Book Comments

These books show support by scientists for questioning the supposed truths of science and reasons to be concerned about the limits and dangers of unquestioned or misunderstood science. Please note, the following comments/reviews are worth reading even if you are not looking to buy the books. Please also note there are also book references and links within the Essays in this site and in the short comments book review page.  These books should be seriously considered as additions to your library if you have a deep interest in understanding science in a non mathematical way.

We submit that if even a small portion of the following quoted comments from the books in fact reflect the truth about science, any reasonably open minded person would have to conclude that science is very limited and tells us little about the fundamental truths of reality, and what scientists tell us is often open to serious questioning.

Note: With a few exceptions, the books commented on herein are written by scientists, experts in the philosophy of science, or well known science writers with positive reviews in major publications. There are many other good books written by non-scientists which make essentially the same basic points.  We have provided mostly just comments by reputable scientists who have independently taken positions similar to those in this website.  We do, however, not present these books as representing the beliefs of scientists in general, just those authors of the books. We do believe, however, that these books show that many highly trained and respected scientists not only recognize the limits of science but also view a belief in God as logical and close to compelling in light of the findings of science. This is true even of winners of Nobel prizes.

Besides the reviews (those below and the short reviews), the Essays in the site will often reference one or more books which may not be listed elsewhere, so we also suggest reading the essays to find books you might want to read.

"The Truth of Science" by R. Newton. While we do not agree with all the conclusions Mr. Newton reaches, the book is quite readable and interesting and does cover a lot of important ground.

On page 93, Mr. Newton states, "The facts upon which scientific laws are based are almost never established in pristine isolation, rather, in one way or another, they usually depend on these very laws: they are intertwined with them." Mr. Newton gives many examples of how science truth is never pure and certain, and for the more serious reader he covers the philosophy of science quite well.

On page 52, Mr. Newton quotes from another book ("The particle garden" which we have not read) and the quote referring to science it, "distinguishes three levels of understanding, which he calls descriptive understanding, input and mechanism understanding, and why understanding". These are important to keep in mind and to note that science rarely can prove anything about "why understanding". "Why" will almost certainly always be all or mostly a matter of faith, and faith will always be a significant part of the first two levels of understanding also. The "why" questions that we have all have had since we were children cannot be answered by science. Science is mostly silent on the fundamental why questions. This book is recommended for the more serious readers.

We strongly recommend reading the book; "A Different Universe, Reinventing Physics From The Bottom Down, by R. Laughlin, Nobel Prize physicist.  Mr. Laughlin's book is enjoyable, easy to read at the top level and loaded with astounding and profound comments on science at the deepest level.  This book is loaded with profound discussions of the realities of science.   As an aide to reading the book, we found the following pages to contain some profound statements; 6-8, 13, 14, 15, 17-21, 26,40, 43, 52-56, 67, 74-78, 85-91, 96-97, 105-114, 116, 118, 120-127, 130-131, 150-151, 154, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173, 200, 208.   Essentially what the book brings to the forefront is that even the basic underlying assumptions of physics are open to serious question based on laboratory experiments of a very fundamental nature.  Mr. Laughlin raises profound questions about reductionist thinking and is a believer in emergent properties (the whole is more than just the sum of the parts) as a key feature of reality.

On page 94, speaking of Darwinian evolution he says, "No reasonable person doubts that this is a component in the history of life but that it is the sole and totally adequate cause of all that has happened is simply an article of blind belief."

On page 95 he says, "the possibility of a further element in the metric, resulting from the operation of holistic laws in nature that encourage the formation of certain kinds of pattern and inhibit the formation of others." He seems to be saying that Darwinian evolution may be guided by some underlying laws which govern complex entities and lead to certain end results (forms of life.) This is the basic idea that is being put forward by more and more scientists who are coming to understand the extreme improbability that Darwinian evolution could account for more than a tine part of the incredible richness and complexity of life in the world.  Belief in God in an Age of Science is recommended for the general reader.

The Mind of God by noted mathematical physicist Paul Davies pub. Simon & Shuster

Mr. Davies is certainly not alone in being forced more and more by the findings of science to look seriously at the existence of God. The book is essentially about the fact that even viewed from a scientific perspective, the universe seems to be far more than what can be explained without invoking God. On page 16, Mr. Davies says, "Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact."

This noted scientists goes on to say on page 35, "One is inevitably led away from the material and the physical to the realm of the mystical and the abstract. Concepts like "logic, "number," "soul," and "God" recur throughout history as the firmest ground on which to build a picture of reality that has any hope of permanent dependability."

On page 115 Mr. Davies makes a statement reflecting on the limits of science and logic, he says, "It appears as if there is a kind of randomness or uncertainty (dare I call it "free will") built into the Life universe, as indeed there is in the real universe, due to the restrictions of logic itself, as soon as system become complex enough to engage in self-reference." By "Life universe" Mr. Davies is referring to a computer program, which at some level simulates life.

The conclusion would seem to be that when even a computer program gets reasonably complicated, there becomes a type of freedom which behaves outside the limits of logic (rules). One possible interpretation of this fact is that at any significant level of complexity, intuition and faith become an unavoidable fact of life. Logic will only take us/science so far and cannot go beyond some very limited point in explaining the complexities of the universe. Science cannot now nor ever will be able to avoid this fact.

