I have started my reading on ID with Creation's Tiny Mystery by Robert Gentry. I started with this book because I was able to find an online copy and therefore was able to begin reading immediately rather than having to wait for something from Amazon.

So far I have read the intros and the first several pages. Since I will have to leave work to head home soon I will go ahead and post my reaction to what I've read so far.

Gentry is rightfully upset by the rejection of his proposed thesis topic. It is truly a shame that the university did not allow him to continue on with this work even at risk to their own reputation. Unfortunately, though tenured faculty may be immune to some extent from this sort of treatment, I'm afraid graduate students have no rights. This behavior, however, may imply that they treat their faculty this way as well.

He has foreshadowed that he will talk about how the scientific community in general has disparaged his work without even debunking it in a rigorous way. This reminds me of the plight of Meyerhoff, whose proposal of Surge Tectonics was widely ridiculed, and is only more recently being treated with any sort of serious scrutiny.

It is easy to get caught up in theories you have been thoroughly convinced of the trueness of. Any time I see something like "all serious scientists agree" my little red flag goes up. Proof by concensus is a fallacy.

Science is not about judging whether or not you like a particular theory, it is about rigorously testing theories using the scientific method. And the more interesting theories that are scrutinized, the more quickly our understanding moves forward. For this reason, I believe that research should never be limited by preconceived notions.

Gentry also foreshadows taking a few potshots at Hutton's uniformitarianism. Although this is a given for most research of the Earth, and although it may be utterly true, uniformitarianism is pretty much untestable, and is therefore on really tenuous ground, in my opinion. It will be interesting to see what Gentry does with this.

I was somewhat irritated when he incorrectly referred to historical geology as "evolutionary theory." My red flag started to go up to look for twisting of facts based on this redefinition, but I will reserve judgement for later on that one.

Yesterday I admitted that I had never read any of the basic works of ID Theory. I asked for users to provide me with a list of works that are seminal to ID, and I offered to read them with an open mind. Here is the list of reading material I ended up with. I will use my journal to write my reviews of those works.