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Unintelligent Design: Why God Isn't as Smart as She Thinks She Is
Providing a humorous argument against creationism, this witty book debunks popular theories of intelligent design while showing how science can explain nearly everything, including sinus pain, hedonism, hernias, and morality. This critique of conservatism is supported by concrete scientific evidence and uses clever syllogisms to ask Why make the earth, the solar system, our galaxy , and all the rest when the Garden of Eden was all that was wanted? and If man is made in God’s image, does God ever get a back ache? Contending that intelligent design is a political movement that limits intellectual freedom, this book will fuel the current debate among fundamentalists, scientists, politicians, and the rest.
176 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 16, 2008
I am exactly the choir that Williams is preaching to but I couldn't even finish this short book. Snide, poorly executed, and poorly explained. Examples used to back up arguments are outlined but not explained, so that anyone unfamiliar with the topics could never figure out the sense of it.
Read another book on this topic.
June 15, 2018
Pity the poor scientist. For a long time, science has been uncovering a number of facts that have challenged traditional dogmatic beliefs. Nowadays it is demonstrably proven that the earth is round, that it revolves around the sun, that the universe is at least 13.8 billion years old, and that evolution is a fact.
There is less certainty about the origin of the universe or life, but the Big Bang theory and the theory of abiogenesis have been offered up. At any rate it seems likely to have been a self-generating effect, and the processes that led to you and me took billions of years. This is something we all know. Or do we?
Unfortunately not. The moment that scientists began to learn about these things, they came into conflict with mainstream religions that have been teaching something very different for years. The overwhelming evidence for evolution is such that intelligent religious believers have been forced to accept it, but in my experience even they jump gleefully on every bad argument that they imagine blows a hole in the theory of evolution.
However it is not the intelligent open-minded believer that we have to worry about, but the unintelligent closed-minded one, and there are a lot of them. Soon the fightback started, and creationism morphed into Intelligent Design, that ironically-named theory that posited that the universe needed a designer to reach this level of complexity.
Where this designer came from himself is not something they can explain, and even the courts have ruled that Intelligent Design is unscientific. Nonetheless Intelligent Design is being taught in some schools, and the spread of ignorance is threatening to undo the hard work of scientists.
Plenty of religious people and indeed many atheists complain about figures such as Richard Dawkins for stridently taking on religion and god. For myself, I wonder why it took him so long. There were a full 30 years between Dawkins writing The Selfish Gene and the publication of his later work, The God Delusion.
That is 30 years in which an evolutionary biologist has seen his life’s work challenged by bad arguments that are being given the same stature as good ones. Perhaps it is about time that scientists did begin the attack.
It is hardly surprising that we have seen the rise of the New Atheists. The label is misleading. Strictly speaking, new atheism simply means saying aloud what we old atheists have been saying in private for years. Notably many of the New Atheists are older men, and not youthful rebels. All that has happened is that in face of dogma and bigotry, we have finally grown tired of showing respect for religion.
Robyn Williams joined the fray with his publication of Unintelligent Design, in which he outlines his own argument for atheism, and more specifically has a tilt at Intelligent Design. Williams’ name has not joined that of other prominent atheists such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett, and one may well wonder why.
Part of the problem may be location. Williams is a British man living in Australia, a country further away from the world’s main focus of interest. Indeed Unintelligent Design contains a number of allusions that I may have needed to be Australian to understand, and Williams devotes a brief chapter to Intelligent Design in Australia.
The more important problem though is perhaps the length and scope of the book. It is very short. Williams throws up a lot of scientific theories and ideas, but never has time to explain them to the layman, so I fear that the reader will not learn much from Unintelligent Design, which is a pity.
However Williams is a lively writer, and his prose is surprisingly casual for a man with a scientific background. He does a good job of pointing to the absurdities of Intelligent Design, such as a universe that is too vast and too long in the making to be a plausible work of design by a god. Why indulge in such a wasteful process?
Williams points to the human body and its many ‘design flaws’, which he points out look more like evolution trying to find a ‘solution’ through development of an existing structure than an intelligent designer beginning from scratch and making the best body he could design. If god designed us, he is a very unintelligent designer.
