The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design

by Carlisle, M.Div, Christopher; Smith Jr., W. Thomas

• ISBN13: 9781592575558
• ISBN10: 1592575552
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-05
• Publisher: DK Publishing, Inc.
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Not since the original Scopes Monkey Trial has there been such a hot issue in American education as the current controversy surrounding teaching Intelligent Design in our schools. Should it get equal treatment alongside Evolution and traditional scientific findings? Should it replace traditional science? What is Intelligent Design anyway? What are its history and its tenants? How does it differ from the traditional teachings? Why are educators and parents up in arms across the nation? The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design answers all the questions. Written by an expert in the field of religion and science, it is the first book to present a completely objective overview such issues as: bull; How to do Intelligent Design and traditional science differ? How are they the same? bull; What is the relationship between Intelligent Design and Creationism? bull; What exactly is the current controversy? bull; Why are the American courts involved? bull; How is Intelligent Design perceived by Christian fundamentalists?

Author Biography

Christopher Carlisle, M. Div., is a professor and the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Massachusetts. He created the popular course BELIEF, which explores the interdisciplinary study of religion and science in the 21st century, and is the co-founder of The God and Science Project.

W. Thomas Smith, Jr., has written four books, as well as thousands of articles for a variety of publications, including USA Today, George, U.S. News & World Report, and BusinessWeek.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Hey, What's the Big ID?	1	(34)
What Is Intelligent Design?	3	(10)
Defining Intelligent Design	4	(2)
Something ``Caused'' Us	5	(1)
Looking Backward	6	(1)
The Violin Model	6	(1)
Always an I-Design Idea	6	(4)
God Temporarily Removed?	7	(1)
``In the Beginning ...''	7	(2)
A ``Young Earth Creationist''	9	(1)
Contemporary Creationism and ID	10	(3)
ID's Think Tank	10	(1)
A Hidden Religious Agenda?	11	(1)
A Growing Movement	11	(2)
What's the Scientific Problem?	13	(10)
What Is Science?	14	(3)
Teresi's Lost Discoveries	14	(1)
The Orange Juice Test	15	(1)
Science as ``Empirical''	15	(1)
Science as ``Repeatable''	16	(1)
Science as ``Falsifiable''	16	(1)
Studying God	17	(2)
Miracles and the Spirit World	17	(1)
Religion Not ``Empirical,'' ``Repeatable,'' ``Falsifiable''	18	(1)
Miracles Defy Modern Science	18	(1)
Not Overlapping the Two	19	(2)
Science and Religion's Unnecessary Friction	19	(1)
Science Need Not Be Violated	20	(1)
``Nonintelligent'' Design	21	(2)
``Intelligent'' Mechanisms Explained Within Nature	21	(1)
No Such Thing as Ghosts?	22	(1)
Intelligent Design vs. Creationism	23	(12)
The Contemporary Take on Creationism	24	(2)
The Bible, Literally	24	(1)
Creationism, Young and Old	25	(1)
The Great and Terrible Flood	26	(2)
Adapting, Not Evolving	27	(1)
That's a Lot of Water	27	(1)
Dueling Creationists	27	(1)
