Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins

Rating:
Summary: Poor, incomprehensible science lives on
Review: I finally got around to reading this book, and was astonished to find that nearly all of Michael Denton's impossibly wrong account of hierarchies in taxonomy was included as chapter six. Denton, in his "Evolution: A theory in crisis" bases the whole of his argument against common descent on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of molecular data. The error is so egregious that, had he submitted it to any organismal biologist for review, it would have been obvious enough to warrant the cutting of the chapter. Denton himself has acknowledged the error, and retracted his attack against common descent.

So what does it say that this "textbook" accepts with an uncritical eye the argument, verbatim, and makes it the foundation of its discussion on molecular systematics? Only that the authors were ill-informed about the field.

It is unfathomable that any student will get anything of scientific substance from this book. The arguments are incoherent, and the data are woefully out of date. The representations of modern biology are laughably simplistic.

As a propoganda tool, Of Pandas and People is of marginal value, as its muddy arguments are not likely to make much of an impression on thoughtful students. As a "science textbook" it is downright shameful.

Rating:
Summary: A textbook without science?
Review: I had hoped that the editors would have addressed more fully the impetus and reasoning for their advancement of "Intelligent Design" idea (not theory). But alas, the text is muddled and full of misquotes by evolutionary biologists, just as it is in the publisher's review on the Amazon.com page. Ask any natural scientist, and they can present several concrete examples of evidence that support the main ideas of evolution. The "disagreements" that scientists have with evolution are in the subtle nuances of the theory, like the various mechanisms and smaller points.
Scientists, like me, spend their whole life working for peanuts with little or no recognition. We would love to be the next Einstein or Salk; if anyone of us were to disprove or come up with any hard evidence against Darwin's basic principles, we would be instantly famous and world reknown. It hasnt happened, we DO try to disprove evolution, thats why it is so robust, enough as to believe it to be truth.
No conspiracy here, folks. -Just science.

Rating:
Summary: Veiled Creationism
Review: I've only read the excerpt, and from what I've read I can see the spin doctoring going on. "Today the idea [of spontaneous generation] may seem to be no more than superstition, but at one time it seemed to be confirmed..."

This leads the reader to think that spontaneous generation is considered magical and invalid by today's biologists. That's so misleading, and poor science. The excerpt goes on and shows flaws with Oparin's chemical experiments. Flaws in the experiments do not discredit the discovery made by them. (amino acids can be created from scratch.) It does prove that life has a material connection.

The book then goes on and exaggerates the gaps in experimentation as refutation of spontaneous generation. The gaps only indicate a lack of knowledge of how to build a life form from scratch. It also comments about the presence of oxygen in earth's early atmosphere, and that oxygen is a toxin. Pre-biotic earth did not have an abundance of oxygen. The excerpt then attempts to blur reality stating oxygen's a poison and life couldn't thrive with this poison in existence, so... life could not have happened.

That is a leap in logic, misleading, and that is bad science. It's hard enough to get kids to understand and learn science in America today, without confusing them with this bologna. This book is veiled creationism. I can only imagine how many other leaps in logic and mis-uses of credible science are included to make intelligent design appear valid.

Listen ID true believers, discrediting a scientific theory requires providing evidence to the contrary of something that is considered valid. There are reasons today we don't think the earth is flat, the sun orbits the earth, or the stars can predict if you'll have a bad day.

ID needs to prove that an intelligent designer exists, then explain how the intelligent designer creates mechanisms for change, explain his/her/its mechanisms, and then provide evidence that shows evolution to be invalid. (They haven't done it so far, and I'm doubtful they ever will or can.)

ID is Paley's Watchmaker Argument with a new coat of paint. It's wishful thinking by religious extremists to show that an intelligent designer(God) manipulated life to create humans.

The problem is anything manufactured by an intelligent designer has a purpose and function that aids/enhances the designer. Watches are used to tell time. Time is used to regulate and coordinate events. So, a watch helps a designer coordinate events. So, ID has to explain what the function of a human being is, and how it benefits the designer.

Humans would make poor mechanisms for an intelligent designer. They complain, lie, cheat, steal, deceive, can be disloyal, uncooperative, and have minds of their own. Why, would an intelligent designer create something that can question its own existence and in turn question the existence of the designer, and question the designer's motives? That's poor engineering and poor planning by the designer, not a sign of intelligence.

Getting into the "why" of ID lifts the veil behind intelligent design. It's hidden agenda is to further an extremist religious world view.

It's American Lysenkoism. (Look up Trofim Lysenko, and you'll see where America is heading if this nonsense is taught to our kids.) Perhaps ID should be restated as "Bumbling Design Theory."

Rating:
Summary: Crenshaw has it right!
Review: Know, first, that this really isn't a review, but a comment: This is the kind of book I love! Scanning the other reviews, I see that it's rated either 1 star or five <grin>. Believers, skeptics, and those who are willing to keep an open mind love it. Atheists and those who blindly follow the Darwinist, evolutionist view regardless of the evidence, hate it. That's enough to tell me this is a book I will like and cherish.

Ironic, isn't it? In only a few years, those who follow the traditional, orthodox view of Evolution or Bust, have gone from being acknowledged as representing the rational, methodical, scientific approach to things, to representing the shrill, dogmatic, reactionary view of the entrenched orthodoxy. A few hundred years ago, these are the same kinds of reactionaries that would be screaming for Galileo's head.

Don't take my word for it; read all the reviews for yourself. Decide for yourself which ones represent people with open minds, and those with shrill and emotional, knee-jerk responses to anything that challenges their long-held beliefs.

Then decide which group you'd prefer to be aligned with. I, for one, am ordering this book, right now.

Rating:
Summary: SCIENTIFIC MUTINY
Review: The authors should be commended for their willingness to assess scientific data objectively, even when it means contradicting the prevailing scientific establishment by suggesting the necessity of an intelligent designer of the universe. I have read many reviews of this book which claim it is pseudoscience, dishonest, and flat out wrong. Yet I have never read a single EXAMPLE of these claims. Someone please show me where these authors and scientists went wrong! The fact of the matter is that this book is well researched and convincing (to those who are open minded enough to listen to what the authors have to say). Perhaps critics have chosen not to provide specific examples in their attacks because no such examples exist to support their contentions! To say that appealing to an intelligent designer is outside the realm of science is very misleading. For if evolutionary and other materialistic theories (which are also unprovable in the strictest sense of science) ! fail to successfully explain the intricacies of life (which many scieintists besides Kenyon et al. are beginning to determine), then we have no choice but to posit an intelligent designer. That's GOOD science, like it or not.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the Science in this Book?
Review: This book engages in simple false alternative negative argumentation against evolutionary theory and provides no positive arguments in support of intelligent design.

The book opens stating, "...we will present interpretations of the data proposed by those today who hold the two alternative concepts: those with a Darwinian frame of reference, as well as those who adhere to intelligent design.", yet research scientist George Gilchrist of the University of Washington was able to find only 37 instances of the keyword "intelligent design" in over 6,000 scientific and academic journals worldwide. Of the 37, most were irrelevant dealing with computer software or hardware, architectural or engineering design, advertising art, literature, fertilizer manufacture, or welding technology. Only 7 had anything to do with biology, and of these, 5 were discussions of the debate over using the Pandas textbook by various school boards and 2 were comments on Behe's book in a Christian magazine.

There is not a single instance of biological research using intelligent-design theory to explain life's diversity, and though both Davis and Keynon are professional scientists, neither has apparently published anything in the professional literature about their theory.

This book is systematically dismantled by Robert T. Pennock in his book, "Tower of Babel" and has been criticized by creationist, Norman L. Geisler, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, because the book "appeas[es our] enemies [by] avoiding the word 'creation' like the plague" and for not clearly distinguishing their view from that of "naturalistic (pantheistic) 'creationsits' who see the creator within the universe."

Pandas is guilty of violating every fallacy of argumentation outlined in chapter six of David Kelley's book, "The Art of Reasoning" ...lessons learned by first-year philosophy students, and amounts to little more than vague and ad hoc negative argumentation based on a false dichotomy with frequent hyperbolic congratulatory statements epitomizing delusions of grandeur.

Two stars because it makes an excellent example of what not to do when arguing in support of a theory, and makes excellent dissection material for students of the philosophy of science. It clearly illustrates the difference between the religious and scientific attitude: To hold on to belief come what may is a sign of religious virtue. Contrarily, science takes it to be a virtue that one withholds belief in the truth of a proposition until it is supported by the weight of evidence. And there's the basic theme of the book: To believe in Intelligent Design Theory in the absence of good evidence is a matter not of science, but of faith.

Rating:
Summary: Goat's Eggs and Duck's Milk
Review: This book is a pseudoscientific masterpiece. Laudatory reviews from the authors' own corner musn't mislead us into giving this book anything less than two-thumbs down. The authors have used many tools of bad reasoning to establish their deliberately flawed theory - for instance presenting the Cambrian Explosion as an instantaneous event; rather than an 'explosion' in cosmic timescale. So the typical high-schooler who has little idea of the scope of cosmic time (in which a million years is mere table stakes) will deduce that the Cambrian Explosion is evidence of instantaneous Intelligent Creation! Voila! How fabulous! To develop a substantial understanding of the Cambrian Explosion one has to read much more beyond an Undergrad text book - one has to comb thru a 100 papers and at least 3 textbooks on evolution. Only then will one understand that the Cambrian Explosion happened over several millions of years and it in fact is one of the strongest bodies of evidence that supports evolution. The sections on molecular biology are so incorrect that it is virtually useless. "Creationism" sympathisers derive their opinions from such pseudoscientific tracts and swallow the incorrect criticisms therein and make statements like, "there are serious flaws and yawning gaps in explanations of evolution..." instead of taking the time and trouble to read through the voluminous scientific literature on the subject or at least going through a good text book in their library. But then who is interested in the pursuit of knowledge?

Rating:
Summary: Amazing...
Review: This book's thesis, that man is evolved from Pandas makes no sense to me. I can't see the similarities at all.



Rating:
Summary: Dean Kenyon IS AN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST....
Review: What the people critizing this work don't realize is that this author is the same Dean Kenyon who co-authored Biochemical Predestination. And who later rejected his own theroy, becomeing a "creationist". It's very interesting that proponets of macroevolution no longer look at the facts of science, but insted defend their veiws using the same "blind faith" they themselves accuse people like Dean Kenyon of using. Lets face it folks, macroevolution just doesn't happen!!