The origin of morality is also touched on by Williams, who stresses the need for cohesion in social groups and the waste of energy that is required in fighting and murdering when peaceful alternatives are available. By contrast, the moral religions have helped to cause a good deal of conflict, and we may well ask where god was then.
Occasionally Williams makes allusions to Stalin, as his father was a Communist who reluctantly supported the party line. Often Stalin is used by religious people as an argument against atheism. Look what atheists can do, they say, conveniently forgetting that atheism was not Stalin’s motive. More accurately Stalin is an argument against religion. Where was god when a dictator killed millions of people? What happens when a dogma with an authority figure takes control?
No less fascinating than Williams’ arguments are the personal asides that the author provides us with. From these we can form some ideas about why atheism came to appeal to Williams. The author was brought up by a Communist father who was not averse to beating his children until Williams stood up to him.
Faced with this humourless authoritarian upbringing, Williams turned his back on Communism in favour of a more liberal and anarchic form of socialism. I am not sure how far Williams still holds these views, but the book’s politically correct title calling god a ‘she’ indicates that some of his past beliefs still linger.
It is hardly surprising therefore that a man who grew up to hate authority figures should turn his back on religions. After all, what is the belief in God, Jesus, Allah or Jehovah but a fear that a celestial bully will punish us for not doing what he says?
Indeed I have to think here about my own motives for being an atheist. I was bullied at school by my classmates, and this has given me a cynical view of the value of conformity and belonging. I have seen what people do to the outsider, the one who does not fit in. Naturally I do not favour religions which also promote in-groups and out-groups, and often have hostile opinions about those who are not part of the in-group.
I am not presenting the view that atheists are all rebels as a result of personal hang-ups. However I think it is fair to say that psychology and personal experience do have an influence on the position that we take.
This goes in the opposite direction too. The patriarchal attitudes of Williams’ father may have made him more susceptible to Communism, and notably religions often appeal to people with authoritarian personalities who can impose dogma on others.
The religious convert or revert is often a weak-minded person who needs the validation of others, which joining a religion can bring. The addict or criminal living a desperately chaotic life will similarly leap at a chance of structure and having someone else make their life decisions for them, something offered by religion.
All in all, Unintelligent Design is a decent book. If I was recommending one book that people considering atheism should read, it would not be this. However it is a worthwhile supplement for those who are interested in the subject.
There is less certainty about the origin of the universe or life, but the Big Bang theory and the theory of abiogenesis have been offered up. At any rate it seems likely to have been a self-generating effect, and the processes that led to you and me took billions of years. This is something we all know. Or do we?
Unfortunately not. The moment that scientists began to learn about these things, they came into conflict with mainstream religions that have been teaching something very different for years. The overwhelming evidence for evolution is such that intelligent religious believers have been forced to accept it, but in my experience even they jump gleefully on every bad argument that they imagine blows a hole in the theory of evolution.
However it is not the intelligent open-minded believer that we have to worry about, but the unintelligent closed-minded one, and there are a lot of them. Soon the fightback started, and creationism morphed into Intelligent Design, that ironically-named theory that posited that the universe needed a designer to reach this level of complexity.
Where this designer came from himself is not something they can explain, and even the courts have ruled that Intelligent Design is unscientific. Nonetheless Intelligent Design is being taught in some schools, and the spread of ignorance is threatening to undo the hard work of scientists.
Plenty of religious people and indeed many atheists complain about figures such as Richard Dawkins for stridently taking on religion and god. For myself, I wonder why it took him so long. There were a full 30 years between Dawkins writing The Selfish Gene and the publication of his later work, The God Delusion.
That is 30 years in which an evolutionary biologist has seen his life’s work challenged by bad arguments that are being given the same stature as good ones. Perhaps it is about time that scientists did begin the attack.
It is hardly surprising that we have seen the rise of the New Atheists. The label is misleading. Strictly speaking, new atheism simply means saying aloud what we old atheists have been saying in private for years. Notably many of the New Atheists are older men, and not youthful rebels. All that has happened is that in face of dogma and bigotry, we have finally grown tired of showing respect for religion.
Robyn Williams joined the fray with his publication of Unintelligent Design, in which he outlines his own argument for atheism, and more specifically has a tilt at Intelligent Design. Williams’ name has not joined that of other prominent atheists such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett, and one may well wonder why.
