Book Review: Intelligent Design. Edited by Denise Little
Daw Science Fiction, 2009
Intelligent design (ID) has been on and off in the public arena for a few years now. The main idea behind the concept of ID is ostensibly that many of the complexities of biology could not have been due to the classical (and quite tested and described) natural selection paradigm.
In reality though, intelligent design is quite frequently used to push the religious agendas of many; this has been extensively documented elsewhere. ID is not science, as stated by scientific consensus as well as by legal proceedings. I do not think that ID is correct, for many reasons, some from the mind (as a trained biological scientist) and some from the heart (as a father).
Nonetheless, I did like and had fun reading this compilation of science fiction stories that had ID as their unifying theme. This being a grouping of several stories written by different authors, some stories are bound to be better than others. Also, some stories will appeal differently to different people. I did like most of them.
Truth be told and ironically, true to the concept of ID, it seemed to me that about six out the ten stories did not have virtually anything to do with ID but rather they explored philosophical and theological themes in which the character just happened to be a scientist or mathematician. Also, a particular story made me cringe with a phrase that said something like “…evolution is nothing but random selection.” If you are a science enthusiast, this phrase should have made you cringe too. I do not expect the fictional science in a **science fiction** story to be exact, but I expect correctness from any aspect of actual science in a SF story…
Bah, humbug!
Pretty entertaining little book nonetheless.
Picture credit: DAW Science Fiction
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