اثار جون لينوكس في هذا الكتاب موضوعا كنت اتحاشى قرأته لفتره طويله ظنا مني بان ما من كاتب مؤمن بالله يستطيع ان يجادل ويدافع عن ايمانه بطريقه علمية ومنطقيه مقنعه لاحد او لي على الأقل نظرا لما اقرأه هنا وهناك من محاولات بائسه للدفاع عن الايمان، في الحقيقة وجدت الكتاب في مقدماته ضعيفا من هذه الناحيه حتى اني ساورني شعور بالقائه جانبا منعا لاهدار الوقت، وما ان تقدمت في مطالعته حتى ادركت ان المؤلف ليس كما يبدو في بادئ الامر ، استطاع لينوكس ان يسرد دلائل وقرائن عدة في الفيزياء و الكون وعلم الاحياء تدل على وجود مصمم ذكي وراء هذه التركيبات الدقيقه في الصنع مهما كبرت او صغرت، و ادلته الرياضية رغم صعوبتها كونه مختص بالرياضيات الا انها مذهلة، يستنتج المرء من مثل هذه الكتب بان اثار الخلق الالهي ليس من السهولة بمكان محوها بكلام العلماء الملاحدة وان الجدل مستمر بهذا الصدد، خاتمة الكتاب للاسف ضعيفه وتذكرني بمقوله غوستاف لوبون " المعتقد هو ايمان لا تطلب لثبات امره ادلة وكثيرا ما لا يتحقق بالادلة " الاراء والمعتقدات ص٢٣١ ( )

Lennox carefully pieces together the case for not just a defence of God, but the necessity of an intelligent designer (such as the revealed Hebrew/Christian God). He considering the limits of science and how scientism is raging, he then considers objections from cosmology, physics, biology, and information theory that each show why there are extremely good grounds for doubting macro-evolution or evolution as the means by which life itself came to be. Instead he shows how it is much more plausible to see the hand of an intelligent designer at work.

Throughout he quotes from distinguished international scientists, though sometimes these quotes are rather old and I wonder if they are still relevant. Assuming he is quoting accurately (which in my experience he seems to be for Dawkins), then those by themselves are strong evidence that the scientific community is nowhere near as happy with all aspects of evolution, as we've been led to believe. There are some places where he goes on too long, or introduces unnecessary asides, but hopefully these can be corrected in a future edition.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to know how the New Atheists are over-reaching, or where Intelligent Design has a space to play. ( )

After assuring me that his dog is not a "god of the gaps", Lennox proceeds to uncover gaps in which I might be persuaded that his imaginary fiend is lurking. Whatever "happened" "before" "the big bang" is however surely the biggest gap that remains to science. And if science can't tell us why it is that the world is explainable to us by science, then that is what is known as a ...gap... in our scientific understanding. (Such surely isn't that hard to grasp?) Abiogenesis too strikes me as being the biggest ...gap in our understanding of how life came to be the way it manifests itself on our planet.

Lennox is capable of quoting a lot of people. A lot of people. He finds the very strangest bits of writing by a variety of people which he can proceed to use to his own ends. His argument seems to run along the following lines: "Some random scientist held/holds some view or other (taken out of context more likely than not), therefore it is respectable for you to hold the view I (ab)use his view to support." For myself, however, I am far more interested in the actual science than I am in these various citations I have very little opportunity to verify for myself (due to the vast number cited). And Lennox, or certainly his readers, would do well to heed the motto of the Royal Society: "Nullius in verba".

If only I could be convinced that he has spent more effort trying to understand the science behind those various citations than on working out alternative meanings to the English words used in said citations. One bit of science he does not, in my opinion, understand, is evolution. He doesn't realise that Berlinski's "Head Monkey" is in fact the ever-changing environment in which a genome evolves. That harsh environment does indeed give the effect of impressive intelligence and yet it remains both blind and dumb (dumb as in non-intelligent).

Part of Lennox's reasoning is dependant on a) his interpretation of the bible, b) a traditionally held biblical chronology. What happens to those of Lennox's arguments when modern archaeology contradicts the biblical account and chronology? He doesn't seem to grasp even the fundamental issue that there is a difference between Deism and Theism.

Finally Lennox admits that his is in fact a god of the gaps, but claims his gaps are... wait for it... good gaps! What does he take me for?

The reason why we look for an Aunt Matilda when we see a cake is because most of the time we see cakes, we know who made them. We have never seen Lennox's proposed "god". One day science may jolly well be able to read Matilda's mind to reveal her purpose for the cake. That day science may also be able to read Lennox's mind to reveal his purpose for cooking his books.

Lennox is correct about one thing though: Science can bury Yahweh no more than it can bury Superman. ( )

A little too turgid and ranty - much like the author if you've seen him present. ( )

Strong on the physical evidence for the anthropic principle but basically opposed to the theory of what he calls macroevolution. He is very good on the philosophical background to modern thought and says it is inclined to materialism and thus against theism. He shows that natural selection can hardly to be used to account for the developments of anything before reproduction began so proteins and DNA are hard to account for. He does not face the evidence for evolution from more primitive species in the detail of the genome, something that other writers accept as proof of macroevolution. Likes quoting other scientists who are sceptical of evolution but explains their views thoroughly. I hope they are as significant as he says, certainly it was interesting to see that quite a lot of experts don't take evolution as the easy answer for everything that has happened. ( )