MECHANISM
THE UGLY TRUTH THAT NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW
Darel Rex Finley
Preview copy for personal use only.  Distribution prohibited without author's written consent.

The modern Intelligent Design (ID) movement, led by authors Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Dembski, claims to be distinct and separate from a religion like Christianity.  But just how distinct and separate would these authors be willing to admit ID really is?  Mechanism shows that ID is not even loosely compatible with any moralistic religion — instead ID takes us in a bold new direction that most of its promoters would very much like to avoid.

Mechanism advances these conclusions:

Beauty and truth, contrary to popular sentiment, are not fundamentally connected; in fact they are almost opposites.
Johnson, Behe, and Dembski are passively reinforcing the dichotomy of Christianity vs. materialistic evolution, when the evidence supports neither.
"Theodicy" and other defenses against dysteleology become useless and unnecessary when ID is severed from religion.  Theodicy is not needed to defend ID, only to protect its purported compatibility with Christianity.
The purpose of this life is to have a fun adventure, and our creators put us here expressly for that reason.  Dembski avoids that conclusion by stopping his inference-to-the-best-explanation just after it neutralizes Darwinism.
Fear of murder lies at the root of the Darwin/religion dichotomy, along with the fear of what our government must do to protect us from future threats.
The key characteristic of intelligences is their ability to recognize specifications — not their "free will" to choose.
The Dawkins/Dennett assertion that scientific explanations must be reductive is correct but missapplied in defense of evolution, and is inadequately addressed by Dembski and Behe.
The fields of cosmology and quantum physics are as badly infected with magical principles as is the field of biology with Darwinism.
Johnson failed to successfully tackle the issue of self-reference is his criticisms of John Searle and Stephen Hawking.  The true nature of self-reference renders the puzzle of free will essentially moot.
The capitalist-socialist struggle is in permanent stalement, and DNA cleanup is the only way out.
We may be headed to a female-controlled society in the near future.
The concept of morality is bankrupt in today's high-tech climate.  Only laws, backed by technological solutions, can maintain order and safety.
Humanity is in no significant danger of extinction by any currently known means.

Click here to download the book in PDF format.  Mass distribution of this PDF is prohibited, but anyone may download and read it from this page.  (Click here for PDF version history.)

Criticisms and analyses are welcome — please post to one of these message boards:
    ARN Intelligent Design Forum
    ISCID Brainstorms
    Google Groups - Talk.Origins

Mechanism is made available here as PDF in order to maximize its chances of being discovered by a publisher who would be interested in picking it up.  I believe that even with a book freely available as PDF, the market for a hardback is not significantly diminished, as most people prefer to read books in hard-copy format, and like to have a copy on their shelf, loan it to others, etc.

Interested publishers may contact me via e-mail.  Include your phone number, and be aware that I do not wish to be contacted by vanity/subsidy/self publishing houses.

©Copyright 2005 Darel Rex Finley.  All rights reserved.