Book Review – In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design

Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from the new expanded second edition of Granville Sewell’s book In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design (Discovery Institute Press). ENV contributor Dr. Sewell is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso. He has written three books on numerical analysis, and is the author of a widely used finite element computer program.

Prologue to the cult of evolution atheism

Before I venture into Professor Sewell’s work, I have reviewed this academic’s work in the past which immediately generated nasty attacks from numerous trolls and Darwin sycophants of the cult of evolution atheism, namely in Sept. 2011 by Wesley Elsberry (a long time evolution-activist and former staff member with the National Center for Science Education). Since Elsberry scrupulously avoided any references to substantive, scientific or philosophical criticisms of intelligent design (ID), therefore nothing he wrote then or now diminishes from Sewell’s work in the least. The major part of Elsberry’s attack was his outrage because allegedly Professor Sewell committed “self-plagiarism” by republishing existing essays in the first edition of his book. Elsberry’s attacks against Sewell reveal the counter-intuitive nature of his baseless diatribe, therefore plagiarizing yourself is ironic since plagiarism is by definition using the work of others without properly or fully citing your sources and Sewell cited himself. However, setting those arguments aside I will now review Sewell’s opus, In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design (Discovery Institute Press, 2015 [2nd Ed.]).

Review of Professor Sewell’s work

Sewell writes, “The recent success of Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt is evidence that the scientific theory of intelligent design continues to gain momentum. Since critics often misrepresent ID, painting its advocates as a fanatical fringe group, it is important to understand what intelligent design is, and what it is not.” Misrepresenting ID is a cottage industry to the adherents of evolution atheism. Since I hold Darwinism to be a cult, therefore its members are fanatics without the ability of reason, therefore they of necessity must purposely lie about ID; to shift the light of truth away from evolution, thus exposing Darwin’s own admission to his friend Asa Gray in a June 1859 letter that evolution was a lie from the beginning: “It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts,” Darwin wrote.

“Until Charles Darwin, almost everyone everywhere believed in some form of intelligent design. The majority still do. Not just Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but almost every tribesman in every remote corner of the world drew the obvious conclusion from observing animals and plants that there must have been a mind behind the creation of living things,” Sewell writes. “Darwin thought he could explain all of this apparent design through natural selection of random variations. In spite of the fact that there is no direct evidence that natural selection can explain anything other than very minor adaptations,” Sewell continues, “his theory has gained widespread popularity in the scientific world, simply because no one can come up with a more plausible theory to explain evolution, other than intelligent design, which is dismissed by most scientists as ‘unscientific.'” Sewell further writes, “But, in recent years, as scientific research has continually revealed the astonishing dimensions of the complexity of life, especially at the microscopic level, support for Darwin’s implausible theory has continued to weaken. Since the publication in 1996 of Darwin’s Black Box by Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, a growing minority of scientists have concluded, with Behe, that there is no possible explanation for the complexity of life other than intelligent design. But what exactly do these “ID scientists” believe?” Sewell queries.

Evolution atheists always rant and rave about “consensus” yet even in the most remedial science classes in elementary school we were taught that there can never be “consensus” in science because science is always testing and retesting and retesting phenomena using the four basic principles of the scientific method we received from Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), namely – Observation, Experimentation, Hypothesis, Theory. Since Darwin, the father of evolution himself called his own “theory” of evolution “a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts,” how can scientists of the twenty-first century attribute greater scientific rigor, credibility, and truth to a “hypotheses” than its own creator could ascribe? We can’t, and it is intellectually dishonest to try to do so.

Sewell continues, “There is no general agreement among advocates of intelligent design as to exactly where, when, or how design was manifested in the history of life. Most, but not quite all, accept the standard timeline for the beginning of the universe, of life, and of the major animal groups. Meyer’s book focuses on the sudden appearance of most of the animal phyla in the “Cambrian explosion,” more than 500 million years ago. Many, including Michael Behe, accept common descent.” Yet I contend that evolutionist bromides like natural selection and survival of the fittest ignore the basic facts of nature and science – that life as we know it today happened very suddenly and very dramatically. Mainstream scientists, if they are really honest with themselves, of necessity must realize that evolution atheism is a profound and diabolical lie from its beginnings, yet Sewell writes, “Probably all reject natural selection as an adequate explanation for the complexity of life, but so do many other scientists who are not ID proponents. So what exactly do you have to believe to be an ID proponent?”

Sewell answers this question writing, “Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to state clearly what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design.” He quotes from Peter Urone’s 2001 physics text College Physics and further writes, “One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that only four distinct forces account for all known phenomena,” Thereby concluding that “The prevailing view in science today is that physics explains all of chemistry, chemistry explains all of biology, and biology completely explains the human mind; thus physics alone explains the human mind and all it does.” Indeed, and since evolution atheists cannot allow ID scientists to win the argument over the origins of life; over the hearts and minds of the people despite the growing body of facts like Sewell’s book which systematically exposes the lies of evolution atheism, they will continue to proffer distorted and perverse arguments of ID in their futile efforts to prop up the dead corpse of evolution.

