Lester DeKoster (1916-2009) was director of the Calvin College and Seminary library, editor of The Banner, and author of numerous books, including Communisn & Christian Faith and Light for the City: Calvin’s Preaching, Source of Life and Liberty.

Sanctifying the World was named by biographer Joseph Pearce as the best book of 2008, and the National Catholic Register named it one of the top eleven books of the year.

Bradley J. Birzer holds the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College and is the author of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth.

Consummate skeptic David Berlinski shows that all such confidence is at best a bluff. In essays about evolution, using humor and wit Berlinski shows how lost today’s scientists really are. The Deniable Darwin frees us from the superstition of preening scientism and illuminates the path to a renewal of real science.

Berlinski wields his famous skepticism excluding neither Darwinism nor intelligent design from his critical eye.  Included among the 32 essays spanning 15 years are his award-winning essays “What Brings a World into Being?” and “On the Origins of Mind” (Best American Science Writing 2002, 2005 respectively).

David Berlinski is a senior fellow in the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of numerous books, including The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has also taught philosophy, mathematics, and English at Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York, and the Université de Paris.

What They Are Saying:

“David Berlinski is to science writing what Tiger Woods is to golf. He can score from anywhere, against any opponent, on any course. The Deniable Darwin is a compulsive revel of his incandescent prose and jugular polemics. As irresistible as Gödel’s Proof.”—George Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty

“Berlinksi’s rapier wit is the antidote to the insufferable smugness of modern scientism. When, without any seeming effort, he notes that ‘like the Communist Party under Lenin, science is infallible because its judgments are collective,’ the reader is forever immunized against grandiose claims for scientific ‘consensus.’ Much more awaits the reader of this wonderful collection.”—Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry, Lehigh University, and author of The Edge of Evolution

Editor Joseph Baldacchino is president of the National Humanities Institute and editor of the journal Humanitas. For many years he was a Washington reporter and editor, in which capacity he addressed most aspects of national policy and politics but with particular emphasis on ethical and cultural issues. Baldacchino is author of Economics and the Moral Order.

From the Foreword:

“If there is a single thread that runs through these essays, it is the recognition of a universal order that transcends the flux of human life and gives meaning to it. Insofar as men act in accordance with this order, they experience true happiness and are brought into community with others who are similarly motivated. But men are afflicted with contrary impulses that are destructive of universal order. When acted upon, these impulses bring suffering and a sense of meaninglessness and despair; the result is disintegration and conflict–within both the personality and society at large. Yet so tempting are the attractions of these impulses that they frequently prevail and must be taken into account in any realistic assessment of human affairs. This tension within the person between competing desires–the conflict between what Plato called the One and the Many–is the ultimate reality of human experience. To apprehend this reality, and to act in the light of the transcendent purpose with appropriate reverence and restraint, is the essence of wisdom; and to help deepen and strengthen this apprehension–through philosophy, history, literature, and the arts and sciences–is the overarching purpose of any education worthy of the name.”

Granville Sewell is professor of mathematics at the University of Texas, El Paso.  He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at Purdue University in 1972 and has worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, the University of Texas Center for High Performance Computing (Austin), and Texas A&M University. Sewell has written three books on numerical analysis, and is the author of a widely used finite element computer program.

What They Are Saying:

“As the debate over intelligent design grows increasingly heated, with critics engaging in vicious polemics, it is refreshing to find a discussion of the topic that is calm, thoughtful, and far-ranging, with no sense of having to advance an agenda or decimate the opposition. In this regard, Granville Sewell’s In the Beginning succeeds brilliantly.” — William A. Dembski, author of The Design Inference