On page 131 Mr. Davies makes a statement which reflects especially on those claiming that evolution is purely random in nature and does not follow any rule or direction. Evolution is obviously far more complicated than the computer programs which behave outside the limits of the limits of logic. "What may seem to be random may also be something which is following a rule or rules which are beyond analysis by simple logic."

Mr. Davies makes a statement speaking of something as simple as a number sequence (which may or may not be definable by an algorithm (numerical rule defining a pattern of any sort)) saying that: "you cannot know whether or not a shorter program exists for generating the sequence." This is not only true for numbers but also true for any apparent random sequence or history of information. It is not possible to look at any sequence of apparently random information and use logic to determine whether or not there is some simple underlying rule or guidance in the generation of the information.

In regards to evolution or anything else in which science has not found some law operating, the truth is that the science can never know for certain if there is some undiscovered underlying/guiding law. There will always remain the possibility that there in the future someone will discover that the process or set of information is in fact not random. Again science is limited and intuition and faith will always be required in viewing the universe in all of its incredible complexity and that is especially true of the origin and evolution of life..

On page 231 Mr. Davies makes a statement which at first glance on its surface seems somewhat offensive to people of faith but which at closer inspection shows that Mr. Davies believes that in viewing the universe, at least some form of belief/faith in God is essentially as valid as science.

Mr. Davies says, "Although many metaphysical and theistic theories seem contrived or childish, they are not obviously more absurd than the belief that the universe exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly." ------ "In the end, a rational explanation for the world in the sense of a complete and closed system of logical truths is almost certainly impossible."   This is another way of saying that the necessity for faith is unavoidable and reasonable in the light of the realities of the limits of science.

On page 190, referring to the incredible perfection of the universe as a place where life can exist in the forms we know it, and responding to those who in the face of that fact have postulated that there must be an infinity of universes and we must exist in the one which is just right for life, "To postulate an infinity of unseen and useable universes just to explain the one we do see seems like a case of excess baggage carried to the extreme. It is simpler to postulate one unseen God." This is a physicist speaking!

As is pointed out in many places in this site and the references we give in it, Mr. Davies is far from being alone amongst top scientists in seeing God as a reasonable and even probably logically preferable belief. The alternative is to accept that there have been numerous and extremely improbable circumstances and events which have lead to life and the universe in their incredible complexity, design, and beauty. Mr. Davies book The Mind of God is highly recommended for the serious reader.

"The Emperor's New Mind, Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics" by R. Penrose, one of the world's leading physicists. In his book, this makes a number of very interesting references to God.   The book is fairly deep but the subjects are profound.

On page 96 he says speaking of mathematics this highly noted scientists says, "One may take the view that in such cases the mathematician has stumbled upon the 'works of God.'" On the next page he says, "Great works of art are indeed 'closer to God'". (This is a world class physicist speaking!)

On page 112 referring to the limits of mathematical truth, this scientist and mathematics professor at Oxford says, "There is something absolute and 'God-given' about mathematical truth." 

On page 343 Mr. Penrose says "In order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universes".  Penrose then calculates a probability 1 in 10 followed by 123 zeros that such would happen by chance without a creator. 

On page 344 he says, "The precision needed to set the universe on it course is seen to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations ---- which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment." He is saying in essence that it is also incredibly improbable that all the other laws of physics and states of the universe are precisely as needed for life if one does not invoke a Creator. 

On page 350, speaking again of the conditions of the universe as we find it fit for life, "many physicists would argue that a hypothesis, such as that of vanishing initial Weyl curvature, being a choice of 'boundary conditions' and not a dynamical law, is not something that is within the powers of physics to explain. In effect, they are arguing that we have been presented with an 'act of God'".   This is quite a deep subject but Mr. Penrose's statement is profound.   He is saying that science knows of something that is not within the fundamental power of physics to ever explain.

On page 416, speaking of evolution, this world renowned scientist says, "To my way of thinking, there is still something mysterious about evolution, with its apparent 'groping' towards some future purpose. Things at least seem to organize themselves somewhat better than they 'ought' to, just on the basis of blind-chance evolution and natural selection." In other words, chance based evolution is questionable as a full answer to the incredible organization of life.

This is book is very good but it written at a highly technical level and is only for the very serious science reader, but The Emperor's New Mind is highly recommended for those so inclined.

"Making Sense of Life" by E. F. Keller, Professor of Philosophy of Science at MIT. Anyone who thinks that life is based on some simple mechanisms which can be fully explained by simple ideas like Darwinian selection should read this book. They will find that life is in fact, almost unbelievably complex and almost certainly founded on some principle or Creator which/Who is far beyond Darwin's ideas in truth and beauty.

On page 2, the professor says, "biology is scarcely any closer to a unified understanding (or theory) of the nature of life today that it was a hundred years ago." She then goes on in the book to point out that biologists have just ignored the tough questions for the most part. As an example of this, on page 166 she says, "only in passing do the authors note the limitations of a focus on transcriptional regulation: "if regulation is exerted at the level of mRNA modification, splicing, translation, or posttranslational events, these features can be included in a more detailed description with no particular difficulties" (Our comment, if that is so, why then did the authors she is referring to carefully avoid such key descriptions? This is sadly not unusual in biological writings.) She goes on to say, "As to the persisting problem of identifying the locus of control in regulation, at whatever level that regulation is seen to operate, no mention is made at all."

