The absolute best part of Jonathan Wells' Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design is the quote on the front cover from Ann Coulter: "Annoy and godless liberal; buy this book!" Coulter is the Howard Stern of political conservatism. I probably disagree with about 90-95% of what she says, but she's always fun to listen to. You have to appreciate political bluntness. It's so rare today.

As a disclaimer, this book was selected for the Conservative Book Club and Wells is a fellow at the Discovery Institute (or at least was at the time of the books publication), which is a non-profit conservative think tank that backs intelligent design.

As another disclaimer, I don't really align myself as conservative or liberal. When it comes to politics, I like to think that I'm a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal. In addition, I believe in God, but I believe in tolerance towards other beliefs, so I think that the separation of church and state is a good thing - something meant to preserve religious freedom and avoid persecution. I don't personally believe in abortion, but I would never overturn Roe versus Wade. I'm registered as a Democrat, but that was mostly so I could vote for Obama in the primary over Hillary Clinton.

I've laid that out on the table because I'm not some type of ultra-conservative that is attempting to ram God down anyone's throat, and I don't wish to be accused of it later. I simply wish to give a fair review to Wells' book on a controversial subject. It may be a "conservative" book, but that doesn't make all of it's readers conservatives.

Wells is both a biologist and theologian - having Ph.D.'s in both fields - and while his point is clearly to support intelligent design over Darwinism, he gives enough of a background on Darwinism, evolution, the history of science and critiques of intelligent design, that you really get the feeling that he's attempted to give you enough scientific results and battling dialectic to actually allow you to make an informed opinion.

Wells does get repetitive in his denouncement of Darwinism, and reuses several phrases to try to ground in his point. He also attempts to create new pop culture words out of Darwinism such as Darwinspeak and "to darwin" in an attempt to put a black mark on Darwinism as a whole. His bias does show through. There's no denying it. But like any good scientist, Wells has enough evidence to support his conclusion. He draws on countless examples, name drops, controversies and philosophical theories in an attempt to sway the reader, and he does quite a convincing job of it.

There are two branches to this book: the argument against Darwinism and the argument for Intelligent Design. The author does a good job of covering these, but occasionally blurs the line between the two as if they are one and the same. One should be careful to note that this is not the case.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Well's book lies in its examination of the politics involved in the intelligent design controversy. To read about Darwinists scrambling to discredit scholars, remove them from positions and place injunctions against organizations for holding conferences was a real eye opener towards the actual intolerance that scientists are starting to develop. They're becoming similar to the same people that persecuted Darwinism in the first place. Scientific intolerance inhibits scientific advancement, and unfortunately the scientific communication has become more about politics than honest research.

Wells' Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design - above all - is a well-researched tome detailing the controversy. His obvious bias leads him towards an Intelligent Design conclusion, but one can't say that he doesn't back up his conclusion with convincing evidence and true scientific and philosophical research. I normally stay away from "guide" books, but credit must be given to Wells for putting out such a refined piece of research - whether you agree with Intelligent Design or not.