Customer Reviews

Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This well-researched and documented book lays bare the plot by modern-day scientific creationists posing as qualified scientists to subvert biological education in the public schools and colleges by means of "the wedge of intelligent design." The absence of any scientific evidence for the concept of "intelligent design" is firmly established by the authors who then go on to document the strategy being used by its advocates to persuade parents, educators and politicians that the concept is not only scientifically valid, but that it calls into question, or even refutes, the theory of organic evolution-a theory actually as firmly established as the theory of gravity and the theory of atomic structure.

The authors contend, and support their contention with fact, that the absence of scientific evidence to support the concept of intelligent design is not all that important to its advocates, for the goal of these individuals is simply to use this concept as a wedge to convince the general public and its political leaders that intelligent design is a scientific theory sufficiently plausible to warrant inclusion in the scientific curriculum as a logical alternative to the theory of evolution. This goal achieved, pseudo-science will have a firm place in biological instruction, students will receive a wrongful education, and science itself will be maimed.

This book should be studied carefully by all who would preserve the integrity of science education in our schools. It will serve as an excellent manual for those called upon to defend the integrity of state courses of study in science against expected assaults by intelligent design advocates in the upcoming, cyclic reviews by state departments of education.

(disclaimer -- I haven't yet read the book, so ignore my book rating. But I feel that folks who read these reviews need to see how bogus the ID proponents' arguments are)

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m93k2y8 wrote in a review above
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If one is truly interested in what intelligent design scientists actually propose, one will be much better off reading what they actually say. In my opinion, William Dembski's No Free Lunch would be a good start.
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OK, we have an ID proponent here pushing Dembski's bogus "No Free Lunch". Do you want to see what's wrong with Dembski's work? Well, you could start by reading the article at http://www.talkreason.org/articles/jello.cfm, which was written by David Wolpert, co-author of the original paper describing the No Free Lunch theorems! The fact that one of the original No Free Lunch authors has taken some time out of his busy schedule to trash Dembski's "No Free Lunch" should tell you everything you need to know about Dembski.

This book is an examination of the "Wedge" strategy of the Intelligent Design Creationists of the Discovery Institute, and how these creationists have substituted political maneuvering and propaganda for science. While the Wedge strategy originally put forth specifically called for Phase I to produce "scientific research, writing, and publicity," and the Fellows of the Discovery Institute claimed publicly that the scientific work was a prerequisite for the other phases of the plan, it is the scientific work that has still not even been begun, despite the passage of over a decade of time. The other parts of the plan, however, have proceeded without the scientific prerequisites, and the creationists of intelligent design have taken their case (despite lack of any scientific ground) directly to the general public, to school boards, and to state legislatures.

The book's chapters cover the history of the Wedge strategy, the content of the leaked Wedge document which set out that strategy, the results of scouring the scientific literature for any publications by Wedge advocates supporting "intelligent design" (none found), an examination of the intelligent design work of Paul Chien and Michael Behe, an examination of the work of Jonathan Wells and William Dembski, documentation of what the Discovery Institute has actually been up to (two chapters, and "doing scientific research" is conspicuously absent from the list), a look at the political efforts of the Wedge, and finally, documentation of the religious grounds and goals of the Wedge.

This book shows the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the intelligent design theorists, using their own words to convict them. This book should be read by anyone who advocates intelligent design creationism, or who thinks that it may belong in the school science curriculum (as opposed to university-level philosophy or social studies of science curricula).

People who read (and review) this extraordinary book are likely to be split between those who understand its importance, and give it high marks, and people of a creationist bent, who will also understand its importance, but who will uniformly give it a one star rating, but what else would you give to a book that so carefully, and in such detail, provides an expos\'e of the terrifying politics and theocratic philosophy behind the ID creationism movement?

If you are even remotely open-minded, and have any concern for how a small band of zealots is trying to hijack the educational system, please, please read this book.

Although it is thoroughly readable, this is not a piece of pulpy page-turner literature of the conspiracy theory genre. It is a carefully researched, and meticulous work with a truly remarkable degree of documentation (over 60 pages of references alone). It is written by serious academics writing for an intelligent, but lay audience, and comes from a serious academic publisher.

The recent episode when the Canadian version of Amazon inadvertently revealed the real names of the reviewers who hid behind pseudonims seems to be indicating that the practice allowing anonimous reviews on this site better be abolished. One example of the underhanded way some adherents of intelligent design misuse the anonimity allowed by Amazon, is the highly negative review of Forrest-Gross's book by somebody from Ontario, Canada, hiding behind the moniker consisting of a set of symbols m93k2y8. The reviewer in question has good reasons to conceal his name - his review is a diatribe of a poorly informed partisan of intelligent design which is so well exposed by Forrest and Gross for what it really is - an enterprize having little to do with science but using a pseudo-scientific mantle to hide its real goals of replacing genuine science with a theistic pseudo-science. Especially funny is m93k2y8's advice to read Dembski's book No Free Lunch as an allegedly good source of information on the dispute between intelligent design proponents and their opponents. In fact, No Free Lunch by Dembski is nothing but piffle decisively shown to be such by a number of experts. In particular, David Wolpert, who is a co-author of the No Free Lunch theorems, titled his review of Dembski's book "William Dembski's treatment of No Free Lunch theorems is written in jello." Unfortunately, the numerous opuses of Dembski lead astray many unprepared readers. Fortunately, books like that by Forrest and Gross do a good job of showing the utter futility of intelligent design and other pseudo-scientific enterprises.