On page 193 again on the idea that biology has historically avoided the tough questions and specifically about cells in the embryo knowing where there are and what to change into, she says, " I believe it would be more accurate to say that it was the discomfort and sense of scientific impotence evoked by this obvious fact, rather than doubt, that were responsible for its being neglected for so many years."

On page 60 speaking of biologists avoiding the obvious problems and specifically of the families (phyla, taxa) of life, she says, "Between distinct families thus seems to lie a fundamental discontinuity that "weigh[s] heavily against Darwin's conception of endless small continuous variations."

Along a similar vein, on page 71 speaking about the dynamics of life, she says, "the concepts of genetics seem not to offer much help."

On page 102 she says in talking about an ideal offered by Alan Turning who saw that simple mechanistic ideas were not sufficient to explain all of life, in essence, without a new approach biological ideal result in, "infinite regress into which thinking about the development of biological structure so often falls." (Chicken and eggs type of problems which are numerous in biology.)

On page 137 speaking of the limits of genes as an explanation, she says, "Genes, we learned, need to be regulated, controlled, switched on and off, by something else--presumably, by non-genic entities. Should one then conclude that Morgan's suspicion had been right, that genes are not the only agents involved? (She clearly means involved in life.) (Control genes have been found, but that merely leaves the question, what controls the control genes?

In here discussions about how cells knowing where they are in the organism and what they are to become, she says on page 176, "Indeed for most developmental biologists working in the 1960's, even to speak of parts of an organism (or cells) as knowing seemed to invite a vitalistic reading of development. In referring the to the use of the term "positional information", which cells certainly have, and the fact that just using that term does not really explain anything about where that information comes from, she says, "the term has been plagued by a persistent uncertainty as to whether its referent is a phenomenon or and explanation for that phenomenon. In other words there is uncertainty among biologists because, how cells act with such intelligence is not actually explained by simply saying that they do. As she goes into in her book, there is in fact only a very small part if any of the answer can be found in genes even considering the fact that there are such things as control genes. (Most genes just code for how to make proteins needed by life.) The truth is that biology has no significant answers for most such of the key questions about life.

On page 231 talking about the fact that genes are not a simple answer to life's tough questions, she says, "it is not clear that gene products function in multiple pathways and the pathways themselves are interconnected in networks, it is obvious that there are many more possible outcomes than there are genes. The genotype, however deeply we analyze it, cannot be predictive of the actual phenotype." (Phenotype means the total characteristics displayed by an organism.) To put it more simply, it is now clear that the genes alone cannot answer all of life's questions. The full truth lies elsewhere.

On page 247 after discussing the complexity of just one of numerous control cells found in even simple life forms, she says, "the question of how such a complex mechanism might evolve poses a pressing theoretical problem for the evolutionary biologists, for it is difficult to see how the traditional answer of random mutation followed by selection could suffice."   "Making Sense of Life" is recommended for the general reader.

"The Ascent of Science" by B. Silver Professor of Physical Chemistry,

It is interesting to note that the Professor in the first page of the introduction raises a point that will startle anyone who thinks that science has absolute answers. He points out that science does not even really know what "matter" (material) is. The term "matter" is just a convenient way of allowing us to deal with one of our sense experiences. On page 1 he says, "A particle physicist might tell you that matter is a "bunching up of a field," ----- "matter" is little more than one of the concepts that allows us to deal with what our senses report of what we call the external world." The universe is not just simple particles bunched up (added together) in simple ways. The universe is a beautiful field of wave of different types which our brain interprets as something like particles. The complexity of the basic nature of the universe if far beyond the understanding of science and may always remain so due to our limited intellects. In his book "Complexification", John L. Casti (Ph.D. in mathematics) says on page 146 (referring to the work of another well known mathematician by the name of Chaitin, "It's thought provoking to consider the degree to which Chaitin's result imposes limitations on our knowledge of the world." A mathematician has analyzed the probable limits of the human mind and concluded that we probably can never fully understand the world in which we live. (More comments on the Casti book are given below.)

It is not surprising when on the first page in Chapter 1, Professor Silver then says, "I am going to ask the reader to accept certain facts on faith. This is not a disreputable cop-out. We all do it every day. Scientists certainly do--we have no choice." On page 105 he elaborates, "each branch of science builds for itself a commonly accepted collection of concepts and theories, and official ways, as it were, of looking at the world. Scientists work within the borders of this "paradigm," this faith."

So even scientists recognize and must have some form of faith. That is not surprising when later on page 10, he points out that theories which fit the facts (as they are known at the time) are not necessarily correct. The was true even for the great scientist Newton as the Professor points out, speaking of a theory of Newton's, "proposed that the particles of the air (we would call them molecules), were motionless in space and were held apart by repulsive forces between them"--- Science now can say with a very high degree of probability that Newton clearly got that wrong but his theory fitted the facts known at that time. So even a theory which fits the known facts can be wrong.

