Reviews
TO BE APPLAUDED
Gene, to his credit, focuses his attention on things that are genuinely mysterious, on questions that are truly unanswered (p.288). Whether they are answerable in other terms is an open question, and one that must be fully explored. But Gene is not twisting evidence to make it seem to support a conclusion drawn in advance. For this he is to be applauded, and deserves to be taken seriously, even if in the end one draws a different conclusion than he does. For, unlike other design proponents, Gene invites you and encourages you to weigh the evidence for yourself and draw your own conclusion.
TOO MUCH TO CHOOSE FROM
I haven’t got a long way into his arguments, yet, although it is a good read. As with many other of the best books, The Design Matrix is too full of good quotations to meaningfully pick just one or two.
AMAZON REVIEWS
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This is probably the first book on Intelligent Design, on either side, to which I’ve given five stars.
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The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues is one of the best books I have read on the problems with Neo-Darwinism and the evidence for Intelligent Design.
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I would recommend The Design Matrix to curious students, interested laity, confused biology teachers, and seasoned culture warriors. It’s well written, full of fascinating details, and outlines a completely accessible approach to the great mysteries of life that is neither threatening nor stifling.
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It’s definitely a book to add to your list if it is a topic that interests you.
UTTERLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING
The Design Matrix was reviewed in the on-line journal, AntiMatters:
I must say, in conclusion, that I rarely, if ever, read a book about evolution that was (i) so thoroughly and honestly scientific — significantly more so than many Darwinist screeds — and (ii) so utterly thought-provoking.
Read the rest HERE.
THE MIDDLE WAY
Is there a middle way between the design inference and natural causation? Between teleology and non-teleological evolution? Mike Gene’s “The Design Matrix” gives an affirmative answer to these questions.
A UNIQUELY CREATIVE APPROACH TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN
The way that he supports ID is refreshingly unique, however. He doesn’t argue for a conclusion of Intelligent Design at all. He argues more modestly, for a suspicion of Intelligent Design. He would have a beef with dogmatists on either side of the issue. Quite helpfully he distinguishes between the strong evidence required for conviction by a court of law, and evidence required by an investigating detective. A detective arrives on the scene with nothing but questions. His first objective is to move toward reasonable suspicions. A little hint there, a vague clue there: these things can move him toward a theory of a crime; and from there he can begin to look for more definite signs. Eventually, much further down the road, proof may come. Mike Gene believes we should recognize ID is in the developing suspicion stage: there is no hard scientific proof of design, but there are hints and clues that raise a most reasonable suspicion, and which can lead to a search for more definite signs.
Read the rest HERE
A BRAVE NEW BOOK
Teleology is taboo in modern science. It’s not hard to see why: purpose implies design, design implies a designer, and a designer is exactly what the predominantly atheistic scientific community does not want to admit. But yet, we use telic language–specifically the language of engineering–to describe concepts in biology all the time. Is it just because we know of no better way to describe systems than by analogy to those that we ourselves have designed? Or is there something deeper to the compelling similarity between “molecular machines” that we discover inside the cell and machines that we use every day? It is such questions that drive Mike Gene’s brave new book: The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues, which aims to refocus the neverending debate over purpose in nature away from the black-and-white arguments of days past into a careful investigation of the actual evidence.
Mike (Dr. Gene, I presume?) is at his strongest when describing the intricate details of molecular machinery, and in particular that of DNA replication, mutagenesis, and error correction. He clearly describes several features of cellular replication that are salient to the debate over teleology. For example, the genetic code that we see in almost all organisms today is remarkably optimized. It allows for redundancy that reduces the chance of DNA mutations causing changes in protein structure, but on the other hand, the most common mutations due to the intrinsic chemistry of DNA lead to amino acid changes that increase hydrophobicity, increasing the likelihood of secondary structure and protein-protein interactions. There is also no evidence for precursor codes, and the variants that do exist (such as the mitochondrial code) are better explained as divergent from the universal code rather than primordial remnants. The numerous mechanisms within the cell to ensure the fidelity of DNA replication, RNA transcription, and protein translation, when compared with what we know about codes in general, are also good evidence for teleology in biology. Even more intriguingly, some bacteria have a mechanism for increasing the rate of mutations in their genomes in response to certain stresses, which along with the general trend toward hydrophobicity in proteins suggests that evolutionary mechanisms may be coopted by organisms to increase their complexity and chances of survival. One minor quibble: I would have liked to see some discussion of the “RNA World” hypothesis and how it fits (or doesn’t) with the possibility of evolution of the genetic code.
Mike’s discussion of nanotechnology and its similarities to molecular biology is also excellent. I had not appreciated the degree to which scientists studying nanotechnology are turning to biology for inspiration. He makes an excellent point when he points out that there is a remarkable convergence between the direction of engineering (toward smaller and more complex design) and what already exists within the cell. It is certainly resonable to argue from this evidence that the “molecular machinery” within the cell exhibits characteristics of design, especially as we refine our own designs by studying ever more closely analogous cellular structures.
