Not having read a basic introductory work on this topic (or on any topic, for that matter) for some time, I was very pleased to read this, while having an enjoyable break at a place called Yarramalong, near Newcastle in Australia.
Dominic travels the territory of the dogma of evolution and picks up on the several improbable things it does before breakfast.
The chapters are:
- What is Darwin's theory of evolution?
- The fossil record
- 'It is observed today'
- Homology
- Vestigial organs and embryology
- Biogeography
- 'It is recorded in DNA'
- Evidence of design in nature
- Is belief in evolution necessary for scientific progress
- Why do so many scientist subscribe to the theory of evolution?
- Is evolution compatible with Christianity?
The book is replete with references to both the relevant primary and secondary literature, so a great mine of sources for high school students to use to baffle their teachers (on my experience, this is not hard. I once countered an assertion made by my science teacher from my then recent reading of Lorenz' On Aggression. He had nothing to say! Happily this teacher, back in the 1970s, was a firm sceptic as to evolutionary ideas).
One of the strengths of the book is that it compares what evolutionary 'theory' should predict with what is found in fact. The theory is found wanting.
This brings to mind a discussion I witnessed at a L'Abri seminar where a Christian physicist who was a well known evolution booster said that evolution's strength was its predictive power. Statham shows that it demonstrates very weak predictive power. This is particularly so in the area of homology where nothing lines up with evolutionary expectations.
The author refers to Walter ReMine's work. ReMine avers that this may be as a result of God's structuring the creation in such a fashion as to frustrate evolutionary explanations. This may be so, but I prefer to regard it as the creator showing diversity of effective means, and that this is what the real world is really like: diversity. It is not a 'one way' world but one of abundance of pathways of action.
BTW, here's a link to Haldane's famous paper on The Cost of Natural Selection which Statham mentions. There is also a nice treatment of the topic by Walter ReMine.