Neo-Creationism or Pure ID	28	(2)
It's Not About Biblical Accounts	28	(1)
Package Deal vs. Partial Truth	29	(1)
ID as Science	29	(1)
The Politics of ID	30	(5)
Trouble in Ohio	30	(1)
Trouble in Kansas	31	(1)
Problems in the Courthouse	32	(1)
Man on the Street	32	(3)
Part 2 The History of ID	35	(46)
Ancient Science	37	(10)
Science of the East	38	(1)
Cosmology	38	(1)
Moving Beyond Science	39	(1)
The Greek Greats	39	(3)
Plato and the Neo-Platonists	40	(1)
Aristotle and the Aristotelians	41	(1)
The History-Altering Hebrews	42	(5)
An Eternal Wheel	43	(1)
The Judaic Here and Now	43	(1)
Though the Wheel Turns	43	(1)
Opening of ``Time''	44	(3)
Medieval Science and the Great Masters	47	(12)
Right Man, Right Time	48	(2)
Toward Purpose, Not Chance	48	(1)
Most Things Lack Knowledge	49	(1)
Intelligent Direction?	49	(1)
Intelligently Inspired	49	(1)
The Great Galileo	50	(3)
The Heliocentric Universe	50	(1)
What About the Scandals?	51	(1)
Galileo Refuses to Recant	51	(1)
Galileo's War with Secularists	52	(1)
God---Not Man at the Center	52	(1)
Galileo's God as ``Divine Architect''	53	(1)
Sir Isaac's Science	53	(4)
Newton Believed in God	54	(1)
God as the ``Great Engineer''	54	(1)
Squeezed by Plato and Aristotle	55	(1)
Not a Deist or Rationalist	56	(1)
Reason over Superstition	56	(1)
The Great Masters' Perceptions	57	(2)
Galileo Committed to God	57	(1)
Newton's Writings	57	(1)
Science Spun by Those to Come	57	(2)
Science in the Age of Reason	59	(12)
Reasonable Science	60	(1)
The Need for a ``Scientific Method''	60	(1)
Inductive Reasoning, Empirical Investigation	60	(1)
Testing Science	61	(1)
Paley's Watchmaker Universe	61	(3)
God as a Watchmaker	62	(1)
The Watchmaker's Universe	62	(1)
Nature Designed Like a Watch?	63	(1)
Complex Objects Created	63	(1)
Science: What Is It Now?	64	(3)
The General Scientific Assumption	65	(1)
No Room for God	66	(1)
Redefining ``Science''	67	(1)
The Evolution of Social Science	67	(4)
Antisocial Darwinism	68	(1)
Social Darwinism in the Twentieth Century	69	(2)
God, Science, and American History	71	(10)
America's ``Christian'' Beginnings	72	(2)
The First Great Awakening	72	(1)
The Second Great Awakening	73	(1)
The Third Great Awakening	74	(1)
The Scopes ``Monkey'' Trial	74	(3)
The Butler Act	75	(1)
A New Religious War	76	(1)
The ``New'' Intelligent Design	77	(4)
ID's American Launching Pad	77	(1)
A ``Scientific'' Journey?	78	(1)
A Unique Approach	79	(2)
Part 3: ``Traditional Science'' Applications	81	(36)
Mainstream Physics	83	(10)
The Big Bang	84	(2)
The Beginning Explained	84	(1)
Explosion of Time and Space	85	(1)
A Beginning with No Beginner	85	(1)
Quantum What?	86	(2)
Elusive Electrons	87	(1)
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle	87	(1)
The General Anthropic Principle	88	(2)
The Force of Gravity	88	(1)
Strong and Weak Forces	88	(1)
The Perfection of Water	89	(1)
The Weak Anthropic Principle	89	(1)
Explaining Perfection	90	(3)
A Roll of the Dice?	90	(1)
A ``Multiverse''	91	(2)
Mainstream Chemistry	93	(12)
ID, Chemically Speaking	94	(4)
Life-Proving ``Carbon''	95	(1)
It Wasn't Always Here	95	(1)
Perfect and Essential Water	96	(1)
The Air We Breathe	96	(1)
Brief History of Atmospheres	96	(2)
``Life's Origins,'' to Aristotle	98	(1)
The Animating ``Soul''	98	(1)
