Thoughts on the first three chapters of Dembski and Witt's "Intelligent Design Uncensored"

As [mentioned](http://www.jackscanlan.com/2011/11/the-post-exam-blogging-holiday-junction-or-future-plans-for-homologous-legs/), I have a couple of pro-ID books that need to be read and reviewed these holidays: _Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design_ by Stephen C. Meyer, and _Intelligent Design Uncensored_ by William Dembski and Jonathan Witt. While I've done preliminary readings of both books, in order to grasp their overall structure and scope, I recently started reading the latter in a greater level of detail.

What I've found has not been pretty.

Yes, _Intelligent Design Uncensored_ is not a very healthy book to read, if you get angry at slick rhetoric in place of rigorous argumentation, blatant strawman arguments, and an easily digestible style of writing that doesn't at all match with the supposed gravity of the topic at hand. Unfortunately, those are some of the things that push my buttons, so I'm not a happy little "Darwinist". No sir.

In fact, it has been so infuriating so far that I'm seriously considering not doing a proper review of it: it may not be worth my time nor my effort. Meyer's _Signature_ is a much more worthy target - it's held up by the ID community as some shiny tome of pure knowledge, blessed to humanity from the heavens, whilst Dembski and Witt's book is a barely-mentioned teaching tool for prospective members.