This a is a fundamental point about all theories, they are never absolute and may be proven wrong by the next experiment performed, even if they fit all the facts known at the moment. This is true even in the experimental sciences (physics, chemistry) and what should be recognized as a predominant truth in the historical sciences such as evolution. Anyone coming to the science of evolution (proven to at least explain minor modifications) and reading a number of books published over the course of time will clearly see the changing of interpretations of the historical evidence as newer findings often if not usually show prior theories to be clearly in error. Sadly, however, such error is rarely directly acknowledged.

This is not surprising, however, since the "experts" in the field have made their reputations and incomes and careers by overselling the breadth and meaning of their theories and data.  It is clearly almost humanly impossible then to admit to the failure of the theory or their misinterpretation of the data. Usually, the experts take the position that laymen should believe them because of who they are. On the page 11, professor Silver shows he is not of that ilk. He asks the question, "Why do you believe what I tell you?" "Because I am a professor of physical chemistry and have canvassed your vote?" He clearly does not think we should believe things on the basis of title or authority of the theory.

If we cannot always trust experts, what can we believe. On the same page professor Silver refers to Descartes saying "what can I know for a certainty?" The professor answers, "We still lack a final answer." In the Science Truth web site, our position is that we cannot know much about the deeper questions of reality with absolute certainty. We should always keep in mind that knowledge will always be a matter of probabilities and faith.

The honest and unexaggerated approach of professor Silver is not at all typical of scientists. On page 495 of the book, the professor quotes an unnamed Nobel Prize-winning physicists as saying "when the Higgs boson is discovered, "the news that nature is governed by impersonal laws will percolate through society, making it increasingly difficult to take seriously astrology or creationism or other superstitions." (The Higgs boson is a particle which will supposedly explain the properties of mass (gravity and inertia.)) The most recent studies have concluded, however, that the Higgs particle may not exist.

It is very informative and sad that an honored physicist (we are not talking about the book's author) is so arrogant and lumps astrology with creationism. This type of incredible, unfounded and totally unscientific statement by a Nobel prize winner is sadly a perfect example of scientists making extreme and unjustified claims and statements incredibly far removed from their field of expertise. It shows what the open minded portion of the science community is up against in combating the atheistic dogma, masquerading as science, being taught to our children.  

"The Ascent of Science" is highly recommended as a nonmathematical way for laymen to better understand science so as to be able to see through exaggerated claims by scientists which too often arise from exaggerated egos, monetary considerations (getting funding for their next research project, etc.) and loss of sight of the limitations of science. The book is recommended for all readers, with the qualification that the author seems to buy in to the Darwinian evolution paradigm in chapter 22 to too great a degree (we believe hard evidence and an understanding of the limitations of the process lead only to a justified belief in Darwinism essentially limited to microevolution.) and we believe that is a major error in his faith in that science. This is especially surprising since on page 280 he even discusses one element of a typical contradiction found frequently in the analysis of the hard facts as compared to simplistic Darwinian processes. His error becomes more understandable when on page 300, he has a figure of DNA replicates which is very misleading and does not show all the molecular machines involved in DNA replication. There is no question now that DNA in fact does not replicate itself. Somehow this fact was not known to the author or may have been misrepresented to him.  The truth is that DNA is not an active system, but only a passive information storage element.  DNA left alone (without a series of specialized molecular machines) will do nothing.  The author goes on in Chapter 27 to talk about the flaws in origin of life experiments and theories, showing that science has no clear idea as to how life might have begun without intelligent intervention.

"Complexification, Explaining a Paradoxical World Through the Science of Surprise" by J. Casti, Ph. D. Mathematics. On page 3, Mr. Casti says, "in everyday terms, the word surprise is just shorthand for the way we feel upon discovering that our pictures of reality depart from reality itself." When evaluating what a scientist says, always remember that he/she is just giving you their picture of reality which is not necessarily consistent with actual reality. Science does not make reality, science only gives us models of reality.

On page 42 he says, "surprise can arise when we ask if there is any computable rule governing a systems behavior." Science generates rules which are believed to govern physical reality. More often that scientists will generally admit, those rules are crude approximations of. Scientists often fall into the trap of letting the rules they believe to be true govern their thinking and lose their objectivity.

On page 17 Mr. Casti says, "A universal feature of knowledge is that one must get outside of a system to really understand it. For example, it is just not possible to understand the essential nature of a submarine without watching it move beneath the surface of the ocean." We would note that the periscope is a tool for seeing the view above in a limited way, but even the submarine periscope is a much more general tool than is usually used in science experiments. Science just provides a view of reality through a mental periscope structured only to look for and which can only see what the periscope is intended to see. Science sees only what the experiments are designed to see.

Also reference pages, 5, 8, 12-14, 27, 36, 40, 46, 58-61, 65, 70, 73, 78, 80, 87, 90, 92, 94, 100, 117, 138, 205, 266, 269-270

This book goes on to point out that reality is much more complex than even most scientist realize it is. The book is very interesting reading but is recommended only for the more serious readers.

"The Matter Myth" by Paul Davies, professor of Mathematical Physics and John Gribbin. Astrophysicist and Science writer.

