Unintelligent Design: Amazon.ca: Mark Perakh: Books

Product Description

Physicist Mark Perakh critically reviews recent trends toward harmonising religion and science. From intelligent design theories to arguments allegedly proving the compatibility of biblical stories with scientific data and 'Bible codes' containing secret messages, Perakh shows that, however sophisticated in appearance, all such approaches are little more than tailoring evidence to fit the desired theory. For everyone interested in separating scientific facts from the hype of trendy theories about science, this book is must reading.

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31 Reviews

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4.5 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars On the attack, Jun 13 2004

By

David J. Turell, M.D. "David J. Turell, M.D." (Tomball, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unintelligent Design (Hardcover)

With 30 reviews already present, why another? Because of this observation: the reviews of all books in the area of science vs. religion came with emotional baggage. Atheistic books are praised by atheists and religious books are praised by believers. There is almost no middle ground, essentially no books for agnostics. The result is then that the 'helpful' question at the end of a review really means, 'do you agree with the viewpoint,' not how well is the book done. The existing reviews bring up all the criticisms and the praiseworthy comments I could make. I agree with many of the author's observations. On the other hand, no matter how brilliant a scientist he appears to be, I find off-putting his self-serving examples of his 'brilliance', his snide remarks and his technique of pointing out an author's lack of knowledge when that missing information is of no consequence to the author's point of view. Destroying a writer's credibility is easier than wining a debate by logic. And in using that technique some information he presents is out-and-out wrong, just as he accuses other authors of inaccuracies. In his "Afterword" he presents himself as not agnostic, both religious faith and atheism being irrational, but as neutral. Still, all in all, an important read.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it. Read it. Loan it out to friends., Mar 10 2004

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Gary S. Hurd "Dr.GH" (Dana Point, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Unintelligent Design (Hardcover)

Perakh organized his text into three sections. The first two take up issues of creationism, first Intelligent Design (ID), and second the earlier but still influential Scientific Creationism. Significant authors from each of these pseudosciences are addressed in their own chapters. William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Phillip Johnson are the ID representatives. Perakh's thorough demolishment of Dembski's thesis in Chapter 1 (the longest single chapter) alone is worth the price of the book. Not only was Perakh thorough, but understandable using clear language and reasoning. His many years as a teacher are obvious in these pages.

I had expected that this would be the only highlight of the book, but there is a considerable amount of good reading in the seven chapter second section addressing the Creation Science authors. What I particularly enjoyed was that Perakh did not merely stay with the well known ultra-biblical-literalists from the Christian Right, but also addressed Judaic creationists in four chapters. In fact, there were only 3 out of the first 317 pages that I had any quibble with, and these (290-292) are the reactions of a specialist toward a generalist. I shudder to imagine what Perakh could do to any attempt on my part to write about physics.

A "reader from Riesel, TX" wrote an unfavorable review of Mark Perakh's new book last December. Bill Dembski was "outed" as the "reader from Riesel, TX" by the Amazon (Canada) software glitch a month or so ago. I would have suspected this anyway, as "reader from Riesel" nee "Waco" is typical of Dembski's other responses to critics -- attack obliquely, avoid their actual positions, claim that their criticisms have been addressed elsewhere, or that you will totally answer them in your next book.

If you have too much time and too much money, I suggest that you follow Dembski's advice to "read the primary <creationist> literature." Then you should read Perakh's _Unintelligent Design_ to learn how you have wasted your time and money. Otherwise, just read Perakh's excellent book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the effort, Feb 20 2004

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Michael Booker (Arnold, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Unintelligent Design (Hardcover)

I've been reading about the creationism/evolution debate for twenty years now, and this book is an extremely important addition to that discussion. Perakh has two basic points as he works his way through the major advocates of ID (Intelligent Design). One is that they misuse statistics is ways that are intuitively reasonable but ultimately incorrect. This is why he includes a discussion of the Bible Code, another case of statistics gone awry.
His second point, and one that I hadn't seen spelled out so well before, is that the idea of irreducible complexity is a jumbled compilation of observations which Paley and others have offered much more clearly long ago. Perakh breaks down each component of irreducible complexity and shows how it does not justify the strong claims made for it by ID theorists.
My frustration in all of this is that the people who most need to read this book aren't going to take the time and effort necessary to engage in his arguments.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Badly needed
Perakh is repetitive and verbose in places, succinct and to-the-roint in others. He's unnecessarily generous toward Behe (INHO) yet bitingly critical of Johnson (who fancies... Read more

Published on April 21 2004 by Bobby R. Treat

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Scientific Logic.
'Unintelligent Design' is a monumental work in the on going "debate" between creationism and evolution. Read more

Published on Mar 23 2004 by Dhaval Vyas