Design Revolution

By: William Dembski

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's Summary

Is it science? Is it religion? What exactly is the Design Revolution? This book answers the toughest questions about Intelligent Design. As the Intelligent Design movement has gained momentum over recent years, questions have naturally arisen to challenge its provocative claims. With clarity and concision, William Dembski responds to the most vexing questions and objections raised by experts and non-experts.

©2004 William A. Dembski (P)2008 christianaudio.com

the fresh air...

of a paradigm shift! accessible and fairly easy to follow. Excellent narration. i recommend it.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Intelligent Design defended

What made the experience of listening to Design Revolution the most enjoyable?

It was orderly and progressed in a way that made the listening easy. However, the material covered is fairly complex and I will have to read the book to better understand some of the points made.

What other book might you compare Design Revolution to and why?

Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell covers a different aspect of the intelligent design movement, asking where the information in DNA came from. Dembski considers the problems of detecting design, especially in biological systems. He lets the reader know that saying these complex biological systems are the result of intelligent design and couldn't be developed by random variation and natural selection. Meyer covers many bases, including the calculating the probability of the random assembly of a functional protein in a prebiotic soup. Both Meyer and Dembski explain the limitations of the universe's probabilistic resources.

What does Grover Gardner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrator made a difficult subject easier to follow.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No way to listen in one sitting. This is a very heady subject with the introduction of many technical philosophical and mathematical terms. It's better to consider listening to the book as a way to prepare to read the book

Any additional comments?

Anyone who wants to understand the science of intelligent design in greater depth would benefit from this book.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Not a natural transition to audio

This book contains many excellent responses to common objections to Intelligent Design, and is an must have reference for the subject.

Unfortunately, it is not really meant to be read (or listened to) from beginning to end. Questions are answered in sequence, as individual responses. The author does not assume the reader has read the book from the beginning to that point, so he repeats himself often.

So my suggestion would be to buy the printed version -- unless you don't mind highly repetitive narration of very strong arguments.

20 of 25 people found this review helpful

Profound and didactic, but worth the effort

The author makes some excellent points as he goes through the arguments for Intelligent Design. It seems like he is making the same point from about 20 different directions, so you may find yourself wondering if he will ever be finished. My feeling is that he realized that the reader/listener would need a lot of repetition to get these concepts into our thick skulls. For those who really want to have an understanding of ID, this is a great book, but it is not for anyone who just wants a general discussion of the subject. If you like to listen to the audiobook, you will probably want to buy the paper copy so you can write in it and dogear the pages.

13 of 17 people found this review helpful

Honest defeat of Darwin

Where does Design Revolution rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of the best books I have either read or listened to.

What did you like best about this story?

What I liked best about the book is the use of concrete data, inarguable numbers and credible hypotheticals.

Have you listened to any of Grover Gardner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The narration was a bit

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

A tagline for a film version of this book would be:

Any additional comments?

I cannot begin to understand the mind which cannot assent to the plain factual, logical argumentation in this book. I think someone with such an inability should seek psychiatric help, with psychotropic medication and, perhaps, some sort of logic puzzle or game therapy as part of a complete program of restoration of reasoning faculties.

It is finally time to insist that Evolution be replaced with Intelligent Design through Specified Complexity in our public schools. The pedagogical reign of unfounded dogmatism is now over.

13 of 20 people found this review helpful

Nothing less then outstanding!

This is the best book to date that I’ve read on intelligent design. More philosophy of science, logic, and simple reasoning than direct science, and this book is a must read for any person interested in this new idea.

DETAILED

Sometimes a bit dense but chalked full of counter arguments for ID. I will have to listen to it again.

Rigorous assessment of the scientific basis for ID

Dembski pulls out the big academic guns for assessing and elucidating the scientific basis undergirding ID theory. Claims to the contrary by Darwinian devotees are thoughtfully examined exposing a basis of philosophical bias rather than the bespectacled claim to scientific purity. The book can get rather technical at times by necessity.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Gives a good synopsis of the I D movement.

Although Dembski's reasoning is clear, I need to go over it again to follow as clearly.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

I thought I had a good grasp of Darwinian Flaws --

Would you listen to Design Revolution again? Why?

yes -- excellent book with excellent, easy to grasp, scientific arguments. Shows the difference between science and ideology.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Design Revolution?

Says that back in Darwin's day people thought fly's were just made of slime. Now we know about DNA.

What does Grover Gardner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Easy to listen to so I finished it. Reading such a long book is a project.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Quantifying "design" via specified complexity to mathematically infer design instead of subjective means.

Any additional comments?

Instead of being a religious zealot -- approach creation scientifically. The truth is the truth.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful