This review of Lee Strobel’s book, “The Case For a Creator” was done in 2004, soon after the book was published. Some links may not exist anymore.
Lee Strobel has interviewed a number of people belonging to the Discovery Institute in Seattle. The Discovery Institute is purely a Creationist Institute, not a Science Research institution. The Institute supports research by scientists and other scholars including lawyers, Historians, Philosophers (Total of 40 at this time) that challenge neo-Darwinian theory and develop ID theory.
Lee Stobel has a Masters in Law and a Journalism degree.
The following people are interviewed:
Chapter 3: Jonathan Wells: has a doctorate in molecular and cell biology, 1994, also a doctorate in religious studies. He is a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
Chapter 4 and 9: Stephen C. Meyer: Cambridge educated philosopher of science. He is the director of the Center of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute.
Chapter 5: William Lane Craig: Doctorate in theology. Fellow of the Discovery Institute
Chapter 6: Robin Collins: Philosopher with Physics background. Fellow of the Discovery Institute.
Chapter 7: Guillermo Gonzalez: Astronomer. Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute.
Jay Wesley Richards: Philosophy and Theology. Vice President of the Discovery Institute.
Chapter 8: Michael Behe: Doctorate in Biochemistry. Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute.
Chapter 10: J. P. Moreland: doctorate in Philosophy and Masters in theology. Fellow of the Discovery Institute.
Comments first about this Discussion.
Chapter 1 White Coated Scientists versus Black Robed Preachers
Chapter 2 The Images of Evolution
Chapter 3 Doubts about Darwinism
Chapter 4 Where Science Meets Faith
Chapter 5 The Evidence of Cosmology
Chapter 6 The Evidence of Physics: The Cosmos on a Razor’s edge
Chapter 7 The Evidence of Astronomy
Chapter 8 The Evidence of Biochemistry: The Complexity of Molecular Machines
Chapter 9 The Evidence of Biological Information: The Challenge of DNA and the Origin of Life
Chapter 10 The Evidence of Consciousness: The Enigma of the Mind
This book is well written, easy to follow, even entertaining, covers a lot of ground, is up-to-date on a lot of science, seems to accept almost all the findings of secular scientists (e.g. Einstein’s Relativity Theory, Quantum Theory, Big Bang, stellar evolution, geological evolution, tectonic evolution, but not biological evolution {except for Michael Behe}). This book may prompt people to study science further and may prompt people to support funding for secular scientific research (funding which is often controlled by governments, which are affected by what citizens want).
With the vast amount of science covered by this book, I have limited my comments to certain items of interest. It would take a book to deal with all the items. The quotes from the book will have quotation marks around them and will be in italics. My comments will follow each of these. Usually the page number will be given for each comment section.
All the things described by each person in this book have been found using the atheistic (or naturalistic) method of science; that attempts to show how things work without appealing to anything supernatural. If it wasn’t for this purely naturalistic process that is used in science the people mentioned in this book wouldn’t be able to describe any of it. The amazing thing is that this process of naturalistic science is able to discover the many things known so far about reality — atheistic science is very successful. With it a lot of the new knowledge has been gained in just the last century or so.
If there is an external God, this God must reward an atheistic approach over the traditional supernatural approach to learning about reality.
Now natural science must be allowed to continue this road of amazing success, unhindered by ID Creationists, whose objections to natural science would stop it. This includes promoting the study of another successful field of science, Darwinian Evolution.
O. Hooge
Links to other reviews of Lee Strobel’s book and ID (Thanks to Ron Hooge for these links):
(1) A Review of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator. Click.
(2) Scott credits the blueprint laid out by Johnson, who realized that to win in the court of public opinion, ID needed only to cast reasonable doubt on evolution. Click. “He said, ‘Don’t get involved in details, don’t get involved in fact claims,'” says Scott. “‘Forget about the age of Earth, forget about the flood, don’t mention the Bible.'” The goal, she says, is “to focus on the big idea that evolution is inadequate. Intelligent design doesn’t really explain anything. It says that evolution can’t explain things. Everything else is hand-waving.”
Naturalism and Religious Experience 