Customer Reviews

Darwin's Gift: to Science and Religion

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Ayala's book would be a good introduction to the evolution/Intelligent Design dispute. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone looking for more than the basics though.

The introductory chapter sets up Ayala's contention that evolution is a solution to Christianity's theodicy problem, i.e., how to reconcile the existence of evil with God's omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence. Ayala's bottom-line is that evil is not part of God's direct design, but rather is a by-product of the operation of the universe. That seems glib to me, but no more so than most of the other theologizing I've seen.

Chapter 2 outlines some of the early arguments from design, from Augustine (late 4th century), to Aquinas (13th century), to John Ray (late 17th century), and finally Paley's 1802 masterpiece.

Chapter 3 outlines the basics of Darwin's theory, particularly its attempts to answer Paley by showing that the appearance of design could be explained in natural terms, without invoking design, as the result of populations of organisms continuously adapting over time to ever-changing environments.

Chapter 4 focuses specifically on evolution's mutation-selection process. Mendel's early discoveries in genetics, sadly ignored for decades, are discussed, as well as a helpful example of how a seemingly impossible evolutionary adaptation, acquiring both resistance to streptomycin and the ability to survive without the key amino acid histidine, is actually so easy that bacteria can accomplish it in less than a week.

Chapter 5 discusses Darwin's main lines of evidence, with some updating of the details. The fossil record, biogeography, and homologies of anatomy and embryology are all briefly sketched.

Chapter 6 reviews the evolution of human anatomy, brain, and culture.

Chapter 7 reviews the "smoking gun" of evolution, molecular biology, which reveals both the unity of life in its reliance on DNA and also the evolutionary pathways that produced the diversity of life forms. Ayala also discusses the molecular clock hypothesis.

Chapter 8 focuses on Intelligent Design arguments. Ayala exposes the "evolution is just a theory" argument and the fatally flawed logic of ID's false dichotomy. (Also see my review of "What's Darwin Got To Do With It.") Ayala also discusses Behe's irreducible complexity (IC) in some detail. Focusing on the eye was probably not the best choice, since Behe himself would probably not classify the eye as IC, but plenty of other ID-advocates do, so it's not a completely inappropriate choice. And Ayala does address ID's classic example of IC, the flagellum, in some detail, so it's a pretty good summary. In particular, the footnotes indicate that a 2007 article on the stepwise formation of the flagellar system is awaiting publication by the National Academy of Sciences. Stay tuned for that!

Chapter 8 also discusses some apparently imperfect designs, oddities, and appalling cruelty in nature. Ayala argues that attributing such things to God is bad theology.

Chapter 9 discusses the perceived -- emphasis on "perceived" -- contradiction between evolution and God, and reviews the history both of educated Christianity's response to evolution and creationist opposition. There is also a brief discussion of some of the key court decisions in cases involving public school education.

Chapter 10 was an interesting discussion of the difference between ordinary induction and the hypothetico-deductive method used in science, with particular emphasis on the importance of testing, something which ID-advocates simply ignore, probably (IMO) because ID doesn't generate any testable hypotheses.

All in all, an interesting, easy to read introduction to some of the key issues and historical background.

[reproduced from my blog, EXPLORING OUR MATRIX, at the author's request]

I've been reading several books on evolution, intelligent design, and related subjects, as I seek to decide on representative readings to assign for my religion and science course this Fall. It seems to me that the differences between many viewpoints centers around the question of what God does.

Naturalistic explanations of various things in the world around us have always challenged religious beliefs. The monotheistic God of the Abrahamic traditions continues to have adherents precisely because of the flexibility and all-encompassing character of this concept of God. While Zeus' thunderbolts are now the domain of meteorology rather than metaphysics, the God who is responsible for everything does not disappear so easily. Yet the question must be asked by any religious believer: if you believe in God, what do you envisage God doing, and how?

For Michael Behe, the answer must be that God at least does certain things that set in motion the subsequent evolutionary processes. If everything from the start of the universe can be explained in natural terms, then the concept of God becomes irrelevant and obsolete. For this reason, he spends his most recent book looking for The Edge of Evolution. That he is involved in the unceremonious and begrudging retreat of the God of the gaps further and further into the distant past, and thus further and further away from us, seems not to bother him. Nor does the moral objection to Intelligent Design, which has existed since before Darwin, to which he responds dismissively by stating that "Revulsion is not a scientific argument" (p.239). This is certainly true, but neither is the desire to find something for God to do in the world, in contrast to other things that God doesn't do. Having opened the door to the possibility of design, and thus the inclusion and integration of metaphysics, philosophy and theology into history, Behe then balks at either providing an answer to this moral objection or drawing the apparent implication that the designer is either malevolent or inept.

