100 Books Like Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics

This is one of the two or three most influential science books ever published. But unlike the case with other science books, The Origin, published in 1859, is also of profound political importance. Part of this political importance—the implications of Darwin's theory for religious explanations of the diversity of life, which I call "outside" politics—is familiar to all socially-aware citizens. But there is much less awareness of the "inside" politics of evolution—the political implications of controversies within the science of evolutionary biology founded by Darwin. Of course, to understand both the inside and outside politics, you must read much more recent books. But you should begin by reading Darwin.

The clearest and most comprehensive creationist critique of evolutionary biology. Johnson, a retired law professor, marshals every possible argument like a prosecuting attorney, employing reasoning and evidence that is either masterful and convincing, or deceitful and outrageous, depending upon your point of view. To Johnson, the biologists who work in the tradition of Darwin are not scientists, but propagandists in a political movement, using fake data and spurious arguments to bamboozle the public. His purpose is to clear the way for readers to be convinced that a huge, invisible, omnipotent, supernatural designer (no, don't call him God) authored the millions of organisms that have existed on Earth for 3.8 billion years. Is this a scientific critique or a political polemic?

A Marxist critique of evolutionary biology, authored by a geneticist, a neuroscientist, and a psychologist.  From a perspective about as far from the viewpoint of creationists as it is possible to get, these three scholars argue that the philosophical assumptions, methodology, and social organization of modern biology add up to a politically conservative conspiracy reinforcing capitalism, racism, classism, and misogyny. Although their attack is general, it is most specifically aimed at intelligence testing, which, they argue, is shoddy science in the service of racist ideology.

Until his death in 2002, Gould, a Harvard paleontologist, was probably the best-known natural scientist in the United States. What was not always recognized was that virtually every line Gould penned proceeded along two tracks, the scientific and the political. A leftist who started his career as a Marxist and developed into a more orthodox liberal, Gould had a genius for combining scientific lessons with political disputation and presenting that combination in lucid, interesting prose. No single book summarizes all of his political/evolutionary views. This one, in which he discusses many fascinating aspects of natural history while demolishing the views of creationists, would be a good place to start reading.

This book, by one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, offers a personal insight into understanding and appreciating the vastness of the Cosmos. It’s a book that spans so much and paints the most accurate picture I’ve read of how we might fit into the Universe.  

In this book, catholic Cardinal Christoph Schonborn tackles hard questions concerning religion and evolution by developing a carefully reasoned "theology of creation." When I first read it, I was intrigued by his disagreement with some of his fellow Catholic thinkers, a disagreement that illustrates the range of positions that one can take on these issues, even if one shares the same general perspective. Schonborn considers such questions as: Can we still speak intelligently of the world as "creation" and affirm the existence of the Creator, or is God a "delusion"? How should an informed believer read the Book of Genesis? Are human beings a part of nature or elevated above it? Is everything a matter of chance or can we discern purpose in human existence? 

The Cardinal argues that science and a rationally grounded faith are not at odds and that what many people represent as "science" is really a… show more.

In the last decades of the 20th century, there emerged an increasingly acrimonious argument over what Darwinism meant, especially for humans. This wasn’t simply between creationists and Intelligent Design advocates on one side and Darwinians on the other. The Darwinists disagreed among themselves, something with as much fury as they disagreed with the other side.

Andrew Brown is a journalist who, unusually, has genuine expertise in both science and religion. More importantly, he is a cracking writer, and The Darwin Wars is not only intelligent and profound but also clever and witty.

I felt awe-struck stepping into Gaea’s hollow world—where zeppelin-sized blimps glide through a sky inside the giant, planet-like being, and forests and rivers hang overhead. Gaea feels both grand and intimate: cathedral-scale biology paired with tavern-table camaraderie. 

And then there are the titanides. Their society feels hand-tooled—full of music and unpretentious sensuality. No posturing, no greed, just beings who live in balance. The centaur-like titanides dwell beneath a colossal tree hung with lanterns… and it all feels alien and warm and cozy and wonderful. 

I have always appreciated John Haught’s point that theologians, in particular, have to do a better job of thinking about how to incorporate evolutionary theory into their theologies. While I would not follow him all the way, I learned much from his arguments that the ongoing debate between Darwinian evolutionists and Christian apologists is fundamentally misdirected; he suggests that both sides mistakenly persist in focusing on an explanation of underlying design and order in the universe. His own suggestions for the direction we might take are intriguing and provide much food for thought. What is lacking, he argues, is the notion of novelty, a necessary component of evolution and the essence of the unfolding of the divine mystery.  

Where and why did the modern idea of “the scientific method” show up? The somewhat disturbing answer is that it emerged from highly rhetorical attempts—mainly in one U.S. pop sci magazine in the early twentieth century—to distance wonderful “science” (in its modern sense, which was invented in the 1870s) from anything merely humanistic. The details of this hidden history leave you with the vertiginous sense that the very words we use in this area—science, rational, evidence, know—constitute a kind of fog of evidence-free non-rational assumptions.