Read the rest HERE
A REFRESHING AND CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH
Mike Gene, of Telic Thoughts, has just finished a fascinating new book on Intelligent Design called The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues (the promotional animation was done by yours truly). After becoming a little disillusioned with the ID movement a couple of years ago, I stumbled across Mike’s site and found his unique approach refreshing and constructive. So, without further ado, here is Wonders for Oyarsa’s first book review!
A New Look
The ID debate is one of the most polarized and ugly fights you’ll ever come across, and Mike is well aware of the difficulty he faces even being heard. He makes it clear from the beginning that he does not believe Intelligent Design is science, does not think it should be taught in the public schools, and does not deny evolution. He simply has no interest in the political side of ID. Rather, he is interested in the insights that telic thinking may bring to looking at the origin of life. He is interested in the beginnings of an investigation.
Read the rest HERE.
THE DESIGN MATRIX IS FULL OF SURPRISING INSIGHTS AND EXAMPLES
Over the coming days I’ll recommend some promising books for that difficult certain someone on your gift list—the know-it-all son-in-law, the besieged college student, the intellectually deprived expat in Mexico. Maybe it’s even a stealth purchase for yourself!
Let’s start with “Mike Gene’s” book, The Design Matrix.
One of the most interesting figures in the intelligent design debate is the maverick theorist “Mike Gene,” who runs the webpage www.idthink.net, and contributes commentaries at the group blog Telic Thoughts.
Mike Gene is a pseudonym, used by its author to focus the attention of his readers on the content of his arguments, and the scientific evidence — and not on the
personality, academic training, or background of “Mike Gene” himself. That’s a healthy attitude to have in a debate all too often dominated by ad hominem attacks and motive-mongering. It also presumably protects Mike Gene from attacks by Darwinist colleagues. We have seen what they can do to dissenters, haven’t we? For the record, I don’t know who “Mike” is.
The Design Matrix, regardless, is Mike’s long-awaited book, released in time for the shopping season by Arbor Vitae Press. As befits his independent nature, Gene’s approach in the book cannot be placed in any familiar category — and that makes the work deeply fascinating and refreshing.
For those who have grown weary of apparently entrenched arguments, The Design Matrix is full of surprising insights and examples. Might the process of evolution itself, for instance, have been designed to bring about novelty and complexity? Mike Gene’s answer to that question is loaded with potentially fruitful (scientific) implications. Why has the frequency of the term “molecular machines” increased so dramatically in the scientific literature over the past few years? And so on.
Treat your gift-recipient (and yourself) to an intellectual journey along new and largely unexplored paths, in The Design Matrix.
EACH CHAPTER READS LIKE A THRILLER
It’s rather amazing that despite the fact that I have been tapped into the ID debate for close to a decade, and more than that, reading Mike Gene’s posts for just that long, reading his book still felt entirely new to me. A testament to how original and fresh his thesis is. Since I am still making my way through the book, I have yet to discover what it ultimately delivers. However, each chapter reads like a thriller, you simply do not want to skip to the end.
Although I found the arguments, imagery, and examples to be powerful, it is not an in your face advocacy of intelligent design, rather it is meant more as an open letter to anyone who wants to make something more out of the suspicion that arises when we look at ,say, the molecular machines of the cell . “It is the question that drives us, Neo.”
This was not meant to be a full review, that would most likely come later. However, I do recommend that you check it out. Unlike the last couple of Matrixes, you won’t be disappointed with this one . - HERE
THE RABBIT BECKONS
For some time now I have thought that the debate surrounding ID had grown stale. It seems that the ideas and arguments concerning intelligent design were just being recycled over and over again. That has changed. I just finished reading Mike Gene’s new book The Design Matrix and it is chock-full of interesting information, ideas, and approaches to the design question. I know a lot of you will be receiving the book soon so I won’t spoil your fun of discovery, but I think you’ll find Mike’s approach to the design issue very refreshing. You won’t find any ideologically driven claims or conclusions. Instead Mike approaches the question of design as an investigation, looking for clues and developing ways to evaluate those clues in a reasonable and thought provoking manner. His Explanatory Continuum offers a fresh and, in my view, very realistic way of interpreting biological data. Then, while acknowledging the subjectivity of the Continuum, Mike provides a way to quantify and systematically assess those judgements. His exposition of new information on the structure of genetic code really caught my eye. And of course, Mike offers lots of intriguing ideas on frontloading. For the biologically astute there is plenty of detail that will be of interest, but even for a non-biologist like me it was easy to read and follow. Then there’s much more. Each chapter provides lots of information and ideas to think about. But like I said, I don’t want to spoil your fun so these are just some hints at what you’ll find. The Rabbit beckons. - HERE
