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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