A review by forjay
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
I kind of hated this book.
The premise is that an alien comes to earth and asks to meet with a paleontologist. The alien is devoutly religious, and the book is mostly a dialog between the two, with the religious alien trying to convince the atheist scientist of the existence of a god (or intelligent designer).
That wouldn't be so bad, necessarily, if it was an interesting argument that relied on facts on both sides, but because it's a work of fiction the author tips the balance in favor of the intelligent design argument by inventing facts in his fictional world—facts that would indeed convince a rational thinker that intelligent design is correct.
The story gives the impression of being a convincing argument for intelligent design, when in fact the intelligent design argument relies on certain suppositions from the fictional world that have no basis in reality, like a fifth fundamental force, simultaneous development of DNA-based life on multiple worlds, and simultaneous mass extinctions on multiple worlds.
The end of the book is particularly vexing, because after arguing for a deist (non-interventionist) creator for the whole book, the author has the creator directly intervene to cause a miracle.
Read one of Sawyer's other books instead. I recommend [b:Hominids|264946|Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax, #1)|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316730227s/264946.jpg|1500323] or [b:Flashforward|337132|Flashforward|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727290s/337132.jpg|327550].
The premise is that an alien comes to earth and asks to meet with a paleontologist. The alien is devoutly religious, and the book is mostly a dialog between the two, with the religious alien trying to convince the atheist scientist of the existence of a god (or intelligent designer).
That wouldn't be so bad, necessarily, if it was an interesting argument that relied on facts on both sides, but because it's a work of fiction the author tips the balance in favor of the intelligent design argument by inventing facts in his fictional world—facts that would indeed convince a rational thinker that intelligent design is correct.
The story gives the impression of being a convincing argument for intelligent design, when in fact the intelligent design argument relies on certain suppositions from the fictional world that have no basis in reality, like a fifth fundamental force, simultaneous development of DNA-based life on multiple worlds, and simultaneous mass extinctions on multiple worlds.
The end of the book is particularly vexing, because after arguing for a deist (non-interventionist) creator for the whole book, the author has the creator directly intervene to cause a miracle.
Read one of Sawyer's other books instead. I recommend [b:Hominids|264946|Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax, #1)|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316730227s/264946.jpg|1500323] or [b:Flashforward|337132|Flashforward|Robert J. Sawyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727290s/337132.jpg|327550].