Setting the Stage	99	(1)
Spontaneous Life	99	(2)
Up from the Mud	99	(1)
The Miller-Urey Experiment	100	(1)
Just a Matter of Time	100	(1)
Deoxyribonucleic Acid: We Call It DNA	101	(4)
Blueprint of Life	101	(1)
Doctor Crick's Hypothesis	102	(1)
From Whence Comes the Information?	102	(3)
Mainstream Biology	105	(12)
What Is Biology?	106	(2)
The Complexity of Biology	106	(1)
The Little Engine That Could	107	(1)
The Blood-Clotting Factor	108	(1)
The X Factor	108	(1)
The Sticky White Blood Cells	109	(1)
The Hyper-Advanced Human Eye	109	(1)
Special to Be Human	110	(3)
Odd Links in a Great Chain	111	(1)
Macroevolution vs. Microevolution	111	(1)
Universal Common Descent	112	(1)
A Holy Grail?	113	(4)
Mortar for the Gaps	114	(1)
Fossils Do Tell Tales	114	(1)
Getting It Right	115	(1)
``Punk Eek''	115	(2)
Part 4: Intelligent Design Applications	117	(38)
Intelligent Design Physics	119	(10)
Big Bang, Big Defense	120	(2)
George Smoot's ``Wrinkles''	120	(1)
The Argument Begun	121	(1)
The Argument Evolved	121	(1)
Finding God by ``Abductive Inference''	122	(2)
The Big Three	122	(1)
NASA's Search for Aliens	123	(1)
The Second Law of Thermodynamics	124	(2)
The Bad News	124	(1)
The Good News	125	(1)
A Scientific Postscript	125	(1)
A Fine-Tuned Universe	126	(3)
``Ready! Aim! Fire!''	126	(1)
Here to Tell About It	127	(1)
Chance Product of a Multiverse?	127	(2)
Intelligent Design Chemistry	129	(10)
ID and Chemistry	130	(3)
Chemical Fine-Tuning	130	(1)
Cooking Up Carbon for Life	131	(1)
Our Sublimely Engineered Water	132	(1)
``Nothing Better Than Air''	132	(1)
Answers to Our Origins	133	(2)
Pasteur Debunks Abiogenesis	133	(1)
Hurray for Miller-Urey?	134	(1)
Unlikely Beginnings	135	(1)
God's Messenger	135	(4)
The Genetic Instructions for Life	136	(1)
The Origin of the Information?	136	(3)
Intelligent Design Biology	139	(16)
What in the World is Irreducible Complexity?	140	(5)
ID's Poster Child	141	(2)
The Clotting Cascade	143	(1)
The Eyes Have It	144	(1)
Specified Complexity	145	(3)
Specific and Complex	145	(1)
Specified Complexity In Every Day Use	146	(1)
The Need for Objectivity	147	(1)
Haldane's Dilemma	148	(2)
Not Enough Time	148	(1)
More Questions Than Answers	149	(1)
Fossils for Testing	150	(5)
Criticizing the Gaps	150	(1)
Lack of Transitional Fossils	151	(1)
500 Million Years Ago	152	(3)
Part 5: Darwin's Meaning of Life	155	(36)
The Famous and Infamous Charles Darwin	157	(10)
Why Darwin?	158	(1)
Darwin the Man	158	(1)
Darwin's Great Adventure	159	(1)
Darwin's Evolution	159	(2)
``Descent with Modification''	160	(1)
Origin of Species	160	(1)
Darwin's Immediate Impact	161	(3)
``Darwin's Bulldog''	161	(1)
The Fire of Social Darwinism	162	(1)
Darwin's Decline	163	(1)
Darwin's Lasting Contributions	164	(3)
Darwin's Zeitgeist	164	(1)
Darwin's Philosophical Implications	165	(1)
Bumping Up Against Intelligent Design	165	(2)
Evolution Explained	167	(12)
The Idea of Natural Selection	168	(3)
What Is Natural Selection?	168	(1)
Too Many Organisms, Not Enough Food	169	(1)
Sexual Selection	170	(1)
The Grand Design	171	(1)
Life or Death	171	(1)
Random Mutiny	172	(1)
The Odd Mutations	172	(2)
Errors Don't Mean Mistakes	173	(1)
What Do Mutations Do?	173	(1)
What Does Evolution Explain?	174	(2)
Evolving Populations	174	(1)