It will, as we have said, astonish most people to find out that science does not even know precisely what matter is. We generally think of everything around us as composed of molecules which are composed of atoms. Those who have studies physics and chemistry would take it the next step and say that atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. This is all true but is really not much more than useful words since science does not really know what these particles are which make up atoms. They are certainly not simply little grains of some hard substance.

On page 283 of the book, Mr. Davies and Mr. Gribben say, "Gone are the clod like clumps of matter, to be replaced instead by "bits" of information. This is the shape of the emerging universe paradigm--a complex system in which mind, intelligence and information are more important than hardware. The time has come for us to take a look at life, mind, and intelligence, not as a parochial human concern , but in their cosmic context."

The truth is that science is not as hard and materialistic as atheists would like us to think. Mr. Davies has obviously concluded this and goes on to write the book listed next. This book is recommended for the more sophisticated reader. Pages to note, pp 28, 41-42, 45, 53-54, 56, 58, 60, 136,138, 171, 180, 214-215, 224, 244-245, 253-254, 281, 283, 307

"Stories of the Invisible, a Guided Tour of Molecules" by P.Ball. This book is full of the wonders of the microscopic realities of life. Most books on this subject ignore the moderns views of biology as much more than just assemblies of static molecular building blocks, this book delves into the modern reality. As Mr. Ball says on page 44, "A modern view of molecular biology is concerned with organization in time and space. How do the molecules of life arrange themselves amongst the cell's compartments, how are they shifted around, how do they communicate so as to synchronize their actions?"

The profound dynamic complexities of life largely ignored by those advocating Macroevolution, lead Mr. Ball to say on page 57, "The molecular symbiosis whereby DNA encodes proteins is fantastically sophisticated even in a bacteria. Neither proteins nor DNA could have come spontaneously into existence from fragments of organic molecular scattered throughout the seas and lagoons of the early earth: their structures are just to complex to have assembled at random."

On page 149 speaking about the complexities of the mind, Mr. Ball says: "Some scientists argue that the mind will never be able to fully comprehend itself, that the self referential nature of the problem will always create blind spots." We would add that the self referential nature of sciences such as Darwinian evolution will always leave it with blind spots as well. Mr. Ball goes on to say, "it is likely that the secrets of the mind lie far beyond the molecular realm, ------- Here we see the limitations of reductionism-for the molecular process of thought are now fairly well mapped out, yet their collective consequences are barely sketched."

Reading this book, it will be obvious to almost all unbiased readers, that life if far to complex to be a result of selection acting on random chance. It is highly likely that evolution is guided in some way by some type of life forming field and probably by some intelligence. This book is highly recommended.

"The book of Nothing" by J. Barrow. Even the most empty part of space is not a void by any means. Every cubic inch of the universe is seething with energy and potentials. As can be seen in the "Matter Myth" reviewed above, physics also has little to say about what matter really is. It turns out that physics also has only a little to say about why the substance of space is what it is. Space is substantial without being material! This book is far from boring as the title would imply, it is actually about the nature of the basic fabric of the universe which is the vacuum of space.

It turns out that the vacuum is in fact not really featureless. As strange as it seems, it turns out that there is an energy contained in the vacuum. (A vacuum is simply what exists after every "thing" has been removed.) The universe is far more than just "things" as materialists would like to believe.

It is now understood that the vacuum energy value is critical in allowing life to exist. Physics not only does not know what the matter is that makes up life, physics also cannot explain the properties of space which contains the matter. Physics can explain the interactions of matter with the vacuum and with various fields such as the electromagnetic, nuclear, and gravitation fields, but cannot answer our fundamental questions why questions. At the most basic levels, where physics is silent as to why, the universe has an incredible richness and complexity and all of it is precisely balanced (designed) just right for the existence of life.

The value of the vacuum energy (yes a vacuum really has energy) must be very small for life to exist and Mr. Barrow on page 26 says "Our knowledge of physics does not tell us where it (the value) should be." On page 11, Mr. Barrow says "Physicists have no idea of how its (the vacuum energy) influence could remain so small." On page 260 he says "It turns out that the value inferred from supernova observations is bizarre, roughly 10 raised to the -120 power" (this means 1 divided by 10 multiplied by itself 120 times) "This is the smallest number ever encountered in science." Even more interesting in trying to understand this strange number he says on page 261 "the vacuum seems to have its own defence mechanism to prevent us finding easy answers to this problem." He also says that physics also does not predict that the number should be stable and yet it is precisely as it must be for life to exist.

Mr. Barrow says on page 261 "Extraordinary fine tuning is needed to explain such extreme numbers. In fact, this is just one of many extremely improbable features of the universe. Even single numbers such as this point towards the universe being "designed" and "created" for life to exist." When many such numbers are multiplied together, they point towards a highly probable existence of God. Not proof, but certainly substantial information found in science which seems to strongly support a belief in God. This book of nothing is deep and fascinating and highly recommended for the more serious reader.

We next look at a book with a shocking statement at the end of the title, Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, The End of Science. by J. Horgan. The phrase "End of Science" does not mean that the author is thinking of the end of the advancement of technology. It means rather that we are getting close to the limits of what science can tell us about the deeper questions of the universe and life.

On page 266, Mr. Horgan says, referring at first to two well known scientists who do not believe in God, "for every Crick or Dawkins (meaning Francis Crick and Richard Dawkins) there are many more scientists who harbor a profound ambivalence concerning the notion of absolute truth." The truth is that any good scientist understands that "all scientific truth is conditional truth" (Albert Einstein.)

While most people of faith will not agree with many of the things put forward in this book, it is nevertheless is quite readable and covers a wide range of areas where science is showing its limits. It also contains statements which show that at least occasionally some of the proponents of hard science admit its limits. Mr. Horgan on page 124 quotes a leading proponents of evolution (Stephen Gould) as saying, "I think punctuated equilibrium has an overwhelmingly dominant frequency in the fossil record, which means gradualism exists but it's not really important in the overall pattern of things." What Mr. Gould is saying (as clearly as he dares) that the core idea of Darwinian evolution (gradualism) as an explanation for the fossil record is clearly not what has determined the pattern of fossils.

We believe this is an admission that Darwinian evolution is only a small part of the explanation for the history of life. Atheists who defend evolution and attack and belittle faith in God are not relying on science but on their atheistic bias in such attacks. The truth is that as we refer to elsewhere in this site, many Nobel Prize winning scientists do in fact believe in God based on what they understand about science. Those scientists who reject God may well be those who have not truthfully (even to themselves) thought about the profound and fundamental limits of science. The book is recommended for serious readers.

The book "Fire in the Mind, Science, Faith, and the Search for Order" by G. Johnson is written at a higher level of science language but is still very readable and highly recommended. Chapter 9 "In search of complexity is the most comprehensive and open minded discussion of the truth about what evolution can explain and what it cannot that we have read.

Like the author, we especially object to the totally unfounded and unscientific claims made by Darwinians that if evolution is true (the almost always leave out the qualification) then life is a random and meaningless occurrence. There is another group of scientists (who are not creationists as such) called structuralists, who, based on experiments and analysis of complex systems believe that in fact, Darwinian evolution is a small factor and life is drawn to certain configurations (attractors) which are determined by the landscape (environment) and are not if fact not the result of random mutations alone. If evolution occurs (of some sort) they and we believe, and if it were played all over again from a random start the forms of life would still come out to be very much the same. The essence of humanity is not the result of blind forces but of deep laws and an environment which draws evolution to certain conditions of life predetermined by those deep lows of complex systems.

Furthermore, in Chapter 8 "Arrival of the fittest" selfish genes merely lead to cancer and in fact life is based on cooperation at all levels as the basis of survival. We also recommend the book "The Cooperative Gene" by M. Ridley. We do not agree with his evolutionist positions in many cases, but he makes numerous good cases of the fact that evolution requires cooperation, not selfish genes. The book is recommended for serious readers.

"Shadows of the Mind" by Roger Penrose. Mr. Penrose is on the leading theoretical physicists in the world. In this book he has some very profound things to say about consciousness and the limits of computers and logical and mathematical reasoning. The book is somewhat difficult in reading but is well worth reading in any case.

Mr. Penrose believes that consciousness is beyond simply equating the brain to a high power computer. He also believes that science is missing something very fundamental. In this book he states on page 8, "A scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretensions of completeness." 

The theme of the book is that consciousness is not to be found in looking at the brain as a computer with a program using a chain of logic. On 56 page he says in reference to understanding consciousness, "There is no way of eliminating the need for new "obvious" understandings. Thus mathematical understanding cannot be reduced to blind computation." 

Mr. Penrose also compares a mathematical proof with trying to prove that consciousness is simply a matter of having a computer with sufficient logical programming steps, as not sufficient to achieve consciousness. He says on page 145 referring to the great mathematician K. Godel, "it might seem more reasonable simply to adopt the view, as appears to have been held by Godel himself, that the mind's action is something beyond the action of the physical brain.

On page 44 he supports his position that consciousness is not simply a matter of having enough neurons, since the cerebellum which is not related to consciousness has as many neurons as the cerebrum which is connected to consciousness.

On page 56 he says, "the object of mathematical proof is, in effect, to provide such chains of reasoning where each step is indeed something that can be perceived as obvious. He then reasons that "obvious" is not a function of the proof and is in fact not definable in mathematical terms.

Mr. Penrose is actually offering a very profound rebuttal even to chains of proof based on experimental science as are used in proofs in physics and chemistry. This then certainly leaves the science of evolution very far from having real proofs since the reasoning is inevitably based on only a few links of the supposed and inevitably if true, very long chain of intermediate life forms. Very few if any true intermediates have been found in the paleontology record. Commonalities have been found and combinations of features have been found but nothing which would prove an ancestral relationship leading to new morphological life forms. The book and all of Mr. Penrose's books are recommended for readers with some scientific training or studies.

"Emergence, From Chaos to Order" by J. Holland This book addresses things like the fact that as the author says on page 121, "The behavior of an ant colony is not the simple sum of a group of average ants. The coupled interactions of the ants provides a coherence to the nest that exceeds anything predictable in terms of simple summations." This is profoundly true of all of life and most of the reality of the universe.

