...and here's a new pro-ID book that I've added to my Amazon wishlist

So many books! So little damn time! That basically describes my reading habits at the moment – I’ve got The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins and Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne to read, but I’m still pulling my way through The Blind Watchmaker, also by Dawkins. I tried to finish it off during my New Zealand holiday, but less biology-related activities got in the way of that – fortunately or unfortunately, you decide…

Anyway, this talk about books segues into what I really wanted to talk about (how convenient!), which is a new book published by Discovery Institute Press: In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design, by Dr. Granville Sewell. Of course, we have the obligatory Evolution News & Views blog post promoting it, which goes a little something like this:

What do you get when you add together the big bang, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics and the evolution of life? Definitely not a materialistic theory of origins, answers Sewell, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso.

In this wide-ranging collection of essays, Sewell concludes that while there is much in the history of life that seems to suggest natural causes, there is little evidence to support Charles Darwin’s idea that natural selection of random variations can explain major evolutionary advances.

…because a mathematician is somebody that we can trust as an expert in the field of biology! Everyone do a happy dance, especially you, Casey Luskin.

Naturally, the grandiose claims (supposedly) being made by Dr. Sewell in this book have attracted my attention, and when a book is called “delightful” by Cornelius Hunter, I just know I have to read it:

“In The Beginning provides delightful and wide-ranging commentary on the origins debate and intelligent design,” says biophysicist Dr. Cornelius Hunter. “Sewell provides much needed clarity on topics that are too often misunderstood, like his discussion of the commonly confused problem of entropy, which is a must read.”

Seriously, he talks about entropy? In the context of evolutionary biology and intelligent design, that can’t be something that isn’t hilarious. Come on, I’ve got to read this, even just to see the context in which he writes the line:

“Darwin’s attempt to explain the origins of all the magnificent species in the living world in terms of the struggle for survival is easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science.”

So… I’ve put it on my Amazon wishlist, in the hope that someone with a bit of spare money lying around might “accidentally” buy it for me. But don’t get me wrong, if I could buy this myself I would – but I’m not yet old enough to apply for a PayPal account! Ah, the curse of youth…