“This is what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design: that the origin and evolution of life, and the evolution of human consciousness and intelligence, are due entirely to a few unintelligent forces of physics,” Sewell writes. “Thus you must believe that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into computers and science texts and jet airplanes.” Of course when natural facts and examples found in nature are cited derivative of the complexity of material things we know man created only makes the major foundations of evolution atheism legitimate science as much as natural selection, survival of the fittest, Herbert Spencer’s “Social Darwinism” and Julian Huxley “Evolutionary synthesis” are authentic theories.

Sewell sets the record straight by refusing to allow evolution atheists to assume all ID theorist are alike or subscribe to the same Groupthink of Darwinists, writing that “Contrary to popular belief, to be an ID proponent you do not have to believe that all species were created simultaneously a few thousand years ago, or that humans are unrelated to earlier primates, or that natural selection cannot cause bacteria to develop a resistance to antibiotics. If you believe that a few fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones, you are probably not an ID proponent, even if you believe in God. But if you believe there must have been more than unintelligent forces at work somewhere, somehow, in the whole process: congratulations, you are one of us after all!”

Professor Sewell brings great scientific credentials to the ID/evolution debate as Ph.D. educated mathematician from Purdue, and has no agenda other than truth and science which he uses pure logic, scientific and mathematical reasoning to essentially state in his opinion that evolution only produces chaos and randomness while ID produces (or at least explains) order, reason of creation and the invisible, metaphysical mind that of necessity had to put the universe in order and keep it in order for millions of years based transcendent principles, otherwise all we have is existential chaos, anarchy, nihilism and everything that was ever created was a psychotic allusion that never existed. Since Professor Sewell and the ID community generally do not venture down the road of existentialism, we will have to leave those speculations for another time.

Epilogue: ID truth vs. cult of evolution atheism

If I could propose another subtitle to Sewell’s excellent and revelatory book on intelligent design it would allude to his mathematical expertise as the author of three well-respected books on numerical analysis and another book on a widely-used finite element computer program. Therefore, for me Sewell’s subtitle could have been: ‘Evolution, the numbers just don’t add up.’

Sewell writes that “In the current debate between Darwinism and intelligent design, the strongest argument made by Darwinists is this: in every other field of science, naturalism has been spectacularly successful, why should evolutionary biology be so different? Even most scientists who doubt the Darwinist explanation for evolution are confident that science will eventually come up with a more plausible explanation. That’s the way science works, if one theory fails, we look for another one; why should evolution be so different? Many people believe that intelligent design advocates just don’t understand how science works, and are motivated entirely by religious beliefs.” Since 1859, the year Darwin published On the Origins of Species, the political Left in three different centuries has gotten away with propagating the scientific mythology of evolution as Gospel because of one phrase – ‘good intentions.’ This always gives the socialists and atheists of political Left cover to propagate unworkable policies upon society because of their good intentions or the “common good” cannot be measured using either objective mathematical principles or on scientific grounds. And we know about the famous expression, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Sewell’s Socratic dialectical reasoning evident throughout this book is irrefutable and thus drives the apologists of evolution atheism insane because these scientists realize that belief in evolution is just a subjective blind faith lacking any verifiable scientific evidence, yet careers are at stake; government funding could be jeopardized if scientists and academics began en masse to deny evolution. This is why I consider evolution and its twin ideologies: natural selection and the racist survival of the fittest which Darwin’s original subtitle: “…by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. That racist subtitle exposed the major intellectual foundation of both evolution and the pseudo-scientific eugenics arguments of Charles Darwin’s nephew, Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). Nevertheless the overt racist foundation of evolution had to be covered up with the publication of the 6th edition in 1872, to preserve its’ scientific integrity and to complete its original intent – to destroy Christianity and replace it as the dominate worldview in society.

Evolution atheists realize that ID makes logical and scientific sense and that evolution atheism is patently a racist, pseudo-scientific ideology that goes counter to every scientific theory, principle and method known to mankind, yet why do the overwhelming majority of modern scientists and academics slavish cling to the cult of evolution? Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” and his most fanatical adherent, said it best: “It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.”

Please buy, read and pass along Professor Granville Sewell’s outstanding work on intelligent design to your friends, but especially to our youth who aren’t being taught intellectual and transcendent truths in education. In my opinion this book is a masterpiece of scientific logic, reasoning, analysis and intellectual rigor that ably exposes the sophistic, socialist arguments of evolution atheism from what Sewell calls “a few unintelligent forces of physics.”

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Book Notice

It’s been 5 years since publishing my last book and now I’ve published two new volumes – THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION (University Press of America, 2013):

Vol. 1 @ https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761861102

Vol. 2 @ https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761861126

However, before the book is officially released to the public I have to place 100 pre-publication orders (50 orders per each volume). I need your help to make this happen ASAP. Please place your order today for volumes 1 & 2. Of course if you can order all 100 copies today, the book will become official tomorrow.

Please circulate this flyer to all your email contacts & Facebook/Twitter followers who may be interested in reading this opus. Thanks in advance to all my friends, associates and colleagues for your valuable support!

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Invitation for manuscripts

I am starting a new a program on my blog dedicated to giving young conservatives (ages 14-35) a regular place to display and publish their ideas called Socrates Corner. If you know of any young person who wants to publish their ideas on any subject, have them send their essay manuscripts to my email at ewashington@<font size=”1″ color=”#FFFFFF” style=”display:none; font-size:1px”><NOSPAM></font>wnd.com .

© Ellis Washington

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