Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design

William A. Dembski, Editor

InterVarsity Press (Sept., 1998), 448 pp., $24.99

Essayists: Introduction, Dembski; Part 1, "Unseating Naturalism," Walter Bradley, Jonathan Wells; Part 2, "Design Theory," Nancy Pearcey, Dembski, Steve Meyer, Paul Nelson; Part 3, "Biological Design," Mike Behe, Siegfried Scherer, Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer, Jeff Schloss; Part 4, "Philosophy and Design," J.P. Moreland, Del Ratzsch, John Mark Reynolds, Bill Craig; Part 5, "Design in the Universe," Hugh Ross, Robert Kaita, David Berlinski, Robert Newman; Concluding essays, Phil Johnson and Bruce Chapman.

In November 1996, Christian Leadership Ministries sponsored Mere Creation, a conference on origins which gathered 180 scientists and scholars from the growing "intelligent design," or ID, community. Now the 19 papers from this conference, with revisions and two additional essays, are available in this new volume. Abstracts of the essays and information on the authors are available at www.origins.org/mc/menus/conf.html.

The publication of Mere Creation signals a broadening, multi-disciplinary movement of scholars who challenge naturalistic evolution on scientific and philosophical grounds. Scientifically, specialists in the relevant fields show that the evidence points to intelligence which fine-tuned the universe and designed complex organisms. Philosophically, the authors insist that origins science must be separated from the naturalism which excludes design or a Designer by definition.

Each essay contains an extensive bibliography and, unlike many edited volumes, Mere Creation has a thorough index. Most of the essays are accessible to college-level readers, but some are highly technical. In summary, this book makes a substantial contribution to the origins debate by gathering 19 leading scholars from relevant fields to propose how intelligent design can be made into a full-fledged scientific research program.

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For over a century, the scientific establishment has ignored challenges to the theory of evolution. But in the last decade such complacency about its scientific and philosophical foundations has been shaken. As cracks in the Darwinian edifice have begun to appear, many are asking whether a defensible alternative exists.

In response to this growing crisis, a movement has emerged among scholars exploring the possibility of intelligent design as an explanatory theory in scientific descriptions of the universe. As Michael Behe has proposed in his landmark Darwin's Black Box, at the cellular level there appears to be a high level of irreducible complexity that suggests design.

In this book Behe is joined by eighteen other expert academics trained in mathematics, mechanical engineering, philosophy, physical anthropology, physics, astrophysics, biology, ecology and evolutionary biology to investigate the prospects for this emerging school of thought. Challenging the reigning ideology of materialistic naturalism on both scientific and philosophical grounds, these scholars press the case for a radical rethinking of established evolutionary assumptions.

"This book shows the robustness of the emerging design paradigm, and demonstrates that it is a workable research program across a broad range of disciplines. A great introduction to this exciting new movement."

Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries

"This collection not only brings one up to date on a vital issue, but it is so stimulating that it should lead to more ground-breaking investigations."

Diogenes Allen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Princeton Theological Seminary

Fr. Patrick Reardon, Touchstone Magazine

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief, First Things

Dean L. Overman, author of A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization

Copyright © William A. Dembski. All Rights Reserved.

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