Defending Evolution: A Guide to the Evolution/Creation Controversy

Rating:
Summary: Title should read "Naturalism rules, OK."
Review: I was prompted to read the book because its title suggests a scientific defense of evolutionary theory. As a creationist, I am always interested to read any scientific defense of evolution by its advocates. Disappointingly, the book contains precious little scientific discussion. It contains an unqualified endorsement of the monopoly of metaphysical naturalism in education, with a detailed scheme of how to implement it effectively.

Metaphysical naturalism dictates that nature is all there is, and rules out the prior question about its own validity. It pursues exclusively naturalistic explanations of origins, regardless of the possibility of its leading down a blind alley.

The book handles the science at a very superficial level. Creationist views are contrasted against evolutionist views. The latter are implicitly assumed to be correct, and any disagreements put down to "creationist misconceptions". Apparently, only creationists generate misconceptions, never evolutionists! Many detailed scientific discussions are found in the technical creation science literature, but the book fails to address them.

Let me illustrate the book's superficiality with just a handful of examples (among many). Page 89 uses the homology argument as evidence for evolution, without mentioning the tautologous nature of the argument, or the fact that morphological and biochemical homologies yield contradictory family trees. Page 92 offers as evidence for human evolution the linear progression from A. africanus to H. sapiens via habilis and ergaster, even though this naïve linear model has been called in question by evolutionist palaeoanthropologists for years. Incredibly, the idea of embryonic recapitulation is still touted (p110)! These are precisely the kind of misinformation that is being foisted on unsuspecting students (and the public) in order to brainwash them into believing evolution. This is what creationists and other non-evolutionists oppose, and the book defends!

The authors naïvely echo the claim that finding human footprints in Cambrian strata would falsify evolution (p86). In reality, it would do nothing of the sort. Evolutionists would simply resort to one or more of the following strategies: (1) assign the strata to another age, (2) attribute the human footprints to some other kind of organism, or even some non-biological origin, (3) consign the phenomenon to that black box labelled "anomalies", which is bulging at the seams, and forget about it. In the evolutionist mindset, the occurrence of human footprints in Cambrian strata is simply an impossibility, period. The paradigm overrides the data, every time.

Various accolades by leading academics are printed on the first page. To my mind this simply demonstrates the emperor's new clothes mentality so deeply ingrained in evolution adherents.

Rating:
Summary: An education for teachers - and others
Review: The Alters' title says it clearly. Teaching science in public schools has changed from subdued academic studies to open battle. The invaders are Christian "creationists" seeking the overthrow of one science - biology. The defenders are teachers of biology. This invaluable book provides a shield of nearly insurmountable strength for educators under siege. The shield, however, isn't war-like propaganda. It is a reasoned analysis of the problem teachers face and some advice on how to deal with it. Of course, the information provided is applicable to a wider audience, even those crusading against evolution by natural selection and the memory of Charles Darwin can gain value from it. The value of this book goes far beyond the classroom. It leads to many issues every society must address and resolve - but with reason, evidence and explanation, not dogmas.

The authors present a straightforward, unemotional description of how Christian creationists think, argue and attack Darwin and evolution by natural selection. They cover the many publications, speeches and other products of creationist sources such as the Institution for Creation Research. The initial segments of the book are an attempt to educate the educators on what they might be confronted with in the classroom and auditorium. They stress that the campaigns are many and varied in technique. There is no single thrust of argument creationists present, because their own beliefs are inconsistent and often self-contradictory. Teachers must be fully prepared to cope with this wide spectrum of opinion. They further note that the teachers' position is made more difficult by the fact they are contending with dogma, not science, in a curriculum based on scientific evidence. It is an arena of apples and oranges.

The most important aspect of this book is the emphasis placed on student attitudes. By the time most students enter a biology class they may have suffered a lifetime of anti-Darwin or anti-evolution propaganda. Teachers need to understand they are dealing with a well set mind-set. Quick, easy answers or sending questioning students to sources they're unlikely to read isn't the best defensive weapon. Teachers, argue the Alters, must go on the offensive, perhaps at the beginning of the school term. They offer a full list of strategies, most of which are designed to provide strong student interaction and the confronting of prejudices with evidence. Students, argue the Alters, are best convinced when they convince themselves.

How far this book will go in pushing back the thrust of ideology will remain an open question. People who don't pick it up will learn nothing - they likely feel they already know all they need. Those reading it with the aim of refuting it will not be seriously challenged with biological evidence for evolution by natural selection. That information lies elsewhere and should best be given by the teachers who use this book. Refuters, however, will have difficulty targeting the variety of topics Christian creationists address. The teachers, for whom this book is intended, will learn much and probably be surprised at the enormity of their task. The real market for this book, although only mildly addressed in the text, is PARENTS. Parents who have been instilling ideology and dogma in their children should be the most numerous buyers of this book. Parents who wish to counter the failure of teachers who are cowed by Christian creationist assaults into failing to discuss evolution in the classroom must buy this book and give their teachers full support. They will gain many insights from this book and many strategies to apply in ensuring the quality of their children's education. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada.]

Rating:
Summary: Best non-technical guide to Darwin for biology teachers
Review: This is probably the single best guide for helping biology teachers deal practically and realistically with the annoying anti-evolution politics that have been waged against their job.

While Moore's "From Genesis to Genetics" does a good job presenting the case for evolution to non-scientists, this book, Defending Evolution, does a far better job pointing out that anti-evolutonists are not all Bible thumping fundamentalists or even anti-scientists. This book also does a somewhat better job explaining why evolutionary theory is useful in biology, rather than just stating the case.

It is a deplorable fact that history has made the teaching of evolutionary science a "separation of Church and State" issue, almost as if evolutionary science were inherently atheistic, or anti-relgious. Some evolution writers have played right into this by linking their own anti-religious views to the defense of Darwin. One of the wonderful things about this book is that it manages to defend evolutionary theory science without attacking religion or the basis of most people's religious beliefs. This is far from an easy task, as many other authors have discovered.

Defending Evolution takes the confusions over evolution seriously rather than just discounting them as wrong, and patiently explains how biological science has resolved each of them. That makes this a very helpful teachers' guide, rather than just another polemic about how science is being abused.

Most importantly, this book does not make the mistake made by many others, equating anti-evolutionism with religion and then going off on an anti-religion argument. People have both religious and logical reasons for failing to understand concepts of evolutionary biology, and it is important not to lump then together, but to recognize the nuances.

Yes, in a sense, this book is "preaching to the choir" meaning that it will probably not itself be likely to go very far in convincing a hardcore anti-evolutionist that Darwin was right. For example, it explains that eyes and wings do not have to simply appear in their current form to be useful, addressing a common creationist misconception, but it does not illustrate the process in a visual way, and so probably would be be very convincing.

As a previous review demonstrated, people who find "macroevolution" implausible, whether on religious or non-relgious grounds, will probably not be tempted to change their mind reading the excellent explanations in this book. Big scientific ideas like natural selection that require inductive reasoning over a web of interlocking data are not going to suddenly make sense to someone opposed to them simply because they are explained patiently and logically. However, this approach probably goes a lot farther than anything previously written on the subject, because it avoids many of the polemics, unites scientists and educators against anti-science, and avoids associating anti-science with religion.

This book is a treasure for teachers facing the challenge of basic education in evolutionary theory in today's cultural climate, and one of the few relatively positive things to come out of the political controversies over teaching evolution in the U.S..

I highly recommend that everyone who teaches biology at least read this book, and perhaps use it to help identify supplementary materials that will address important areas of confusion that this book identifies.