Part of the problem may be location. Williams is a British man living in Australia, a country further away from the world’s main focus of interest. Indeed Unintelligent Design contains a number of allusions that I may have needed to be Australian to understand, and Williams devotes a brief chapter to Intelligent Design in Australia.
The more important problem though is perhaps the length and scope of the book. It is very short. Williams throws up a lot of scientific theories and ideas, but never has time to explain them to the layman, so I fear that the reader will not learn much from Unintelligent Design, which is a pity.
However Williams is a lively writer, and his prose is surprisingly casual for a man with a scientific background. He does a good job of pointing to the absurdities of Intelligent Design, such as a universe that is too vast and too long in the making to be a plausible work of design by a god. Why indulge in such a wasteful process?
Williams points to the human body and its many ‘design flaws’, which he points out look more like evolution trying to find a ‘solution’ through development of an existing structure than an intelligent designer beginning from scratch and making the best body he could design. If god designed us, he is a very unintelligent designer.
The origin of morality is also touched on by Williams, who stresses the need for cohesion in social groups and the waste of energy that is required in fighting and murdering when peaceful alternatives are available. By contrast, the moral religions have helped to cause a good deal of conflict, and we may well ask where god was then.
Occasionally Williams makes allusions to Stalin, as his father was a Communist who reluctantly supported the party line. Often Stalin is used by religious people as an argument against atheism. Look what atheists can do, they say, conveniently forgetting that atheism was not Stalin’s motive. More accurately Stalin is an argument against religion. Where was god when a dictator killed millions of people? What happens when a dogma with an authority figure takes control?
No less fascinating than Williams’ arguments are the personal asides that the author provides us with. From these we can form some ideas about why atheism came to appeal to Williams. The author was brought up by a Communist father who was not averse to beating his children until Williams stood up to him.
Faced with this humourless authoritarian upbringing, Williams turned his back on Communism in favour of a more liberal and anarchic form of socialism. I am not sure how far Williams still holds these views, but the book’s politically correct title calling god a ‘she’ indicates that some of his past beliefs still linger.
It is hardly surprising therefore that a man who grew up to hate authority figures should turn his back on religions. After all, what is the belief in God, Jesus, Allah or Jehovah but a fear that a celestial bully will punish us for not doing what he says?
Indeed I have to think here about my own motives for being an atheist. I was bullied at school by my classmates, and this has given me a cynical view of the value of conformity and belonging. I have seen what people do to the outsider, the one who does not fit in. Naturally I do not favour religions which also promote in-groups and out-groups, and often have hostile opinions about those who are not part of the in-group.
I am not presenting the view that atheists are all rebels as a result of personal hang-ups. However I think it is fair to say that psychology and personal experience do have an influence on the position that we take.
This goes in the opposite direction too. The patriarchal attitudes of Williams’ father may have made him more susceptible to Communism, and notably religions often appeal to people with authoritarian personalities who can impose dogma on others.
The religious convert or revert is often a weak-minded person who needs the validation of others, which joining a religion can bring. The addict or criminal living a desperately chaotic life will similarly leap at a chance of structure and having someone else make their life decisions for them, something offered by religion.
All in all, Unintelligent Design is a decent book. If I was recommending one book that people considering atheism should read, it would not be this. However it is a worthwhile supplement for those who are interested in the subject.
September 3, 2019
Part rant, part memoir, part science and philosophy
Robyn Williams is a man of science, a broadcast and print journalist, and an academic who has joined the chorus of voices that are fed up with the attempt by creationist and Intelligent Designers to hijack our societies. Williams presently writes from Australia but has lived in Europe while growing up in the UK. He focuses on American culture and American creationists as well as on those from Down Under and in Europe. He is witty, glib, chatty, and quick with a satirical rapier worthy of Voltaire.
He sees the "unintelligent design" movement fired by "proud ignorance" and a lust to power. I couldn't agree more but I'd ratchet it up to "arrogant ignorance." Williams means "proud" as in the sort that cometh before a fall. I have little doubt that the creationists and their turkeys in tuxedos, the IDers, will go the way of the dodos eventually as our populations become educated and no longer easily swayed by the charlatans of religious mumbo jumbo.
