Rana's "The Cell's Design"

[Jac3510]

My review on Amazon for Rana's The Cell's Design:

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Fazale Rana's The Cell's Design is absolutely worth having, especially if you are an ID proponent. It certainly is the most comprehensive book to date (of which I'm aware) that gives a popular level overview of the cell's structure and how that relates to the ID argument. Much of the arguments put forward by Behe, Wells, Meyer, and others benefit from this book's support precisely because of that.

Unfortunately, that also turns out to be its biggest weakness on two fronts. First, in my view, Rana's book as a whole hardly constitutes an argument in and of itself, regardless of his opening statements. He believes that he is putting forward a positive case for ID based on what science does know rather than what it does not. Yet his entire approach of analogical pattern finding only works if naturalistic science turns out not to be able to find naturalistic causes for each of the issues he describes. On that count, the book doesn't make any major advances over others as he hopes.

In the second place, due to its very nature, The Cell's Design is a cumbersome read. The majority of the book reads like a college biology textbook with a concluding paragraph for each chapter offering thoughts toward design. Those without a background in biology will find the material itself difficult to follow.

So I give the book three stars. The very nature of the material doesn't lend itself well to popular argument and explanation (that is, the internal working of a cell), but it is material that every person who wants to truly grasp what ID is about needs to understand. It's no page turner, but if you want a great background to better understand other major ID proponents (and you don't already have a biology degree), I can't really think of a better investment.

[ageofknowledge]

In the handful of discussions I've had with Rana he came across as smart and insightful. He was raised in a home where one parent was Muslim and the other Christian. He's been considering differing worldviews for a long time. He didn't move toward microbiology and genetics initially but as stayed on his path eventually came to have a wide and deep understanding of biology that certainly does encompass both today. I felt his book was somewhat idealistic for the reasons you stated (not to mention that both atheistic and non-atheistic scientists sometimes let awe get the better of them and influence their publications) but that doesn't mean Rana isn't on the right track. Like you pointed out, it's dependent.