Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell

by Thomas Lo, Paul Chien, Eric Anderson

Are life and the universe a mindless accident—the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution? That’s the official story many of us were taught somewhere along the way. But what does the science actually say? Drawing on recent discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, biology, and paleontology, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell shows how the latest scientific evidence suggests a very different story.

170 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 19, 2020

Reviews

[Andy Deck · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book solidly delivers its promise - history and basic information for someone to appreciate the debate between evolution and intelligent design. The Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture continues to produce excellent material advancing the discussion.

[Procyon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This very short (150 page) book on Intelligent Design (ID) is a poor example of its defense. The five authors do no have relevant credentials in the fields they try to talk about; nor have they published any recent articles in either evolutionary biology or paleontology in well-respect journals. They give up any support for evolutionary biology by the second chapter. Again, this “book” is only five chapters long.

For example, the last chapter by Paul Chien talks about his trip in the 1990s to an important Cambrian fossil site in China. His ID defense for his “rapid phylogeny of many body plans” is that he looked at a few sponges under an electron microscope 20 years ago, he took some pics in a Beijing museum, and a guy gave him a diagram of a top down model of species growth.

This IS NOT how science is done. If these authors were serious about this stuff they would publish their findings in either a genetic, phylogeny, evolutionary biology or paleontology journal. The Discovery Institute has the money to so, but they haven’t tried anything recent of merit.

Don’t waste your time on this book or with the young earth creationist none-sense from the Discovery Institute.

[Bill Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clearest and easiest to understand overview of the Intelligent Design argument.

I've read seven books on intelligent design so far. This is the shortest (167 pages) and easiest to read, and fun. Yet it's weird how it doesn't feel watered down. It still feels substantial.
One of my favorite chapters is titled "A Factory that Builds Factories that Builds Factories that..." It's a fun romp into the clever mind game of what an inventor would need to solve to build a factory that can rebuild itself, and so on into the future. (It's a way of helping us understand the equivalent problem in biology... really got me thinking)

There have been a couple of multi-year projects that made substantial progress in using 3D printers to be able to replicate many of the printer's own parts in plastic. However, the problem becomes more difficult when one considers that 3D printers have many parts NOT made of plastic: a precision stainless steel extrusion nozzle, copper wire, a heating element, rubber drive belts, and so on.
Even if those could be printed, then there's the problem of measuring them for tolerance fit, and making corrections, and assembling them in the correct way. So that means the invention needs not only a 3D printer, but guages and machines to assemble parts. And it also means that there needs to be an instruction set that drives the process. And a place to store and read those instructions. (How can you print a computer chip?) It gets harder.

The punchline is that human engineers are nowhere close to a working machine that can do all that.
But biology has such a capability. It really makes one appreciate how many difficult engineering problems were solved. It made me really wonder, how did random chance (mutations) solve all those hard problems? Was it chance?

[Larry White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction and refresher to this subject. You can find many books that go into greater detail (and they are highly recommended also), but this is an outstanding overview. Scientists have embraced too much scientism, refusing to consider the considerable physical evidence for the metaphysical. This book gives a scientific and evidential case for intelligent design as a viable (superior, in fact) explanation for macroevolution and the origin of life. It doesn’t dismiss microevolution, but shows how Darwin’s theory is so much more limited than what is accepted uncritically by so many. Science (as well as education and the media) just won’t consider the issues because of its utterly unfounded presupposition that God does not exist.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

An easy to read book that explains the science behind its arguments in simple English for non scientist readers. The argument is to best explanation in that Intelligent Design is the hypothesis that explains the scientific evidence best.

The book will annoy both Evolutionists and Creationists The former by denying Darwinian Evolution. The latter by not stating who or what was the intelligence behind Life.

The inclusion of questions for the reader at the end of each chapter suggests that an eye was kept on the homeschooling market.

[Philosophical Logic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book to read if you are new to the debate between evolution and intelligent design. The book is concise but filled with powerful arguments that show that the idea of evolution just isn't the fittest idea, and therefore, cannot survive. The book is introductory, brief, and very helpful to the layperson.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors make the subject readable and interesting to the layman. Lays out some good arguments against the Darwinian theory that all life we see today arose from chemical molecules several billion years ago.

[John Langlois · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read. It is refreshing to read about recent science discoveries showing where the evidence leads rather than forcing it into Victorian theories which remain stuck in the past. We need 21st Century scientists researching 21st Century science.

[Stephen J. Kohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Great Read

Great exposition of the development of the universe and of plant and animal life on earth. It is not so obtuse that can only be understood by a scientist or so dumbed down that is insulting.

[Kei-Lynn Wheaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! I highly recommend to anyone interested in the debate between intelligent design and evolution.

[Jim Vilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book

Clearly written,not overly academic, and quite convincing in stating his case for intelligent design. Actually felt a bit sad to have finished it.