If ID represents such superior science, why do its advocates devote their efforts almost exclusively to political and religious activism, while doing virtually nil actual science? Why do they continually conflate methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism, or abiogenesis with modern evolutionary theory? Forrest and Gross provide a meticulously documented history of the modern ID movement, and forcefully lay to rest any notion that ID has anything to offer science, if it ever did. They lay bare the particular religious motives of ID's principle advocates who, it seems, don't really care about science at all (if they did, one might think they'd roll up their sleeves, get into a lab somewhere, and do some actual research). Instead, they merely dredge up the usual, well-worn anti-Darwinian Creationist canards, repackage them in spiffy new & improved ID wrappers, and solicit politicians and other policy-making bodies for support... demanding equal time for ID in the name of "fairness." If ID means to be taken seriously as science, and if its advocates really want to be fair, is it too much to ask that they provide actual evidence for their assertions?

I could assert that there are pink teapots orbiting Pluto until I'm blue in the face, but if I can't provide empirical evidence to back my claim, why should anyone (let alone scientists) take me seriously? So, without evidence, why should the claims of ID be regarded any differently?

By the way, I can't help but notice that the "review" from a reader in Sunnyvale (now San Jose, I see), CA is repeated, word for word, in a "review" of Mark Perakh's "Unintelligent Design." Has the Sunnyvale/San Jose reader actually read either of these books? Or is this merely vacuous boilerplate blather?

Paul Gross and Barbara Forrest have undertaken the thankless task of exposing the true foundations of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. They have succeeded brilliantly. The book is devoid of ad hominem attacks and name-calling. Rather, Gross and Forrest allow their meticulously collected evidence to do their speaking for them.

What the evidence shows is that as science ID is dead in the water. They have contributed no new ideas of their own, and their criticisms of mainstream science are simply wrong.

Worse, for all their protestations to the contrary, they have little interest in doing actual scientific work. Rather than working in the lab to prove their ideas have merit, they spend their time and considerable money lobbying school boards and sympathetic politicians. Serious scientists holding controversial ideas do not try to seize the reins of public power to promote their views. But then, the ID folks are not serious scientists.

These facts explain why, when confronted with the cogent, calm, well-documented arguments of people like Gross and Forrest, the ID folks reply with slurs, character assassination, and bleats about scientific conspiracies. They are cranks and pure and simple. We all owe a great debt to Gross and Forrest for proving that point so well.

Forrest and Gross have done a splendid job by simultaneously exposing the poor science undergirding intelligent design theory, and by displaying in public the odious social agenda that is hitch hiking along with this new form of pseudoscience (and which has so far been hidden from public scrutiny with the aid of smoke and mirrors). They must have done something right, because they have evidently stirred up a hornet's nest of hostile reviews from the friends of ID.

Forrest and Gross have done the country a valuable service by documenting the political and ideological foundations of the intelligent design movement. Anyone who still believes that movement is primarily, or even partly, a scientific endeavour need only search PNAS, BIOMED, BIOSIS, and the like for published research on intelligent design creationism in biology. There is none to be found. The ID movement's "scientists" publish no ID science.

What, then, has all the fuss in Kansas, Ohio, Texas, New Mexico, West Virginia, and so on been about? Not science, for sure. Forrest and Gross describe with rich documentation just what is driving the intelligent design movement in spite of its scientific sterility.

The sincerest form of flattery isn't always imitation. Sometimes, it's slander. We find a very good case in point in some of the previously posted reviews of Gross and Forrest, disingenuous bits of character assassination penned by highly interested parties chiefly motivated by their own religious and ideological fanaticism. The fan club of W. Dembski and the Discovery Institute know full well that Gross and Forrest have told a damning truth: ID "theory" is not in any serious sense a scientific enterprise, not even a highly speculative one. It has no support in the serious scientific literature and has been thoroughly demolished by many competent scientists. Rather, ID is a pretext for getting some elements of fundamentalist Creationism back into the science classrooms of the nation. It dresses up as science, but its disguise is only good enough to fool the highly gullible, which category unfortunately includes a host of politicians. ID is merely the first wave of a long-term program for replacing science in the schools by fundamentalist, biblical-literalist doctrine, pure and simple. (If you doubt this, check some of the less prudent statements of ID godfather P.E. Johnson.)

Naturally, accurate books like "Creationism's Trojan Horse" scare the hell out of the proponents of this theocratic campaign. Gross and Forrest have already impelled the ID movement to try to screen its inner workings from pubic view. Websites that once boasted of the "wedge strategy" have been erased. Dembski's fellow travelers desperately wish this book would just go away, which is why they will festoon this site with disparaging and slanderous "reviews". But of course, these actually constitute the highest of praise. These guys really don't want you to read the book, which is the strongest reason for you to read it.