Mere Creation: Science, Faith and Intelligent Design

Commendation Quotes: "This extremely important and insightful book should be studied by every thoughtful person who is interested in an honest inquiry into the origin and existence of life."Commendation Quotes: "This book resonates with the excitement of reopening urgent questions that have long been suppressed by the dead hand of philosophical dogmas disguised as scientific truth. It should be welcomed as an invitation to a more honest exploration of the world of which we are part."Commendation Quotes: "Mere Creation goes far beyond the limitations of classical natural theology, . . . and it effectively cuts off at the knees the misguided notion of creative evolution. . . . This book, which requires rigorous thinking on every page, is essential reading for the contemporary Christian discussion with science. Skip this volume at your own risk."Commendation Quotes: "This collection not only brings one up to date on a vital issue, but it is so stimulating that it should lead to more groundbreaking investigations."Commendation Quotes: "This book shows the robustness of the emerging design paradigm and demonstrates that it is a workable research program across a broad range of disciplines. A great introduction to this exciting new movement."Brief Description: In this book a team of expert academics trained in mathematics, engineering, philosophy, physical anthropology, physics, astrophysics, biology and more investigate the prospects for intelligent design. Edited by William Dembski. Table of Contents: Foreword/Henry F. Schaefer III Introduction: Mere Creation/William A. Dembski Part One: Unseating Naturalism 1. Nature: Designed or Designoid/Walter L. Bradley 2. Unseating Naturalism/Jonathan Wells Part Two: Design Theory 3. "You Guys Lost"/Nancy R. Pearcey 4. Redesigning Science/William A. Dembski 5. The Explanatory Power of Design/Steven C. Meyer 6. Applying Design Within Biology/Paul A. Nelson Part Three: Biological Design 7. Intelligent Design Theory as a Tool for Analyzing Biochemical Systems/Michael J. Behe 8. Basic Types of Life/Siegfried Scherer 9. Apes of Ancestors?/Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer 10. Evolutionary Accounts of Altruism & the Problem of Goodness by Design/Jeffrey P. Schloss Part Four: Philosophy & Design 11. The Explanatory Relevance of Libertarian Agency as a Model of Theistic Design/J. P. Moreland 12. Design, Chance & Theistic Evolution/Del Ratzsch 13. God of the Gaps/John Mark Reynolds 14. Design & the Cosmological Argument/William Lane Craig Part Five: Design in the Universe 15. Big Bang Model Refined by Fire/Hugh Ross 16. Design in Physics & Biology/Robert Kaita 17. GOdel's Question/David Berlinski 18. Artificial Life & Cellular Automata/Robert C. Newman Afterword: How to Sink a Battleship/Phillip E. Johnson Postscript: The Twenty-first Century Has Arrived/Bruce Chapman Contributors Index"Publisher Marketing: For over a century, the scientific establishment has ignored challenges to the theory of evolution. But in the last decade such complacency about its scientific and philosophical foundations has been shaken. As cracks in the Darwinian edifice have begun to appear, many are asking whether a defensible alternative exists. In response to this growing crisis, a movement has emerged among scholars exploring the possibility of intelligent design as an explanatory theory in scientific descriptions of the universe. As Michael Behe has proposed in his landmark Darwin's Black Box, at the cellular level there appears to be a high level of irreducible complexity that suggests design. In this book Behe is joined by eighteen other expert academics trained in mathematics, mechanical engineering, philosophy, physical anthropology, physics, astrophysics, biology, ecology and evolutionary biology to investigate the prospects for this emerging school of thought. Challenging the reigning ideology of materialistic naturalism on both scientific and philosophical grounds, these scholars press the case for a radical rethinknig of established evolutionary assumptions. Review Citations: New York Review of Books 10/04/2001 pg. 24 (EAN 9780830815159, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Dembski, William A William Dembski (Ph. D., mathematics, University of Chicago; Ph. D., philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago) is senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He has previously taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University, and he has been a National Science Foundation doctoral and postdoctoral fellow. Dembski has written numerous scholarly articles and is the author of the critically acclaimedThe Design Inference (Cambridge), Intelligent Design (InterVarsity Press) and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (Rowman and Littlefield). Contributor Bio:  Ross, Hugh Hugh Ross (PhD, University of Toronto) is founder and president of international and interdenominational Reasons To Believe ( www.reasons.org). He is the author of many books, including "The Creator and the Cosmos", "More Than a Theory", and "Why the Universe Is the Way It Is". An astronomer, Ross has addressed students and faculty on over 300 campuses in the United States and abroad on a wide variety of science-faith topics. From science conferences to churches to government labs, Ross presents powerful evidence for a purpose-filled universe. He lives in the Los Angeles area. Contributor Bio:  Behe, Michael J Michael J. Behe is a Professor of Biological Science at Lehigh University, where he has worked since 1985. From 1978 to 1982 he did postdoctoral work on DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health. From 1982 to 1985 he was Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Queens College in New York City. He has authored more than forty technical papers, but he is best known as the author of "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution." He lives near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his wife and nine children. Contributor Bio:  Johnson, Phillip E Phillip E. Johnson taught law for more than thirty years at the University of California--Berkeley where he is professor emeritus. He is recognized as a leading spokesman for the intelligent design movement, and is the author of many books, including Darwin on Trial, Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Contributor Bio:  Berlinski, David David Berlinski is the bestselling author of "A Tour of the Calculus" and "Newton's Gift", as well as many other books.