Reviews

In this earnest volume, mathematician and philosopher Dembski oversees an intellectual critique of Darwinism. By that, most of the contributors are referring to what they consider a bankrupt materialistic ideology; almost all are operating from a theistic worldview, in which any account of life's origins must involve purpose and design. Naturally, two authors of popular works who espouse extremely reductive and atheistic views, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, are lightning rods for repeated criticism here. Both camps rely on opposing sets of first principles for their ontological systems, which are painfully obvious to them but not to the other side. One of the book's inadvertent strengths is its illustration of the inextricable linkage of the teleological and naturalistic worldviews in the Western tradition. One contributor, Christopher Michael Langan, begins to move abstrusely toward overcoming the logical bind that they have with one another. Otherwise, the book merely trots out many timeworn and unconvincing criticisms of evolutionary biology. Recommended only as a contemporary exemplar of several species of argument and a minor contribution to the history of ideas. Walter L. Cressler, West Chester Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.