The title of this book is fairly self-explanatory. Niles Eldridge is a research paleontologist who is tired of creationism. He works every day with the obvious evidence that life on Earth is very old and has undergone change through natural selection. And that includes humans.
Eldridge is no sideline participant in the evolution debate. He has been engaged in it for decades, and has paid due consideration to the creationists' arguments. He reads creationist literature, follows the current legal battles, and publicly debates creationists. He wants to make evolution-- which is a highly sophisticated scientific principle not deeply understood by most people-- into something accessible beyond soundbites and surface-level magazine articles.
For a while, things seemed relatively stable. The creationists are always attempting to modify school curricula and to spin their ideas in new ways that make them seem more plausible and intellectually legitimate. But rarely did their tactics result in much real change; judges were not fooled. But in the past few years, the winds have shifted a bit. Old arguments that were considered dead decades ago are somehow resurfacing with new vigor. Eldridge is concerned that we have forgotten the battles that we have won, and wrote this book as a reminder of history.
Most of what the creationists are really arguing about was put to rest shortly after Darwin published "On the Origin of Species." The data we have gathered since then have only strengthened his ideas. But new marketing methods like "intelligent design" have taken hold, and Eldridge aims to dislodge their foundations.
The book has two themes. One is to explain plainly what evolution says, and why it says so. This is basic popuar science writing, so readers will understand what the topic of argument is in the so-called evolution debate. Eldridge is fairly adept at this, although sometimes I thought his extolling of the scientific method sounded simplistic. (Maybe that's the level we're at in this debate, though, which would be sad).
The second theme is to present the standard arguments of the creationists and systematically rebut them. I liked this approach because it provides weapons for people who get caught in a coffee-shop or dorm-room debate and need to thwart these smug pronouncements by creationists. Eldridge shows neatly that every point they make is founded on faulty logic, a misunderstanding of evolution, or a deliberate attempt to spin the facts into something bizarre.
That is not to say that he treats the creationists with pure disdain; far from it. Eldridge takes their points seriously, and rebuts them with the evidence that paleontologists, biologists, anthropologists, and others have found in their research. He notes that some creationists really have thought deeply about these matters-- Philip Johnson in particular, who is a professor at Berkeley and has debated Eldridge. But he asserts, with significant backup evidence, that these alternative views simply are not sustainable.
In the later part of the book, he becomes more philosophical. He is concerned that the "culture war" this debate has created will harm education in general. And this leads to his grand point: that various aspects of evolutionary thinking and creationist thinking can be fused to address a major current issue-- the staggering depletion of species that is occurring today. No matter what you believe about how the richness of Earth's life forms got to be here, many of us should be able to agree that it is a tragedy to kill them off at the rate that we are. Eldridge makes an eloquent plea for everyone who cares about life to find common ground where we can work together on this pressing issue.
This book is quick read, and I had no need to be convinced about the validity of Eldridge's title. But I did find some aspects of the prose less than enjoyable. Eldridge needed a better editor. His sentences are not always well written, and his organization is haphazard in some cases. I also found the tone more combative than I thought it needed to be in some cases, although perhaps being on the front line makes one more energetic!
I felt that I got some useful tools in case I find myself challenged by a creationist who has studied their literature and has the standard arguments lined up. I also appreciated Eldridge's list of tips and resources in the final chapter for supporting the teaching of evolution. It sounds like we definitely need to start speaking up about this, as the trend is moving us away from a strong evolution program in schools. I plan to help as I can. I'll give the book a "+".
Copyright © Kim Allen 2003
