The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos

Prior reviewed criticize the emphasis on Intelligent Design, but if you have followed the movement most of these authors are prominent proponents of ID. I'm a lay person that enjoys reading and following the topic. It's interesting that often the debate isn't about science, but about philosophy and worldviews operating in the background.This book is a collection of essays that go through quite a variety of topics. If you know many of the authors, their chapters are often summaries of their own books and discussions, so they cover a lot of ground quickly.I will add that the book is probably better for someone who has a basic grasp of the arguments involved. It's not necessarily meant to be beginner friendly. I will also add that it's a reference work - double column and small print. Be ready with your reading glasses. :-)Overall, it's a great read if you have a passion for the topic.

The contributors to this powerful book are 26 experts with doctoral degrees (or two PhDs) in their fields of expertise, plus 4 or 5 more with Masters degrees. This doesn’t count the 5 doctoral degrees earned by the 3 editors.The book consists of 46 articles by these experts on every sort of question related to science and faith. You can view the whole table of contents and list of authors if you use the “Look Inside” feature at the book page in Amazon.com. The result is, the reader has potent arguments against the lie that science and faith in God are incompatible. Instead, we are shown that science repeatedly reveals that God is the most reasonable explanation for multiple questions that science asks. If you want to have powerful documented arguments against the flawed reasoning of people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, this is the book for you. But beware, after reading this book you’ll find it difficult to avoid embarrassing the opposition because you’ll have so much more “ammunition” than they do. That’s how it goes when you have this truth resource to refer to.If you prefer a short and sweet idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at this mini-video from Illustra Media. It’s just one of many such supplemental resources listed at the back of the book.Wheredoestheevidencelead.comIn other words, this book is armor and ammunition for those who fight the falsehoods based on philosophical materialism which are widely spread in our culture.Use this book as your powerful and authoritative resource, and fight the good fight for God and truth.I highly recommend it.Richard M. Evans – Author and Southwest Dallas/ Duncanville TX Reasonable Faith Directoramazon.com/author/richard-m-evans

I am always reading up on how things began. I tend to look at all explanations. However, I find a lot of evolution explanations lack many surrounding features that would need to happen in order for life to advance. I was recommended this book and went ahead and ordered it. I finally had explanations that made sense to me. I am actually looking to find more titles by some of the authors featured in this book.I recommend this as a must read to anyone struggling to make sense of life evolving.

This volume includes some of the best of the best in the field of science and faith. What an achievement, to gather such a distinguished group of scholars for this important subject. And yet, it is accessible for anyone, whether student, skeptic, or scholar. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the subject.

Great summary of major topics by a variety of experts all in one place.

I am a biologist with advanced degrees in biology and a minor in chemistry having worked for 30 years in the field of wildlife ecology. I have spent a lot of time considering evolution (random, unguided evolution of complex life forms from a single common ancestor in the distant past), evidence that seems to support the theory, and data that exposes weaknesses of the theory. This book does a great job highlighting technical, peer reviewed research that exposes weaknesses/insufficiencies or outright errors of the "Modern Synthesis" or "Neo-Darwinism" (Darwinism plus Mendelian genetics). It also does a great job of exposing the intense bias and dogma that is so rampant in the biological sciences. It simply is not accurate to think of "science" as it is practiced by humans as "pure" or "infallible". It is most certainly not. In fact, the default of many publishing biologists is inherently and explicitly biased in that they assume the very mechanisms that they should be testing. Additionally, anyone who challenges those "sacred" assumptions is cast out or marginalized at best. When data is clearly pointing in a direction that does not support our assumptions, good scientists ask why and dig more deeply to discover what is really going on. Too often, "scientists" assume their assumptions are valid and look for ways to fit the data into their assumed world view. A good scientist considers ALL the data and ALL possible explanations of the data. This book does a good job of highlighting this failure of many working in the biological sciences. However, it leans disproportionately toward Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design may very well end up being the best explanation, but there are many competing schools of thought out there today that could also end up being the most congruent explanation for the data. Given recent discoveries in epigenetics and our new understanding of how DNA is NOT the master determiner of our traits and behaviors (i.e. we are not simple vessels for our genes), it certainly looks like "random mutation and natural selection" is no longer a plausible mechanism for all we see in reality. The "selfish gene" perspective promoted by Richard Dawkins is being dismantled by geneticists and molecular biologists today. Similarly, his "blind watchmaker" doesn't seem to be as visually impaired as he states. So, we seem to be in the middle of a paradigm shift, but I just don't know which theoretical framework will emerge as the "best fit" for the data.All of that said, this is a good reference to have on one's shelf. It provides a broad treatment of many topics in the discussion of science and faith.