Customer Reviews

Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?

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This book is primarily for Christians who are seeking a better understanding of the current creation-evolution debate. The author, who is the Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, St. Edmund's College, Cambridge, begins by assuming that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God.

Dr. Alexander then tackles his subject systematically, starting with biblical interpretation, then the biblical doctrine of creation, then three chapters on "What do we mean by evolution?" His discussion of the supporting evidence for evolution is the best and most up-to-date that I've yet seen in the popular press. He then spends a chapter defending evolution against common objections, such as:
* Evolution is a chance process and this is incompatible with the God of the Bible bringing about his purposeful plan of creation.
* The theory of evolution is not truly scientific because it does not involve repeatable experiments in the laboratory.
* Evolution runs counter to the second law of thermodynamics.
* Perhaps God makes things took old, although in reality they are much younger, in order to test our faith.
* What use is half an eye?
* Surely if evolution were true, God would have simply told us so in his Word so that we don't need to have all this discussion.
* Perhaps God made the original kinds by special acts of creation which then underwent rapid evolution to generate the species diversity that we see today.

In bringing together Adam & Eve and evolution, he presents the same five models (A-E) that he described in his paper at the joint meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation and Christians-in-Science in Edinburgh in 2007. He favors his Model C, in which "God in his grace chose a couple of Neolithic farmers in the near East . . . to whom he chose to reveal himself in a special way, calling them into fellowship with himself - so that they might know him as a personal God." Model C is consistent with the historical and biblical records. So is a local flood saving those who "walked with God." The calling of Adam & Eve to be the recipients of God's specific commands set the pattern for all the other specific people subsequently called by God for God's specific purpose, including Abraham, Moses and Mary.

In his discussion of death before the Fall, he makes the point that "nowhere in the Old Testament is there the slightest suggestion that the physical death of either animals or humans, after a reasonable span of years, is anything other than the normal pattern ordained by God for this earth."

Chapter 14 (Intelligent Design) does as good a demolition of ID as science as I have seen anywhere, and better than most. He also describes Simon Conway Morris's concept of evolutionary convergence ("Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe").

There is a brief discussion of accommodation (God giving his Word in language that his people could understand), with virtually no mention of Ancient Near East cosmology, which is treated very well in Gordon Glover's "Beyond the Firmament," or the problems of scientific concordism (the Bible teaches the facts of science), which is treated very well in Denis Lamoureux's "Evolutionary Creation". It also has a relatively weak discussion of how we know that the earth is very old, but after all, he is a biochemist. Despite these minor shortcomings, this is an excellent book for Christians, especially Young Earth, Day-Age and Progressive Creationists, who have doubts about their current position but greater doubts about the compatibility of the Bible and biological evolution.

A friend of mine used to say that you have to tell someone something three times before they really get it. If you're like that (or if you're over 65 like me and can't remember what you read last week), I highly recommend reading this book plus Gordon Glover's "Beyond the Firmament" and Denis Lamoureux's "Evolutionary Creation" in order to "get it."

I enjoyed this book. Its great merit is that it affirms both great science and great faith. The one can, and does, benefit the other. Alexander takes us back to the idea of the scientist as one who explores the workings of God's universe. This book gets us away from the sterile either/or thinking of the evangelical atheists and the militant creationists.

The book echoes echoes thoughts from Michael Ruse (Can a Darwinian be a Christian?) who from a philosophical background shows that Christian faith and evolutionary biology are compatible, and Francis Collins (The Mind of God) who also has no problem reconciling his biological knowledge and his belief in God.

Alexander is particularly good at showing how DNA changes can generate genetic diversity which is the substrate for evolution. He also shows how natural selection is likely to be a conservative force on most occasions.

Alexander takes evolution back to its original role as a biological theory that explained the formation of new species from existing ones. As such evolution is a powerful theory, with great explanatory power. His account of species formation, and the examples provided are excellent.

Alexander is also good at showing how the idea of evolution has been exteneded to ends far beyond its biological use. The right with its belief in survival of the fittest businesses and individuals, the left with its idea of human perfectibility and inevitable historical progress, the Nazis with their idea of "lives not fit to be lived", the atheist materialist who must deny any idea of design or purpose all use evolution far beyond its intended, or valid, remit.