Mr. Holland says on page 204, "it is important to distinguish the finished product in science from the process that produces that product." That reality is often lost on the scientists whose life is dedicated to proving some theory and who is dependent on continued funding from those whose career success is tied to the theory.

This book contains some very interesting observations about the limits of reductionistic science. It is recommended for the most sophisticated reader and requires careful reading.

"Seven Life Lessons of Chaos, Spiritual Wisdom form the Science of Chance by Briggs and Peat (Peat holds a Ph. D. in physics.) On page 2, the authors state, "The scientific term "chaos" refers to an underlying interconnectedness that exists in apparently random events. We believe that this is the case in the evolution of life. We believe that there is an interconnectedness and organization to life that science has not yet come to grips with.

On page 175 the authors speaking of science theories say, "A theory is of necessity provisional. The context from which theories are is itself always changing. So theories work will for a time and then seem to get stuck, no matter how much we attempt to modify them," We believe that this is the rule rather than the exception in science where due to peer pressures and monetary pressures, and supposed scientific thinking gets locked into a theory and winds up stretching the theory beyond its powers of explanation/validity. We believe the worst case of this is with Darwinian evolutionary theory being used to try to explain all of life and to justify more than localized small adaptive changes in life.

On page 6 the authors say, "As a social metaphor, Darwin's notion of "survival of the fittest" has been used to justify predatory commercial competition and class structure. On page 7 they add, "Scientific ideas that become cultural metaphors are like medicine. They can be beneficial in the right dosage within the right context, but taken in the wrong way, they can be harmful." We believe that the extreme and unscientific defenders of the Darwinian faith have been and are being very harmful to society. The book is recommend for all readers.

"Mere Creation; Science Faith & Intelligent Design." edited by W. Dembsdki.   This book is edited by a proponent of intelligent design, but is well worth reading if you have an open mind in the slightest about whether or not science can explain all of creation.  The books makes some very telling points on pages;  56, 183, 189, 207, 255, 291, and 413-414.

"The Quark and the Jaguar, Adventures in the Simple and Complex" by M. Gel-Mann, Nobel Prize winner in physics. This book is about the complexity found in life and in quantum mechanics in physics. While the author (a great physicist) indicates a belief in evolution being able to generate complexity (not surprising from atheist scientists), he makes a number of statements which show that the realities of evolution are not simply randomly driven variations being selected by selfish survival. On page 69 he admits, "There is some slight evidence for genetic mutations in biology occasionally arising in response to need." This is an admission that there may be (we believe probably is) some mechanism besides selection on random variation controlling the evolution of life. Also pp 34, 38, 50, 57, 70, 80, 115, 140, 207, 226, 252, 266

On page 251 he states, "A truly selfish gene need not, however, confer any advantage on the resulting organism, and may even be harmful." So much for selfish genes being what evolution is all about.

On page 266, he talks about the requirement that adapting systems needing to be noisy (show variation) to find a maximum fitness. This presents a problem for simple Darwinian evolution projected to a novel level, since such variation (to give evolution something to select from) has never been observed to any degree which would result in true morphological novelty (new life forms or functional systems.)

For those who believe that science is pure, Mr. Gel-Mann (a scientist) says on page 80, speaking of scientists, "They are not immune to the normal influences of egotism, economic self interest, fashion, wishful thinking, and laziness." Sadly, economic self interest often prevents scientists from voicing their doubts about dogma when adherence to that dogma is what will keep the money coming from the atheistic establishment which controls the purse strings.

On page 167, he makes another startling admission for anyone who at least overtly believes in Darwinian evolution as a major factor the development of complex life, referring to a calculation regarding life, of an improbability of 1 chance in 10 followed by 61 zeros, he says, "there is no practical difference between that kind of probability and zero." Anything that improbable is effectively impossible. The probability of life occurring by chance is far smaller than that number.

Mr. Gel-Mann (who believes in evolution to some degree (we believe the degree is very limited for simple Darwinian selection from random mutations)) says on page 38 (where the letters AIC stand for Algorithm Information Content), "we cannot in general, be sure that the AIC of a general string isn't lower than we think it is." In layman's terms, this means that one can never be sure that what is believed to be random (such as a string of evolution history) is not the result of some rule (algorithm) operating. So even if Darwinian macro evolution is ever determined to have taken place (not accomplished as of this date to the macro level) there may be an undiscovered rule directing evolution that is the determinate factor overall. One cannot even in principle ever know for sure that there is not some predetermined direction to evolution. This says that Darwinian macroevolution as the supposed whole story of life can never be proven.

Scientific calculations by one of the top tow or three physicists in the world (Roger Penrose) in his book "The Emperors New Mind" (reviewed above) on figure 7:19 page 343 leads Mr. Penrose to say of the scientific calculation "In order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universes". He then calculates a probability 1 in 10 followed by 123 zeros that such would happen by chance without a creator.   This is a number much smaller than postulated by Mr. Gel-Mann as an effective impossibility.

 Isn't it possible that Mr. Gel-Mann with his at least openly admitted atheist beliefs has fallen into the wishful thinking trap that he recognizes plagues other scientists?

