Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues

by H. Wayne House (Editor)

The debate over the origin of life and the universe is ancient, but in recent years it has reached a fever pitch. While incendiary rhetoric from parts of the scientific community disallows any challenge to Darwinian evolution, a growing number of scientists and experts support a supernatural origin of life, also known as the theory of intelligent design. Intelligent Design 101 brings together leading scholars and researchers from the fields of science and intelligent design studies. Their detailed and insightful essays form a balanced introduction to intelligent design, from the basics of the theory, to its history and growing place in science and education.

Genres: Religion, Science

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 2008

About the author

Dr. H. Wayne House is Distinguished Research Professor of Theology, Law, and Culture at Faith International University. He holds six degrees, including a doctorate in Law from Regent University and a doctorate in Exegetical Theology from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
Dr. House has authored or edited nearly 40 books and directed study tours to Israel, Greece, Turkey, and other biblical sites. He is the founder of Christian Perspectives International, a non-profit organization committed to helping believers grow in their spiritual walk through biblical education. He is also a founder and the first president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Reviews

[Matthew Petti · Rating 4 out of 5]

H Wayne House does a good job of presenting the informative writings of those experts who provide a well-rounded basis for explaining ID. What I found most interesting is human tendency to make assertions in either direction of an argument without realizing the scientific, religious or philosophical undertones, which form the basis for them. By understanding each particular influence on thoughts and assertions, we can see the battle between ID and Natural Selection for what it really is: a scientific rather than a religious argument. It was helpful in the research for my newest book: Alpha to Omega - Journey to the End of Time

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is well-read concerning matters of intelligent design [1], from time to time I enjoy reading about the issues involving intelligent design.  As usual, I find these issues to be well-explained, as I must freely admit I am not an unbiased reader.  Yet what strikes me as being the most interesting is the way that the debate involving intelligent design, as is the case here, involves so many different domains of knowledge that I find it all the more intriguing, especially because a book like this one combines the expertise of people who are familiar in all of those domains.  Unlike with books by evolutionists, this book is written by people who are both competent and knowledgeable as well as honest and upfront about what they are speaking about.  I must admit that in a world full of misdirection and too-deliberate irony, it is refreshing to read books by people writing about honest perspectives and honest truths, a refreshment I must admit is all too rare in my reading at times.  Those who like me appreciate the evidence for design in the cosmos as well as in life will likely find this book refreshing and enjoyable as well.

The slightly more than 200 pages of this book are divided into seven essays and an appendix written by a variety of authors.  As might be expected with an omnibus collection like this one, there is a wide variety of approaches and topics present here, although all of them deal with the issue of intelligent design and/or evolution in some fashion.  The first essay comes from noted author Philip Johnson, who discusses his intent in Darwin On Trial to bring balance to the contentious debate over origin of life and its empirical data.  After this J.P. Moreland provides an essay on the relationship between intelligent design and the nature and definition of science. .  After this Casey Luskin gives a thoughtful essay on finding intelligent design in nature, a fairly easy task.  Michael Behe gives a discussion of his central idea of the cell as remaining Darwin's Black Box and a source of irreducible complexity for Darwinistic explanations.  Jay Richards discusses the question of purpose in cosmology, after which Eddie Colanter gives a very thorough presentation of the philosophical implications of both Neo-Darwinism and Intelligent Design on issues of personhood and bioethics.  The last of the essays, by the book's general editor, discusses the relationship between Darwinism and the law and looks at the legal and constitutional issues relating to the science wars.  The book is then closed by an appendix that replies to and debunks Francis Collins' arguments about the common ancestry of apes and humans.

Ultimately, this is a fascinating book meant to appeal largely to an audience of people like me who are either supportive or amenable to the Intelligent Design perspective.  The essays demonstrate the continued bad philosophy and bad theology and bad science of various naturalistic approaches and demonstrate the often incestuous relationship between legal and cultural elites and atheists who recognize that admitting the obvious evidence for design is a step along the way to being forced to concede the moral high ground to ideological enemies.  In reading this book and many other related books on the subject, one understands that the fight over the origin of life as well as the strikingly eerie fitness of our universe for intelligent life is ultimately a vain rearguard action on the part of those who wish to be able to consider themselves to be their own ultimate authority.  One can see the twisting of the evidence, the refusal to address the peer-reviewed data, and the use of bad logic and dishonest rhetoric, all hallmarks of the evolutionary perspective, as ways that people refuse to accept the truth regardless of how many times they are slapped in the face with it.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

[Jerod Starkey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It might be more than you ever want to know about ID and the struggles that it faces in the scientific community, culture and court system. But - it'll give you a good grasp of what it is.

[Roger Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are indeed occasionally some valid positions put for by so-called "Intelligent Design" advocates, despite their infuriating use of Orwellian language. Ultimately, despite multiple claims to the contrary, this book puts forth a Christian-American agenda highly motivated and sponsored by "creationist" perspectives, despite certain contributors' intentions to do otherwise. The problem with Intelligent Design is not so much in its position advocating a "designer" as in its modernist and western framing of what such a designer would be. Vedanta, long before the Scopes trial which remains a source of contention here that forefronts both Darwin and the centennial celebration of Darwin via Julien Huxley, advocated a similar position. But Intelligent Designers are Christian Conservatives, plain and simple. Most disgustingly, they have multiple essays in this collection overtly dedicated to advancing language manipulation to advance their cause. It is the same way with prefabricated, bullet point readings of scripture against various issues such as homosexuality. They want to tell people what to think and how to interpret which goes against the Protestant mission itself. They want to instantiate all the scientific and elitist language of the "secular" university to advocate for their own position. Multiple arguments against "materialist" or "neo-Darwinian" or naturalistic positions - material or philosophical - merely mic a language of positivism that is itself outdated in order to advance a nostalgia for Euro-Christian cultural control. It's honestly offensive and disgusting to all intellectuals outside of a Christian frame, secularist or not. That's why I tend to agree with multiple Supreme Court decisions saying Intelligent Design is a mask for advancing religious positions. It is conservative Christians' own cultural incompetence that defeats them, as it should. I'm sorry to have wasted my time and intellect here.