book review

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James’s Faith

William JamesIn the Maelstrom of American Modernismby Robert D. RichardsonHoughton Mifflin, 622 pp., $30 The series of New Atheist tracts that have shot up the bestseller list seem like distress flares launched from the deck of a foundering ship at sea. Surely the enthusiastic reception bestowed on these books, led by Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkins’s Read More ›

Photo by Lucas Sankey
America flag short from underneath

Darwin’s Conservatives

The debate over evolution is usually framed by the media as a political fight of left versus right. But a small cadre of conservative commentators and scholars, such as George Will, Charles Krauthammer, John Derbyshire, and Larry Arnhart, have become defenders of Darwinism. Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest asks whether conservatives-traditionally known as the champions of personal responsibility, family values, Read More ›

Monkeys gazing at each other
Monkeys gazing at each other
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design

If you want a book full of fascinating anecdotes and straight-talk about the debate over Darwinism and intelligent design, written by a credentialed biologist with enjoyable writing skills, this truly is the book for you. Read More ›
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Review of The Mystery of Life’s Origin

A seminal work for the theory of intelligent design, this book provides a scientific critique of the prevailing paradigmatic theories of chemical evolution. The authors include Discovery fellows Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley, and they conclude that the prebiotic soup from which the first cell supposedly arose is a myth. The Miller-Urey experiments employed an unrealistic gas mixture, and there Read More ›

Bringing a Turbulent Land Into Focus

Editor’s Note: The following is a review of In the Red Zone by Steven Vincent (Spence) We’ve all heard of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified district in Baghdad where the American embassy is housed and all manner of diplomats, aid-workers and support-staffers live and go about their busy days, assuming the fortifications hold firm. But what about everything outside Read More ›

The Misanthropes

Consumer’s Guide to aBrave New World,by Wesley J. Smith(Encounter, 219 pp., $25.95) Leo Strauss found it telling that Machiavelli mentioned only one other figure who served as the teacher of princes, the office that Machiavelli was claiming for himself. And that was Chiron the centaur, who was aptly constituted to be a tutor of princes because he was half man, Read More ›

Getting Rid of the Unfair Rules

The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate by Del RatzschDowner’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1996, 248 pp. The casual reader of Del Ratzsch’s The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate (hereafter, Battle) may be excused for casting Ratzsch in the role of a philosophical and scientific referee — perhaps even Read More ›

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Crossword puzzle and pencil
Licensed from Adobe Stock

The Right Questions

The Right Questions is the product of an accomplished scholar who is reflecting upon culture and society in light of his other books which provided an extensive scientific critique of naturalistic theories of origins. In this book, Phillip Johnson, Program Advisor to Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, asks, “What are the right questions” in topics such as logic, Read More ›

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pre sunrise hike //
Photo by Ahmad Jawed on Unsplash

Against All Terror

The Afghan war drags on. Nobody knows where the next war or terrorist strike will come, or how soon, or how bad it will be. Nobody knows where the defense budget is going, except up, up and away. America remains steadfast. But increasingly, America wants explanations and answers. Enter Against All Terrors: This People’s Next Defense. This is one of Read More ›