Just to have a universe where evolution might have a very small probability of working requires an improbability to actually occur which has a much smaller chance than that referred to by Mr. Gel-Mann as zero probability. This means that the chance of Darwinian evolution explaining all of life without the need for God is close to zero times zero?! Note that on top of this, it is also true that science cannot explain (and fundamentally never will) where the laws of physics comes from which govern the universe.

On page 140 talking about the quantum mechanism (in which Mr. Gel-Mann is a recognized expert in the field) he makes a very interesting statement, "The quantum state of the universe is like a book that contains answers to an infinite variety of questions. " Even a great scientists like Mr. Gel-Mann certainly has only a microscopic amount of the answers to the questions posed by the universe. This is true of all scientists. The Quark and the Jaguar is recommended, but is fairly deep and is best for the most serious readers. pp 27, 97, 110, 112, 183.

"Beyond Natural Selection" by Robert Wesson is a very interesting book to begin understanding just how interesting and easy to understand some science can be.  The book is full of fascinating examples of the wonders of life.  Mr. Wesson clearly looks at many of the facts of biology and concludes that Darwinian evolution cannot explain all of life.  

On page xii of the introduction speaking of Darwinian evolution he says; "a growing number of biologists believe that it is not a wholly satisfactory answer.  Its inadequacy is the thesis of this book."

Mr. Wesson does accepts the Darwinian dogma to a limited degree.  Throughout the book he points out example after example where Darwinian evolution is highly unlikely to explain the incredible complexity and balance of life.  Even if someone starts off believing in Darwinian evolution as explaining all of life, it is hard to believe anyone with even a partially open mind will believe that after reading this book.   The evolution of life is not random or meaningless as atheistic scientists would have us believe.

On page xiii of the introduction, Mr. Wesson says; "It also appears evident that evolutionary change, although chaotic, is by no means random."  (Chaotic just means extremely complex and from a human view not predictable.)

Even readers at the high school level are likely to quickly wonder how anyone (including the books author) could believe the Darwinian evolution has all the answers.  (The author to continue his profession, must coexist with people who are strict Darwinists which could explain the apparent disagreement with the authors stated position and the evidence in the book.  One only has to look at the title to realize that the author does not believe that natural selection holds all the answers.)  This book is fascinating and is highly recommended for all readers, including high school students.  Click here for another review of the book.

In Search of Deep Time, Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life by H. Gee  Ph.D. in zoology. Starting on page 1, Mr. Gee says; "Many of the assumptions we make about evolution, especially concerning the history of life as understood from the fossil record, are, however, baseless."   The term "deep time" is used to cover very long time in the past which is beyond our intuition.  (Mr. Gee implicitly assumes that the extremely long historical times used by evolutionists are correct.)

He goes on to say on page 2; "We invent these stories after the fact to justify the history of life according to our own prejudices."  While Mr. Gee clearly believes in evolution, he makes it very clear that the evidence for it is sparse at best. 

On page 7, he says; "Conventional stories about evolution, about 'missing links', are not in themselves testable, because there is only on possible course of events--the one implied by the story."

Starting on page 141, Mr. Gee tells a story about four scientists called "the gang of four" who wrote a paper about ancestor-descendent relationships which showed the assumptions involved in such relationship analysis of fossils could lead to the conclusion that a cow is a closer relative to a lungfish than is a salmon.

Mr. Gee does not overtly attack Darwinian macroevolution, but he comes as close as is possible for anyone in the science profession (who doesn't want to greatly offend his colleagues.)   On page 2 he says "Geological time admits to no narrative in which causes can be linked with effects." 

On page 5, Mr. Gee says; "If we can never know for certain that any fossil we unearth is our direct ancestor, it is similarly invalid to pluck a string of fossils from Deep Time, arrange these fossils in chronological order, and assert that this arrangement represents a sequence of evolutionary ancestry and descent."

Also refer to pp 5, 64, 75, 141, 143, 145-148, 153, 204.

"The Triple Helix, gene, organism and environment" by R. Lewontin.  On  the front inside of the cover flap it says "One of our most brilliant evolutionary biologist, Richard Lewontin has also been a leading critic of those---scientists and nonscientists alike----who would misuse the science to which he has contributed so much."

Mr. Lewontin says on page 72; "an analytical mode of understanding and study of biological systems, appropriate to a machine (we would modify this even  to simple machines), is implied in the very word organism, first used in the eighteenth century.  The analogy is between the living body and the musical instrument".   We would note that science will never be able to tell from the construction of something like a violin, what the sound it makes will sound like to the human ear. 

If we can summarize the message of this book, we would refer again to the loose cover on the back; "if we want to know why two lambs are different from one another a description of their genetic differences is insufficient and for some of their characteristics may even be irrelevant.  In essence the book makes the case that the simplistic view that the nature of a living entity is fully determined (even physically) by the genes is questionable. 

This book is very interesting and covers areas of evolution that we have not found described elsewhere.  The book is recommended but requires careful reading.   In our Science and Evolution pages, we outline reasons why we believe even more deeply that Darwinian macroevolution is not the full explanation for life.  Though we do not agree with Mr. Lewontin in the materialist part of his philosophy, the book is recommended for more serious readers.