The book is jeans and t-shirt causal. There are no footnotes or endnotes or a bibliography or an index. He quotes whole passages from people like Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond but doesn't say exactly where he got the words. He mixes memoir with secular sermon (no soda water), history with incident, and passion with the jocular. He ridicules the notion of an anthropomorphic God, asking if God (in whose image we are said to be made) ever gets a bad back. The very idea of intelligent--intelligent!--design is made absurd. He writes, "Halitosis, farting, vaginal discharge, reflux, snoring, rheumatism, warts, smelly armpits, varicose veins, menopause, brewer's droop...these are not the marks of a designer at the top of his game." (p.71)
Williams spends some ink debunking ID claims to life from complexities so great that they had to have a designer (the main ID delusion). Here he brings Richard Dawkins into the fray in a most delightful way:
Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker is busy rebuking the Bishop of Birmingham, Hugh Montefiore, author of The Probability of God. Dawkins quotes Montefiore: "As for camouflage, this is not always easily explicable on neo-Darwinian premises. If polar bears are dominant in the Arctic, then there would seem to have been no need for them to evolve a white-coloured form of camouflage."
Dawkins gives this mock translation of Montefiore's paragraph: "I personally, off the top of my head sitting in my study, never having visited the Arctic, never having seen a polar bear in the wild, and having been educated in classical literature and theology, have not so far managed to think of a reason why polar bears might benefit from being white."
Williams guides: "Predators need to surprise their prey." He adds, "Bishops, and lay folk too, may like to take the trouble...to see what science has come up with." (p. 57-58) If they do so they might not fall into what Dawkins has called "the Argument from Personal Incredulity," or what Williams has generalized as what I'll dub as "the Argument from Ignorance."
Much of the book is like this, and some of it is very funny indeed and works well as a scathing revelation of the stupidities of the Intelligent Designers. But there is also some very personal writing in the book that surprised me. Williams writes about being a child with a heavy-handed communist father and being in a secondary school in London in the 50s. In short this is a book that engages as much as informs or guides.
Finally I want to address this idea that Williams brings up on page 76. "...[C]onflict is creative and...isolated societies decline. As happened in Tasmania before the Europeans, the technology becomes more primitive and the people languish without invasion, rape and pillage to renew the innovative stock." This is connected with the (specious) argument that the seemingly evil God who is allowing all the carnage is just doing it for our own good. What I wonder is does humankind have the ability to survive the current domestication of some of our populations (think couch potatoes in America). When the war system ends (as I hope and trust it will--eventually) what is to become of the Eloi?
I don't know the answer to that question, but perhaps we will acquire the wisdom to redesign ourselves in a way that allows for greater human happiness over greater periods of time.
To close here is a nice Williams rant: "...[T]he human brain...resembles the creation of the devil rather than of a God. That it is capable of good is beside the point. ID is like a computer program with a built-in virus. ID is a baby born with syphilis. ID is an insult to the intelligence. ID is an insult to God." (p. 76)
Amen, brother.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Religion: Reviews, Essays and Commentary”
Robyn Williams is a man of science, a broadcast and print journalist, and an academic who has joined the chorus of voices that are fed up with the attempt by creationist and Intelligent Designers to hijack our societies. Williams presently writes from Australia but has lived in Europe while growing up in the UK. He focuses on American culture and American creationists as well as on those from Down Under and in Europe. He is witty, glib, chatty, and quick with a satirical rapier worthy of Voltaire.
He sees the "unintelligent design" movement fired by "proud ignorance" and a lust to power. I couldn't agree more but I'd ratchet it up to "arrogant ignorance." Williams means "proud" as in the sort that cometh before a fall. I have little doubt that the creationists and their turkeys in tuxedos, the IDers, will go the way of the dodos eventually as our populations become educated and no longer easily swayed by the charlatans of religious mumbo jumbo.
