigm of modern biology."It should also be pointed out that strict adherence to "falsifiability" is not an accurate description of the process of modern science. For one thing, major theories are seldom falsified by a single experimental result. There are always questions regarding the underlying experimental design, measurement procedures, and data analysis techniques, as well as questions of whether the underlying theories have been properly applied. For example, if we were to strictly apply Popper's principle, Copernicus' heliocentric theory was falsified from the start and should not have been further considered, because it could not predict planetary motions as accurately as the traditional Ptolemaic system. It only after Kepler modified the theory to include elliptical orbits with time-varying speeds, and when Newton showed that this behavior could be mathematically derived from his laws of motion, that it gained widespread acceptance. It must also be kept in mind that in most cases, "falsified" theories continue to be extremely accurate models of reality within appropriate domains. Even today, over 100 years after Newton's mechanics and Maxwell's electromagnetic equations were "falsified," they remain the basis of almost all practical engineering and scientific computations, giving results virtually indistinguishable from those of more advanced theories in all but highly exotic circumstances. SOURCE: [...]Appeal to Authorityargumentum ad verecundiam(also known as: argument from authority, appeal to false authority, argument from false authority, ipse dixit, testimonials [form of])Definition: Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument. As the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made. SOURCE: [...]Now, that said...This book does not provide even one viable scientific hypothesis (as defined above) throughout that follows the rigors of the scientific method. For all intents and purposes the book is a treatise on how people of faith can talk to their non-believing acquaintances and walk away feeling good about their argument and about themselves and perhaps lead a few people along with them who are not well acquainted with the difference between the terms theory, hypothesis and what the scientific method is., which, unfortunately, are far too many.The author's use of "(A) team of experts... (a) philosopher, a mathematician, a physicist, a linguist, a theologian, a biophysicist, an astronomer, a chemist and a paleontologist" is just an appeal to authority that serves as a smoke-screen to occlude the fact that creationism has no true scientific hypothesis and therefore no true scientific theory.The author will never admit as much as that would only serve to undermine his own premise - Write a book to reinforce what believers already "know" and help them feel even more emboldened to talk to non-believers with a false sense of confidence that what they have read is "scientific" because a bunch of "scientific believers" told them so.The book offers nothing new to the creationism v evolution discussion except to create more emboldened chess-challenged pigeons who can then go back to their flock and say, "Creationism wins again!"