Kishkumen wrote:Based on the quoted book review, one is left to wonder what it was DCP saw in this book and why. It looks to be a fraudulent work of pseudo-scholarship detectable by anyone who exercises a modicum of caution and common sense.
Good question. I'm the writer of that quoted book review, and I happened to bump into this discussion when it came up in a Google search on my reviews. Fascinating community you have here!
I don't know much about the prevalence of creationism among Mormons. I have an older brother who is a Mormon, and while I don't think he bothers to think about these things much at all, he certainly has expressed at least some sympathy for the creationists when the topic has come up.
Right now there is a bit of a culture-war thing going on and it seems very clear that some people want to enlist the religious in an anti-science crusade. It's being fairly artfully done. Most people, if they recognize that that the motivation for science denialism in a particular case is PRIMARILY religion, will be suspicious of it, so these people, the Discovery Institute in particular, have been seeking to sort of "flip the script." As flipped, the script reads: "Materialism is an atheistic philosophy. Science, as understood through the lens of materialism, is not a search to understand the world so much as it is a mission to obliterate God and turn our children into atheists. But to prop up this materialistic worldview, the scientists are lying; they are ignoring the TRUE science, which points to God."
So, if that's your script, what you have to do is make people think that this alternative "true" science really does exist, and that it really is scientific, and that it does indeed point toward a God, or at least toward the possibility of one. The Intelligent Design project is basically that: attempting to take creationism, strip it of its overtly religious clothing, dress it up as a legitimate scientific enterprise, and then wail and rend garments and complain whenever somebody suggests it isn't really science.
This, of course, is a hopeless task if your intended audience is scientifically literate. But -- great news! -- most people really aren't. Nor do they, to use your phrasing, "exercise a modicum of caution and common sense." The object here is to convince the rubes that this is really science, and that they really are not ignorant if they insist that the earth is 6,000 years old or some such thing. In a culture where anti-intellectualism is running wild, that's enough to make a movement. It won't change the world, but it will keep the donations flowing to the Discovery Institute.
Bethell's book wasn't very good, and it is disappointing to see people who claim to have an interest in science not immediately seeing the thousand things wrong with it. But some of these works are much more deft and clever, and consequently can be harder to critique for people not conversant with the subject. The best of the recent ones (if by "best" we mean "best at misleading people") is probably Stephen Meyer's book Darwin's Doubt, which purports to un-explain the Cambrian Explosion. But when your audience is eager to hear the message, even sorry stuff like Darwin's House of Cards will do the trick.