New Book Is Available

Posted April 19, 2004

Discussion

A book titled Unintelligent Design by Mark Perakh is now available from Amazon.com online bookstore ($22.40 plus SH) and is expected to be available in bookstores shortly. Here is the editorial review:

From the Inside Flap

Spurred on not only by the quasi-scientific agenda of the so-called intelligent design theorists, who seek to prove the existence of God mathematically, but also by his personal contact with otherwise rational scientists, physicist Mark Perakh sets out to reveal the falsity of the claims of neocreationism with a thorough, carefully detailed series of arguments aimed at the very heart of those who would see evolutionary theory discarded. Perakh strips away the reader-unfriendly "mathematizing" present in the neocreationist theses in order to reveal their flawed logic and their meaninglessness.

His work is divided into three parts: first, an attack on the specifics of intelligent design, a theory spearheaded by the writings of William Dembski (THE DESIGN INFERENCE, INTELLIGENT DESIGN, NO FREE LUNCH), Michael Behe (DARWIN'S BLACK BOX), and Phillip Johnson (DARWIN ON TRIAL, THE WEDGE OF TRUTH, DEFEATING DARWINISM BY OPENING MINDS); second, a critical dismantling of several arguments closely related to the intelligent design movement, such as attempts to "harmonize" the Bible with modern scientific understanding of the universe, the anthropic principle, and nonrandom evolution; and finally, a discussion of proper scientific method and probability theory, as well as an infamous account of science gone bad for the sake of religion--the Bible code theory propagated by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg.

This thoughtful and incisive critique from a veteran scientist genuinely concerned about the integrity of the scientific enterprise wastes no diplomacy on those who would see its purpose twisted to ideological ends. Perakh successfully ties his opponents' arguments together by demonstrating how most of them are based on the same mistaken view of probability theory and the same disregard for impartial objectivity in testing hypotheses. This is a must-read for anyone interested in separating scientific facts from religion masquerading as science.

About the Author

Mark Perakh is professor emeritus of physics at California State University, Fullerton. A native of the Soviet Union, he taught and conducted research in Israel, Germany, and England before coming to the United States. Perakh has published four books and nearly three hundred scientific articles, and has received a number of prizes for his work, including one from the Royal Society of London.

Unintelligent Design
By Mark Perakh
ERRATA

(1) Necessary changes in Internet links

All links to Mark Perakh's website which are in the form www.nctimes.net/~mark/ should be replaced with http://members.cox.net/marperak/ ; more specifically, links to articles dealing with the Bible code should be changed to the form http://members.cox.net/mkarep ; links to short stories in English by Mark Perakh should be changed to http://members.cox.net/marperak/Engstories/ ; links to Mark Perakh's short stories in Russian should be changed to http://members.cox.net/marperak/sixstories/ ; links to the articles on Letter Serial Correlation authored either by Brendan McKay and Mark Perakh, or by Mark Perakh and Brendan McKay, or by Mark Perakh alone, which are in the form www.nctimes.net/~mark/Texts/filename.htm, should be changed to http://members.cox.net/marperak/Texts/filename.htm .

(2) Misprints and other errors

Discussion

• Design Argument. , by Vyas, Dhaval [22-Aug-04]

• Design Argument., by Perakh, Mark [23-Aug-04]

• Your book, by Korthof, Gert [14-May-06]

• Your book, by Perakh, Mark [14-May-06]