This is obvious to anyone not blinded by groupthink or by morbid, anti-religious bias. In his telling, modern evolutionary theory is not merely incorrect, it is ridiculous. For another, there is a great deal of swagger and bravado involved. No subterfuge about the possibility of intelligent aliens or anything like that. It is the sort of short, large print, truculent book that has more in common with Henry Morris and Duane Gish than with William Dembski or Michael Behe.įor one thing, the book is openly evangelistic. But more than that, it is a real step backward in tone and style for ID. They pop their collective heads up to publish a book every once in a while, but all the recent ones have just been rehashes of old, discredited arguments.Īxe's book is an egregious example of this.
Undeniable book douglas axe free#
I say that in part because the ID folks do not seem to have had a new idea since Dembski's No Free Lunch.
While I no longer blog with anything like my former enthusiasm, I do return here periodically to remind you that ID is dead. The fact is that every child figures out that complex machines come from intelligence, and that's all you need to conclude that life is designed. The argument of his new book is this: The latest science shows that evolution is total nonsense, but that's just for geeks and nerds. Axe, if you are unfamiliar with him, is a protein chemist and the latest ID celebrity. That's basically what Douglas Axe's new book is like. I tried it.” I use the scare quotes to indicate their tone of bemused contempt. But you know what? I did my own kind of research. The climax of each commercial was when the person said something like, “How do I know Excedrin works? Well, they have their “scientific research” to prove it. In each, some very normal-looking and totally relatable person would talk straight to the camera, explaining that he or she suffered from terrible headaches and had tried every other remedy.
Undeniable book douglas axe series#
Kristin Vargas is Assistant Archivist at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.Do you remember those commercials, from a few years back, for Excedrin headache medicine? There was a whole series of them. Whether one is an atheist, agnostic, or a theist, Undeniable adds another exciting voice to a lively debate. Readers will also find it enlightening just how little geneticists understand about DNA, or the way the brain functions, based on the most current discussion in peer-reviewed papers. One of the most interesting discussions in his book concerns functional coherence and the way in which living beings work compared to human-made inventions composed of working parts. Overall, if Axe remains unconvincing to readers in his argument toward design, the book remains engaging for the reader who is curious about scientific ideas. His enthusiasm in infectious, and even if the reader is not usually inspired by science, Axe shows how exciting questions concerning the universe are “up for grabs” (274). The analogies that help the reader tap into this common science include homing pigeon robots, blind egg-hunts, high-tech pond scum, and the life patterns of salmon.Īxe is unapologetic in his love for life on earth and the biology that makes each species unique, from the lowliest bacteria to the majestic orca. According to Axe, human beings are natural scientific observers and model makers. In fact, Axe illustrates his supporting examples using what he terms “common science” to reveal our universal design intuition. Readers should not feel intimidated by the technical aspects of this book, as Axe’s writing style is thoroughly clear and accessible to non-scientists. Science is not based on consensus, despite some claims to the contrary.
Axe deems it important for his readers to understand, for example, how even the most prestigious biologists can dogmatize what should be open scientific debate. This introduction highlights the human element that often obscures scientific truth and colors perceptions that can distort obvious gaps in theory, particularly the theory of evolution. The beginning of the book reads more like an autobiography than a book concerning science and faith, but the glimpse it offers into the author’s personal search for meaning is enormously helpful in clarifying what follows. He uses his expertise and knowledge in the field of microbiology, specifically his work on protein enzymes, to explain why Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection is fantastically improbable and therefore, for all intents and purposes, “ practically impossible” (117). In Undeniable, microbiologist Douglas Axe makes a case for intelligent design over and against the dominant secular materialism that pervades the scientific community.
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