The book is jeans and t-shirt causal. There are no footnotes or endnotes or a bibliography or an index. He quotes whole passages from people like Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond but doesn't say exactly where he got the words. He mixes memoir with secular sermon (no soda water), history with incident, and passion with the jocular. He ridicules the notion of an anthropomorphic God, asking if God (in whose image we are said to be made) ever gets a bad back. The very idea of intelligent--intelligent!--design is made absurd. He writes, "Halitosis, farting, vaginal discharge, reflux, snoring, rheumatism, warts, smelly armpits, varicose veins, menopause, brewer's droop...these are not the marks of a designer at the top of his game." (p.71)
Williams spends some ink debunking ID claims to life from complexities so great that they had to have a designer (the main ID delusion). Here he brings Richard Dawkins into the fray in a most delightful way:
Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker is busy rebuking the Bishop of Birmingham, Hugh Montefiore, author of The Probability of God. Dawkins quotes Montefiore: "As for camouflage, this is not always easily explicable on neo-Darwinian premises. If polar bears are dominant in the Arctic, then there would seem to have been no need for them to evolve a white-coloured form of camouflage."
Dawkins gives this mock translation of Montefiore's paragraph: "I personally, off the top of my head sitting in my study, never having visited the Arctic, never having seen a polar bear in the wild, and having been educated in classical literature and theology, have not so far managed to think of a reason why polar bears might benefit from being white."
Williams guides: "Predators need to surprise their prey." He adds, "Bishops, and lay folk too, may like to take the trouble...to see what science has come up with." (p. 57-58) If they do so they might not fall into what Dawkins has called "the Argument from Personal Incredulity," or what Williams has generalized as what I'll dub as "the Argument from Ignorance."
Much of the book is like this, and some of it is very funny indeed and works well as a scathing revelation of the stupidities of the Intelligent Designers. But there is also some very personal writing in the book that surprised me. Williams writes about being a child with a heavy-handed communist father and being in a secondary school in London in the 50s. In short this is a book that engages as much as informs or guides.
Finally I want to address this idea that Williams brings up on page 76. "...[C]onflict is creative and...isolated societies decline. As happened in Tasmania before the Europeans, the technology becomes more primitive and the people languish without invasion, rape and pillage to renew the innovative stock." This is connected with the (specious) argument that the seemingly evil God who is allowing all the carnage is just doing it for our own good. What I wonder is does humankind have the ability to survive the current domestication of some of our populations (think couch potatoes in America). When the war system ends (as I hope and trust it will--eventually) what is to become of the Eloi?
I don't know the answer to that question, but perhaps we will acquire the wisdom to redesign ourselves in a way that allows for greater human happiness over greater periods of time.
To close here is a nice Williams rant: "...[T]he human brain...resembles the creation of the devil rather than of a God. That it is capable of good is beside the point. ID is like a computer program with a built-in virus. ID is a baby born with syphilis. ID is an insult to the intelligence. ID is an insult to God." (p. 76)
Amen, brother.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Religion: Reviews, Essays and Commentary”
April 25, 2020
Williams is arguing against the rise of Intelligent Design and makes some brilliant and well-argued points in favour of the scientific method but he comes across a bit smug and condescending when dealing with the arguments of his opponents. This approach alienated me, and I’m on the same side as him.
August 11, 2009
If you're open-minded it's a good read spiced up with humor. The author takes looks at evolution, intelligent design, religion, science from his particular perspective. You don't have to agree or disagree with the author. But being dealing with the author's perspective will definitely make your thinking much richer even if you come to completely different conclusions. I've a mixed stance towards the author's position. However, the thoughts expressed have triggered interest in reading more about the subject. It would have been nice, though, if the book had a list of referenced books at the end of it.
May 30, 2009
Mildly amusing rant on the psyche and anatomy of humans that suggests we weren't made by an intelligent design, but cobbled together by evolution.
November 17, 2010
loved this clear too small book.
January 30, 2012
A good overview of bigger issues around motivations for ID being pushed, and the ignorance and denial of real science and the scientific thought process.
Read
August 2, 2011A good short read though it seems likely that if you're reading it you already share Williams' views.
June 25, 2015
A quote from the book sums it up for me: "Just as the universe is overlarge for our human story, and over aged -- why wait ten billion years before getting the whole Genesis yarn going"?
September 19, 2015
Hilarious, interesting, witty. I particularly liked the part about animals.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews