Darwin's Enigma

Rating:
Summary: A useful book.
Review: Although the book is a bit old, I think it does a reasonable job in explaining the difficulty of reconciling evolution with the fossil record. I don't have the original transcripts, but I don't think Sunderland really does have malacious intent when quoting the authorities.

For example, an earlier reviewer was concerned that Sunderland portrayed a distorted view of the supposed evolution of horses. However, if we look at the sentence before the quote, we find that Sunderland says these words: "He said that there are some people who are fed up with this exact point about "imaginary stories" that have been written about the nature of the history of life." He then proceeded to quote Dr. Eldrege on the matter of horse evolution, and how the story being told to the public is imaginary. Thus, no malacious intent is apparent- for Sunderland plainly tells the reader why he has cited the quote.

One would think a great deal of concern should be aroused by this type of false information being spread to the public. Imagine if creationists spread this type of false information in textbooks to millions and millions of students! But no, it is not really a concern that young students are being fed false information such as the horse series. However, it is apparently of great concern that Sunderland is not impressed by the "bushy" nature of the horse fossil record! He is accused of spreading false information merely because he debunks an age-old evolutionary myth about the nature of the horse fossil record! And, if indeed this "bushy" horse fossil record is one of the "best" evidences for evolution- then why isn't the "bushy" horse evolution in the textbooks?! I personally hope that the fossil horse "bush" is the best evidence around for evolution, in which case creationists needn't worry at all. It should be mentioned that the imaginary horse story is only one of many false, misleading, or fabricated icons of evolutionary theory available in the textbooks for young minds to consume. See "Icons of Evolution" for more information on similar falsehoods such as embryological recapitulation and the Miller-Urey experiments. That such falsehoods have been kept in the textbooks and even defended by evolutionary propagandists makes one fishy of the accusations these individuals hurl and Sunderland and others.

Overall, Sunderland does a good job exposing the true nature of the fossil record. And, as I've shown above, accusations of him misrepresenting the authorities should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Rating:
Summary: Editorial Review is nonsense
Review: I haven't read all of the book yet, but enough to see that the main point of this book is not that the theory of evolution is based on "carefully constructed lies". Sunderland (the author) wasn't a cospiracy theorist, but rather seemed to think that, working from the assumption of the truth of evolution, scientists create unscientific explanations which 'prove' macro-evolution and how it creates new species, despite the explanations' inprovability and the facts that contradict them. But the book's main point is to discuss the admitted problems with all theories of macro-evolution. Sunderland does show that certain evidences for evolution are presented to the general public by textbook writers and museums, etc as fact, even when many evolutionists consider them false. It appears from the book that many scientist do not seem eager at all to discuss evidence against evolution or to refute evidence that is shown to be false before the general public. This seemingly comes from a desire not to give anti-evolutionary thought any credence and to prevent anyone from becoming uncertain in their belief in evolution, which the scientists think they know to be true, despite the non-scientific way they came to believe it. The Editorial Review says that the author thinks "there are more problems than solutions with the theory of natural selection." This book isn't all about just natural selection.

Rating:
Summary: Sunderland's Confusion
Review: Luther Sunderland, a creationist, has written a book which purports to outline what he saw as profound problems with evolutionary theory, especially as revealed in the fossil record. Much of the book is based upon interviews with paleontologists (and one geologist) from leading museums in America and abroad. He also reviewed other sources, and the book is largely a compilation of these sources into five thematic chapters, with interpretation and commentary by Sunderland. The transcripts of the interviews with the scientists four are available at a nominal cost from the ERIC archives (Sunderland provides details in the book). In my opinion, everyone who reads this book should obtain a copy of the transcripts, but more on that later. Any page numbers mentioned refer to the original edition of the book.

It is difficult to convey just how bad a book this is (it seems that "zero stars" is not an option in this review system). The problems are so rampant that a comprehensive review would probably exceed the length of the book itself, but suffice to say that Sunderland has made at least one (and usually more) major error of fact, accuracy, comprehension and/or interpretation on almost every page. The mere fact of being a creationist should not be enough to prevent anyone from grasping the basics of science and evolutionary theory; however, it soon becomes clear that Sunderland appears to know very little about science in general, let alone paleontology or evolution, and as a result his characterizations of Darwinism, evolutionary theory, and the fossil record are a mishmash of misunderstandings, faulty logic, revisionism, and erroneous conclusions. Below is a very incomplete list of some difficulties:

