Book Review: How Blind is the Watchmaker?

Author: Dr. Neil Broom
Spiritual Bias: Christian?
Origins Bias: Creationist
Rating: Middle of the Road
Level: Intermediate

Comments: In this book Broom picks up where William Paley left off with his famous "If you found a watch in the forest you would know that it was the result of intelligent design and not random chance" argument. This work is a combination of two very different angles of argumentation. Broom explains several scientific details which demonstrate how special and delicately balanced life is but also spends a good deal writing about scientific philosophy. For example, he details the production of cellular protein production yet also discusses the limits of the reductionist scientific paradigm. Unfortunately I found this marriage to be a bit forced but overall the book is good and I recommended it. But one should bear in mind.. because of it's level of specialization this is clearly not the book that you want to pick up if you're new to the topic of origins.

Summary Quote: "Mechanistic science is spectacularly successful in its pursuit of lower-level knowledge, but the fundamental laws of nature that modern science has revealed and systematized cannot be used to answer questions that relate to higher-level understanding. We can see, for example, that science is unable to deal with the much deeper question of why the biological system we call the chloroplast even exists without trepassing into the nonmaterial or transcendent dimenion of purpose and meaning. The great danger for science is surely its own sense of self-confidence gained from its truly remarkable success in providing these lower-level explanations. It has developed an almost unwavering belief in itself as the maker of truth."