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Title: Law, Darwinism & Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design by Francis Beckwith ISBN: 0-7425-1431-5 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.79 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "Don't Criticize What You Can't Understand"
Comment: Too many people reviewing this book don't get it. The Daubert case flap is an illustration. Beckwith does not say whether he agrees or disagrees with Daubert. All that he is saying is that Daubert, as precedent, helps the cause of ID if a judge were to require a high level of scrutiny as to what counts as "science." However, he does point out that ID folks will likely not have to rely on Daubert because the issues they raise are found throughout the peer-review science literature (though mostly NOT raised by ID advocates) and have been published in peer-reviewed monographs, anthologies, and academic journals that deal with the philosophy of science.
Beckwith's book is a brief for the permissibility of teaching ID in public schools. As any good law student knows, a brief is not meant to critique the plausibility of the opinions it cites in support of its case. So, if Beckwith had not consulted or employed Daubert, then it would have been a bad brief.
The negative reviewers, whose motives are impure, will not tell you what I just told you. Their concern is "spin" and not accuracy.
They have been helpful, however: they have provided yet another piece of evidence of the wicked vitriol that goes on in this controversy by the Darwinian Bull Dogs.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Splendid Assessment
Comment: Beckwith's monograph is a splendid assessment of the complex legal questions surrounding the teaching of origins in public schools. It is not a book of science; it is a book of juriprudence in which Beckwith explores the issues with candor and rigor. I'm not quite sure what book his detractors have read, but the book about which I write is careful in its claims and modest in its conclusions. Unfortunately, the one-star reviewers are not as careful and thus not as modest, and it tarnishes their assessment of this fine work. For example, one reviewer says with unwarranted confidence that Beckwith does not mention non-Darwinian options besides ID. Not true. In his presentation of evolution Beckwith brings up genetic drift, punctual equillibrium, the founder effect, and recombination, pointing out that "the notion of common descent is fundamental to macroevolution even if Darwinian and neo-Darwinian accounts of this descent are replaced or supplemented by another theory." (p. 4). Another reviewer says that Beckwith claims that ID has no evidence to support it. This is a misleading, if not false, comment. Beckwith spends 29 pages (91-120) and 10 pages of endnotes (166-176) presenting the case for ID. Of course, he does not make any pronouncements of their soundness. But that is not the purpose of his project. The purpose is to delve into a jurisprudential question. Another reviewer says that Beckwith's book is not peer-reviewed in a science journal. Again, misleading. Beckwith's book is a revised version of his Master of Juridical Studies dissertation at the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis. It was peer-reviewed by faculty there including his advisor Stanley Paulsen, a philosopher and law professor conservant in the area pertinent to Beckwith's work, the philosophy of science. Another reviewer states that Beckwith does not cite one pro-ID article that has been published in a peer-reviewed science journal. But the reviewer will not tell you that that Beckwith cites ID works that have been peer-reviewed by scientists (e.g., Darwin's Black Box), peer-reviewed by philosophers of science and scientists (e.g., W. L. Craig's work on the anthropic argument, Del Ratzsch's book, the Design Inference) and published in philosophy of science journals and prestigous academic monograph series. Beckwith, in an extensive endnote, addresses the peer-review question with candor and accuracy (unlike his detractors). He admits that theID folks suffer from a deficit in peer-reviewed science journals, but that the other peer-reviewed works in anthologies, philosophy of science journals, and academic monograph series is impressive. The fact that the reviewer has to parse his words so carefully so that each adjective is precisely placed so that the ID works can be dismissed without engaging them speaks volumes of the sort of "authority envy" scientistic types suffer from. So, this is how the game is played: if the ID guys are peer-reviewed, we require "science peer-reviewed." But if they do that, and its in a book, then it must be "science peer-reviewed JOURNAL." I suspect that if they were to publish it in NATURE, it will be "science peer-reviewed journal that doesn't begin with an `n.'" At some point these reviewers have to actually get their hands dirty and quit relying on worn-out stereotypes and out-moded paradigms.
Another reviewer states that Beckwith mischaracterizes science textbooks. If you have been paying attention, you can probably guess why this objection has been leveled: Beckwith does not deal with textbooks, for that is not his project (again!). He is not offering an assessment of science textbooks; he is examining a question of principle, whether it would be permissible to insert ID in a curriculum with running afoul of our Constitution.
"Naturalistic evolution" is defined rather nicely by Beckwith, for his purpose, as I understand it, is to show that evolution is more than a theory of biology, but a grand tale of how everything came to be out of matter without the assistance of guidance of any intelligence. If this is the story told in science textbooks, then it is giving a naturalistic account as true, since, as Beckwith points out, science is the paradigm of knowledge in our culture. It is unlikely that the Gilchrist study cited by a reviewer would have considered such an account as "naturalistic evolution" since naturalism is so built into the scientistic culture; it's like asking fish if they see water.
It is interesting that the reviewers attack Beckwith by pointing out that he is a legally trained philosopher and not a scientist. In my judgment, this gives him a tremendous advantage, for lawyers and philosophers are taught how to think through arguments and to assess their soundness. Scientists are notoriously bad at making philosophical distinctions about the nature of what they do, for they are not trained in that way. They are narrowly-trained professionals--with great intellects in most cases--who work under the strictures of a paradigm that they have never dreamt of critically assessing. This is why a scientist can say--with a straight face--that "science is what is testable" to a creationist to ward him off, and then praise Steve Hawking's multiple-universe hypotheses even though it is, well, not testable. A scientist can make a distinction between science and non-science--an act of pure philosophy--and then make fun of philosophy. A scientist can make fun of lawyers, and then restrict their access to the science guild on the basis of an epistemological exclusionary rule, a law if you will. So many scientists are amateur philosophers and lawyers, and get away with it, because they call their pedantic meanderings "science."
There is no doubt that priesthood has its privileges, and apparently one of these privileges is to play fast and loose with the truth while reviewing the works of legal theorists, like Beckwith, whose superior command of argument cannot be tolerated by the guardians of all that is "true." Much of what these guys have written here is badly reasoned and badly written.
Rating: 5
Summary: Well-written book with a modest conclusion
Comment: I've read virtually all of the law reviews written on the constitutional status of presenting alternative theories to evolution in the publics school classroom. Francis Beckwith's modest conclusion falls just slightly to the right of assessments made by other respected legal scholars like Kent Greenawalt and Jay Wexler. It is his contention that an alternative theory like Intelligent Design could probably survive an Establishment Clause challenge whereas the Genesis-based creation science presentation has not. Greenawalt and Wexler aren't sure and tend to think ID might not survive an Establishment Challenge.
As far as quality goes, the book is well-written and researched. It also display's Beckwith's strength as a philosopher as he parses arguments. The bottom line is that Beckwith offers a very modest conclusion. Intelligent Design may someday be offered as an alternative theory of origins in public school and may survive an Establishment Clause challenge largely due to its lack of allegiance to any theological tradition. The theory makes no attempt to offer an explanation of who or what provides the agency of design
Beckwith's book is a valuable contribution to the literature estimating the constitutional status of intelligent design. If a court case does arise, his book will certainly be part of the material considered.
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Title: Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges by Robert H. Bork ISBN: 0844741620 Publisher: American Enterprise Institute Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design by Thomas Woodward ISBN: 0801064430 Publisher: Baker Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series) by John Angus Campbell, Stephen C. Meyer ISBN: 0870136755 Publisher: Michigan State University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: What We Can't Not Know: A Guide by J. Budziszewski ISBN: 189062649X Publisher: Spence Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig ISBN: 0830826947 Publisher: InterVarsity Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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