--his version of the history of evolutionary thought is so revisionist it is barely recognizable
--evolution somehow depends upon the existence of "transitions" in the fossil record
--he continually equates punctuated equilibrium with the "hopeful monster" idea, a fundamental misunderstanding
--he calls the geological column "mythical" (something of a great surprise to generations of geologists, I'm sure)
--he dismisses population genetics outright, calling it "so-called", and barely comprehends the purpose of the Hardy-Weinberg equation

Sunderland's main premise, supposedly supported by the interview transcripts, is: The fossil record does not support evolution because no transitional forms exist, and evolutionary scientists themselves "know" this. And if this is "known", then evolution itself cannot possibly be regarded as "fact". Unfortunately, Sunderland's comprehension of basic science is so limited that he had no hope of understanding the answers to his questions--time and again he blatantly misunderstood them or misinterpreted the meaning into something that bore no resemblance to the original intent of the interviewee. There are many examples of this in the book, but perhaps the one that has become the most (in)famous is his exchange with Niles Eldredge about horse evolution, and the subsequent "conclusion" he came to. Briefly, horses and their precursors were an extremely successful and diverse group, and their evolutionary tree is, in reality, a flagrantly-branching bush of many separate but often contemporaneous lineages that flourished worldwide. However, the normal museum-style way of presenting this was to show a grossly oversimplified version of horse evolution as a linear trend of changing features, and Eldredge quite rightly lamented the use of this simplified and misrepresentative iconography, because it does not represent how horses actually evolved. Sunderland completely failed to understand that horses are indeed one of the best-documented examples of evolution around, but that it is the habit of oversimplifying this evolution as a simple "ladder" or chain that is bad, or "lamentable". There is a crucial, and not-all-that-subtle, difference here.

Now, I should make a distinction here between Sunderland's inevitable mistakes and misinterpretations that occur because of his essential cluelessness, and misrepresentation. Both of these exist in the book; the second is not as apparent as the first but is much more insidious, because, while suspected, it can only really be confirmed if one obtains the transcripts of the original interviews and compares them with the book. It becomes clear that (among other things) Sunderland omits critical portions of responses that would provide context, or adds words to responses that originally were not there (often without indicating that he has done so); he changes the question; and he invents responses that do not exist.

As one example of "changing the question", on page 69, he says "the author questioned Dr. Eldredge about the supposed conversion of scales into feathers..."; however, when one examines the transcript, one finds that he asked Eldredge no such question! We see, rather, that Sunderland had commented (not "asked") that "Birds start at the feather line. Aves are classified as creatures with feathers" (p. 26 ERIC document), and Eldredge merely expanded upon this comment. In fact, nowhere in the entire Eldredge interview is there any question about the origin of feathers.

In short, there appears to be so much egregious manipulation involved in compiling the book it is difficult to excuse Sunderland on the grounds of ignorance, except that he invites readers to obtain the transcripts and compare them to the book. Either he truly was so abysmally uninformed about science that he had no idea how much violence he did to the original context and meaning, or he did know and simply didn't care (or didn't think anyone would bother following up). But I urge any reader interested in the truth to do as he suggested: order the transcripts from the ERIC archives, and compare.
Sunderland does quote from other sources, but seeing just how badly he dealt with his interviews makes me mistrust anything he says about any other source. Sunderland's book is a fiasco, from first word to last.

Rating:
Summary: A very readable expose of the "trade secret" of paleontology
Review: Most people assume fossils somehow prove the grand story of evolution. Would you believe Darwin believed the fossil record was his biggest problem? Sunderland interviewed five of the world's leading paleontologists, and the results of his interviews form the basis for this book. While evolutionary paleontologists assure the public that the fossil record shows evolution, behind the scenes they admit the evidence does not support molecules-to-man evolution at all. The lack of true transition forms (showing new features in development, as distinct from fully formed) is what Stephen J. Gould called the "trade secret of paleontology." This book shows just how discomforting a secret it is.

Rating:
Summary: A Unique Perspective On Evolution
Review: There are many books critiquing Darwinism, but what sets this book apart is the fact that Sunderland interviews paleontologists who believe in evolution, yet admit that the "facts" presented to the public are often questionable. Warning: the reader should know that Sunderland was blasted by evolutionists after writing this book. They claimed that he had misquoted and misrepresented his sources. I suspect that in this case this is an example of trying to do damage control in the face of embarrassing admissions. You be the judge.