The Evolution of Man	175	(1)
Men from Monkeys?	175	(1)
Where Do We Go Now?	176	(3)
Evolving Atheism	179	(12)
Assertions of the New Darwinists	180	(1)
Refuting the Existence of God?	180	(1)
ID Is Not Science	180	(1)
Dr. Wilson's Mechanical Men	181	(3)
Sociobiology	181	(1)
Man as a Machine	182	(1)
Neo-Darwinist Metaphysics	183	(1)
Having It Both Ways	183	(1)
Dawkins and the Selfish Gene	184	(3)
Selfish Genes	184	(1)
Memetics	185	(1)
Dawkins's Atheism	186	(1)
Dawkin's Purpose	186	(1)
Dennett's Radical Materialism	187	(4)
Universal Acid	187	(1)
No Mere Biological Theory	188	(1)
Looking on the Bright Side	188	(3)
Part 6: ``Intelligent'' Meaning of Life	191	(24)
Gospel of Darwin, According to ID	193	(12)
Randomly Copying Errors	194	(2)
Too Many Chances	194	(1)
Hoyle's 747	195	(1)
``Besides, Mutations Are Usually Bad''	196	(1)
Natural Selection	196	(4)
Dawkins' Monkeys	197	(1)
Monkeys Typing Shakespeare	197	(1)
The Problem of Purpose	198	(1)
The Tree of Life	199	(1)
Evolution as Science	200	(5)
Evolution Happens	201	(1)
Evolution Is Not Truly Scientific	202	(1)
A Problem of Culture?	202	(3)
A Question of Culture	205	(10)
Anglo-American Views	206	(2)
A Country Founded on Religious Freedom	207	(1)
A Company of Deists	207	(1)
A Matter of Choice	208	(1)
The ID View	208	(3)
Religious Atheism	209	(1)
The Courts, the Media, and the Academy	210	(1)
The Wedge	211	(1)
The Darwinian View	211	(4)
Atheistic Religion	212	(1)
Politics, Not Science	213	(1)
Necessary Respect	213	(2)
Part 7: Is a Resolution Possible?	215	(38)
The Nature of Knowledge	217	(12)
The Nature of Understanding	217	(2)
What Is Fact?	218	(1)
What Is Truth?	218	(1)
The Scientific Arguments	219	(3)
Argument from Ignorance	219	(1)
Argument from Knowledge	220	(1)
To Overlap or Not	221	(1)
Definitions of Science	222	(3)
Materialism	223	(1)
Design	223	(1)
Uncertainty	224	(1)
Who's Got the Power?	225	(4)
The Political Arena	225	(1)
The Academy	226	(1)
The Church	227	(2)
Evolving Questions	229	(12)
Climate of Fear	230	(1)
More Than Just Explaining Complexity	230	(1)
ID Is Guilty, Too	230	(1)
Evolution vs. Religion	231	(3)
All About Me	232	(1)
Selfish Gene and Selfish Joan	232	(1)
A Symbiotic Relationship?	233	(1)
The Fact of Evolution?	234	(2)
Acid Reign	235	(1)
A Brainteaser	235	(1)
Making Predictions	236	(1)
Nonoverlapping Magisteria?	236	(5)
Moving Political Targets	237	(1)
God Under a Microscope	237	(1)
A Unity of Knowledge?	238	(3)
Infinite Regression and Common Ground	241	(12)
Infinite Regression's Never-endingness	242	(1)
Hawking's Finite Sphere	242	(1)
Looking Beyond the Beyond	243	(1)
The Certainty of God?	243	(2)
God Certainly Exists	244	(1)
God Certainly Does Not Exist	244	(1)
God Uncertainly Exists	245	(1)
The Incarnation	245	(3)
A Paradigm Changed	246	(1)
Seeking Common Ground	246	(1)
Scientific Contributions to Theology	247	(1)
Theological Contributions to Science	247	(1)
A Unity of Knowledge?	248	(5)
Respectfully Looking Back---and Ahead	249	(1)
Mutual Poverty	249	(1)
Toward a Unity of Knowledge	250	(3)
Glossary	253	(8)
Interview with Michael J. Behe	261	(14)
Interview with Michael Ruse	275	(16)
Intelligent Design Timeline	291	(8)
The Wedge Project	299	(10)
Further Reading	309	(2)
Recommended Websites	311	(2)
Index	313