The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery
by Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Richards

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Book Reviews of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery

Book Review: Questioning some assumptions and not others
Summary: 4 Stars

Beyond this, we have in this book a refreshing analysis of the wonderous design of both planet earth and the universe from the perspective of design theorists and not religious atheists.

More generally, the point of this book is to show an impressive correlation between features which make earth and the universe habitable with features which make it possible for us to discover the nature, function and operation of the universe. It does this in an easy manner and there are plenty of references for more details regarding fine tuning etc... that are discussed or mentioned in the book.

On the other hand, I found the very few parts where evolution was mentioned to (for reasons of being more acceptable to the hardcore evolutionist establishment) by no means question the validity of evolutionary biology. It seems they just take evolution for granted. I expected more in this regard from the authors in the Discovery institute. Although I do appreciate that members of the discovery institute can have varying view of evolution. Anyway, this is one reason why I only give four stars.

Added to this is also that the authors take for granted many of the current cosmological theories regarding planet formation (and perhaps galaxy formation also (I do not recall fully)).

So it must be appreciated that this is a book which makes its case by assuming all the current scientific theories. In this manner, they ruffle the fewest feathers. On the other hand, the one assumption they do question, is the copernican one.

So, in short. This book is refreshing because it discards materialist interpretation for scientific enquiry, making it disctinct from most other books discussing the same topics.

It makes a good case for design in the universe, design with us in mind.

It questions none (as far as I can remember) of the current theories on either universal formation (galaxies,planets etc...) or evolutionary biology.

I hope this review helps.

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