This book is both an excellent account of evolution, and a demonstration that science and religion can be successfully and effectively pursued together.

The two possible areas of weakness in the book are the section on the origin of life and its summary dismissal of the arguments of intelligent design.

Overall however this is a useful book, and one that allows scientists to get on with studying evolution together whatever their religious differences may be. It helps to build a very powerful bridge across the false divide presented by those who prefer to talk about, "science versus religion."

Maybe I could give this fine book a five except I'm not smart enough to process a lot of the science that is related here! Anyway, I'll attempt a humble review. In his thought-provoking work "Proper Confidence", the late Lesslie Newbigin draws some conclusions which I think also relate to Denis Alexander's excellent book: (1) "To look outside of the gospel for a starting point for the demonstration of the reasonableness of the gospel is itself a contradiction of the gospel, for it implies that we look for the logos elsewhere than in Jesus" (p. 94); (2) "Our lives are shaped not by the confidence that we know enough of the laws of nature to chart our course with certainty, but by a faith (which can always be questioned) in the one whose story it is" (p. 73); (3) "As a Christian, my understanding of the truth must be constantly open to revision and correction, but--and this is the crucial point--only and always within the irreversible commitment to Jesus Christ. If that commitment is questioned, then I am once again a clueless wanderer in the darkness, bamboozled by the products of my own imagination." (p. 70)

In the spirit of Newbigin's conclusions above, Alexander approaches the scientific task with a firm faith in God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. He speaks passionately throughout this book of "God's patience and his power in bringing the present created order into being through the evolutionary process." (p. 190) "There is nothing in the created order without exception that is not created and sustained by God." (p. 320) And "it is not particularly helpful to think of God as tweaking the occasional mutation here, or bringing about the extinction of a species there, because the unavoidable implication from such a suggestion is that then God is less involved in some other aspect of the process. If the immanence of God in the created order means anything, then it means God's working through all the processes of the evolutionary process without exception, in the billions of years when (to our minds not much was happening on the earth and things were very small, just as much as in the Cambrian explosion when life became more diverse and interesting (again to our minds) and as much again as in the relatively rapid process of evolution that led eventually to our own appearance on the planet. In other words, God is the author of the whole story of creation, not just of bits of it." (187)

In spite of his strong faith, or perhaps precisely because of it, Alexander comes out strongly against insecure "fundamentalists [who] do a disservice to the gospel when as sometimes happens they adopt a style of certainty more in the tradition of Descartes than in the truly evangelical spirit." (p. 70) Sometimes? His postscript is especially scathing of the attitudes of many well-intentioned Christians toward science, quoting Augustine as others such as Francis Collins have done in recent years.

On the other hand, Alexander comes out just as strong against Richard Dawkins and his ilk with their unscientific, illogical propagandistic style: "if the `evolution' word is linked with the `atheism' idea long enough, then eventually people will think that one implies the other." (p. 180)

An early conclusion drawn midway through this book states "the geographical distribution of species, the existence of ongoing speciation events, the fossil record, comparative anatomy and, above all, genomics, all provide an immense array of persuasive data in support of common descent with variation." (p. 137) Alexander moves on from there to examine different biblical creation perspectives and related theological questions, concluding with a vague but helpful discussion of the present understanding of science on the "Origin of Life" issue. In summary, definitely read this book, but you'll need to read it multiple times and/or several others as well to even begin to get a grasp of the issues.

Like Drs. Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins, Alexander is a scientist and an avid theistic evolutionist. All three have written about their religious experiences from their respective personal views. Alexander however, also brings an uncommon depth of scholarly religious knowledge to bear on the subject of theistic evolution. As a result, I find his argument the most compelling that I've seen so far.

He has created a well ordered, information-rich exposition that is worthy of reading straight through from the beginning: his comfortable writing style makes it easy to do so. That said, his Chapter 7, "What about Genesis?", really gets to the heart of the matter; namely, should the Genesis creation account be taken literally or figuratively?

As Alexander points out, Bible literalism is a rather recent cultural phenomenon. Regardless, its proponents argue their position passionately, albeit without the support of history - or simple logic. In fact, if only logic were necessary to win over the Bible literalists, Alexander's argument for a figurative reading would be a slam-dunk. But the tenacity with which they cling to their belief strongly suggests a deep emotional basis rather than an intellectual one.

I am a theistic evolutionist, but I would have rejected a literal reading, even if I weren't, based on just this one verse: "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him." (Gen 2:20, KJV) Read literally, this verse says my omniscient Lord was clueless, thinking some animal might be a suitable help meet for Adam. Simple logic tells me this is not what the writer intended to convey.

Alexander is also - and primarily - arguing the case for theistic evolution, which is doubly hard in this context. First, because evolution theory refutes a literal reading of Genesis, it is anathema to all Bible literalists - whatever their chosen appellation -- creationist, intelligent design proponent, and the like. Second, the understanding of evolution theory that would necessarily precede acceptance is woefully lacking, especially in the US populace.

In short, Alexander has chosen, colloquially, a "tough row to hoe". I laud him for his effort to combat Bible literalism, but I'm afraid that those who could most benefit from his book are the least likely to read it.

I find this book disappointing, not because I disagree with its thesis (although I do), but because it does not provide a fair assessment of the alternatives. The author has not even made a serious attempt to understand the alternatives.

The End Notes include just *one* creationist book (Morris, 1984). The main text mentions another book by Morris (1976), which is a commentary on Genesis. There is no mention of *any* of the major creationist journals, such as Creation Research Society Quarterly, Journal of Creation, Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism, etc. These are the major repositories of serious creationist thinking. Alexander does not interact with any of this technical literature, yet he claims to be "a great believer in reading carefully the writings of any movement to understand what claims are being made by its chief proponents". Fine words - a pity the reality fails to live up to the rhetoric. Alexander is by no means alone in this. Charges of creationist ignorance are typically based on ignorance about creationism!

About ten ID publications are mentioned (including two volumes of debates between IDers & evolutionists). Four ID authors are mentioned in the index. John Lennox, author of "God's Undertaker" (2007), gets short shrift. Alexander does not engage with the many cogent arguments in Lennox's excellent book, choosing rather to insinuate ignorance on Lennox's part (pp295, 334).

The function of a gene is influenced by the presence of other genes, so a gene in a segment that undergoes recombination will find itself in a new environment which may modify its function. According to the author, this generates new biological information. Actually, it merely reshuffles information that is already in the pack. Moreover, this reshuffling is constrained, since recombination in meiosis is not random, but occur at "hotspots" (whose locations incidentally are totally different between humans & chimps). It therefore makes better sense to view the system as having been designed to operate with flexibility but also within prescribed boundaries.

DNA is recognised as a language. Language is specified information, as distinct from Shannon information. Although it is contextual (the meaning of a word or sentence is context dependent) this flexibility is highly constrained. Arbitrarily lifting a section of text from one book & inserting it into another will not add meaningful information.

"Genetic mutations that cause changes in the sequence of the amino acids in a protein can clearly be said to be the cause of new information." If the author is referring to *random* mutations, this would be like saying that accumulation of typos in a scientific paper that has undergone repeated copying can produce a revised edition. Many mutations are not random, but occur at hotspots. This suggests the process is controlled, again evidence of design that allows flexibility within constraints.

On the whole question of whether mutations & natural selection are capable of producing evolution, geneticist John Sanford argues convincingly that they cannot ("Genetic Entropy", 2008).

Chromosome fusion & pseudogenes are used to argue (conclusively, in Alexander's opinion) for the common ancestry of apes and humans. These arguments are critically evaluated by Geoff Barnard in "Should Christians Embrace Evolution?" (2009). Anyone who compares Alexander's handling of the data with that of Barnard, will readily see that it is not the creationist who cherry-picks the data.

Alexander dismisses the bacterial flagellum argument used by IDers, arbitrarily giving the last word to critics like Kenneth Miller. This gives the impression that IDers have no answer to these critics. This is far from the truth (see e.g. Scott Minnich & Stephen Meyer "Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic bacteria", Dembski "Irreducible Complexity Revisited", Eric Anderson "Irreducible Complexity Reduced" - just Google the titles). Those who seek an accurate introduction to ID should consult Dembski & Wells "the Design of Life"(2008), as a starting point.

Alexander invites readers to view an animation of the "self-assembly" of the flagellum. The fact that a highly intelligent scientist has figured out a way to assemble this molecular machine does not mean the system could have assembled itself spontaneously by a blind stepwise process, & in the *correct* *sequence*.

Similarly, the description of vertebrate eye evolution & the diagram on p145 convey the *illusion* of simplicity. There is nothing simple about the very first stage, the light-sensitive spot, or any of the other stages. As Behe noted, such "explanations" start with an already complex system, and continue by adding "complex systems to complex systems", explaining nothing along the way. The evolutionary accounts of the flagellum & the eye are "simply" just-so stories.

Imaginative origin of life scenarios may sound plausible on the surface, but again the devil is in the detail. The author claims that new discoveries are progressively elucidating the details. On the contrary, these new discoveries have a habit of uncovering hitherto unknown deeper levels of complexity that actually exacerbate the problems. Read Stephen Meyer's "Signature in the Cell" (2009) for a comprehensive, lucid, & non-patronising account of these problems.

Along with atheistic evolutionists like Jerry Coyne ("Why Evolution Is True?" 2009) & Richard Dawkins ("Greatest Show on Earth" 2009), theistic evolutionist Alexander's promotion of fish-tetrapod transition, & the role of Tiktaalik, now sounds pretty hollow in the light of recent discoveries of tetrapod footprints that predate Tiktaalik & the other putative ancestors.

Creationists, IDers, & critics of evolution generally, are used to being misrepresented, and accept it as a fact of life. A far more serious concern, however, is the author's cavalier dismissal of the issue of intolerance of the evolutionary establishment towards those who express doubts about evolution. His claim that "exactly the opposite is the case" is astonishingly naive. Let him *read* the *carefully* *documented* accounts in Caroline Crocker's "Free To Think" (2010) and Jerry Bergman's "Slaughter of the Dissidents" (2008) to find out what is going on in the *real* *world*!

First off, I am an OLD-earth creationist - I believe that the universe is approximately 13.73 billion years old and the earth approximately 4.5 billion. However, I do NOT believe in evolution between species, as there are MASSIVE problems with it scientifically and this is NOT supported by the fossil record. Yet, certainly, God COULD have used and guided macro evolutionary processes to create life and man IF He had so chosen such a process, but I don't believe this is the case. One enormous problem Alexander has with his theory is that it MASSIVELY contradicts Scripture - it basically must relegate Adam and Eve and the Creation story in Genesis to either metaphor or myth. The Bible describes the Creation sequence so as that Adam and Eve not only were created AFTER all of the animals had been created, but they were also created separately/instantly as intact adults and and as based upon a separate and very different template (GOD's image) than those of the animals. Even if one believes that Adam and Eve were simply the first two humans (who had descended through a long process of lesser animals and forms) that God first embedded with a spirit - one must admit that such evolution conflicts with the Bible's description of both how man was formed and where and how in the Creation sequence this came to be. Note Genesis 1: 25-26: "God made the wild animals ACCORDING TO THEIR KINDS, the livestock ACCORDING TO THEIR KINDS, and ALL the creatures that move along the ground ACCORDING TO THEIR KINDS. And God saw that it was good (this sequence implies that all ground creatures and other animals were already created PRIOR to Adam's existence). In Genesis 1:26: "THEN (implies subsequent to/after the creation of animals) God said, "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE, in OUR LIKENESS, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Very key are the contrasting phrases used to describe how the animals were each created "according to THEIR kinds" as opposed to how man was created "in OUR (the Trinitarian God's) IMAGE, in OUR LIKENESS."

Genesis 2:7 says "the LORD God formed the man (Adam) FROM THE DUST OF THE GROUND and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man BECAME a living being." Here we see that Adam was not already alive as a result of some evolutionary chain - God formed him AND THEN gave him breath. If Adam had merely evolved, then Eve would have been a similarly evolved female of the species, yet Genesis 2: 18 tells us Adam was ALONE: "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make (note He hadn't yet done so) a helper suitable for him" because "for Adam NO SUITABLE HELPER WAS FOUND"(v. 20).

So, in conclusion, while Alexander may attempt to show no contradiction between Scripture and evolution, he can't get around the fact that the uniqueness of Adam's and Eve's created "LIKEness," the DETAILS surrounding their creation - and the sequence of their creations INDEPENDENTLY and SUBSEQUENT to the creation of ALL of the animals, make his assertions highly problematic and Scripturally unsupported.