Much more helpful is Francis Ayala's book Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion, which is appreciative of arguments such as those of Paley, even when disagreeing with his conclusions. Paley, after all, was working with the best scientific knowledge available in his time. Paley was also an opponent of slavery, which Ayala helpfully notes - it is easy to regard those whose views we disagree with as foolish, particularly authors in the past, and so it is helpful to be reminded of other aspects of their life and work, to remind us to be appreciative of their place in our intellectual history, as well as of the fact that no one alive today will not seem as off target as Paley to some future author writing with the benefit of centuries of hindsight.

Ayala takes completely seriously the evidence for evolution, and the fact that, now that we have DNA evidence, there really is no more doubt about common ancestry and evolution than about the criminals we put away on the basis of the same sorts of forensic evidence. Even Behe acknowledges as much.

The reason why Ayala is able to embrace not just the current state of scientific knowledge, but science as a way of knowing, is that he is able to regard statements about God and statements about the natural world as complementary. The danger here, of course, is that such language can become at best superfluous and at worst meaningless. All our language about God is metaphorical. But we still need at least some clarity if we wish to speak about events in the world, even or perhaps especially those that have natural explanations, as simultaneously 'acts of God'. Does this mean that we really see them as willed expressions of a personal deity, or as sacramental events that, even without outside tinkering, disclose transcendent aspects of the nature of reality to us?

One this is fairly certain. If one lives in North America, Western Europe or Australia, and in a number of other places as well, there is no use deceiving oneself about the character of one's theology. Just as there is no one in any of these places who believes in Zeus in the way that the Ancient Greeks did, so too there is no one who believes in God in precisely the same way that the early Christians did. Our worldview has changed, and attempting to will oneself into an outmoded view of the universe "by faith", even if it were possible (which it isn't), still would not be the same thing as taking that view of the universe for granted.

What is the fundamental difference between the various approaches to theology and to the intersection of religion and science today? The question of what (if anything) God does, and by what means. Answers to such questions will by definition involve metaphor - the challenge is to find metaphors that do justice to our deepest religious experiences and insights in a way that also does justice to not just the present state of our scientific knowledge, but the fact that science's track record suggests that natural explanations of things currently unexplained will one day be forthcoming.

Professor Francisco Jose Ayala, who once trained for the Catholic priesthood, clearly and concisely explains Darwin's ideas about natural selection and evolution by common descent, concepts as central to our understanding of biology as atomic theory is to chemistry or relativity is to physics, in "Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion". This is Darwin's gift to science. Ayala also shows how Darwinism is not only compatible with Christianity, but actually helps to glorify the majesty and grandeur of God by contributing to our understanding and appreciation of the material world while absolving God, a perfect being or concept, of the imperfections of His creations. This is Darwin's gift to religion.

Put another way, Darwin reconciled the existence of evil with a benign God by showing how all living things developed naturally, without any supernatural guidance, from previously living things, i.e. evolution by common descent. Darwin may have removed God from the daily workings of the material world, but by doing so, he brought us out of the dark ignorance of supernaturalism into the light of reason and placed God in a more exalted realm at the center of our continued moral strivings and quest for meaning and values.

As of this writing, no search features have been provided for this book, so the table of contents is reprinted below to give some indication of the scope of this book.

Chapter Title Page
1 Introduction 1
2 Intelligent design: the original version 15
3 Darwin's revolution: design without designer 27
4 Natural selection 49
5 Arguing for evolution 79
6 Human evolution 95
7 Molecular biology 117
8 Follies and fatal flaws 137
9 Beyond biology 161
10 Postscript for the Cognoscenti 181

"Darwin's Gift" brings clear explanations of the science, history and theology of Darwin's revolutionary idea to the general public, who, judging by the results of some recent polls, are sorely in need of some education on all three fronts. Otherwise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, people with outdated eighteenth century ideas will continue to influence the unwary and ignorant, to the detriment of us all.

In Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion, Francisco Ayala provides a clear, concise, and readable introduction to the myriad ways in which evolutionary theory has been applied in the century and a half since Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species. Although the motivation for writing this book appeared to be that of countering the views of "intelligent design" creationists, it can also be read by anyone interested in a brief overview of evolutionary theory. While not focusing at length on Darwin, this book does an effective job of explaining what the theory of natural selection consists of, and how it has been applied to such fields of study as paleontology and genetics in the century since Darwin. In fact, I've recently been reading of a number of works discussing evolution and have listened to a number of lectures on this topic (all as part of a university-level course on Darwin), and for a non-scientist like myself, I would've been helped much if I had read Ayala's book first.

Of course, it is evident from the title that Ayala intends to allay any fears that religious believers may have about evolutionary theory, and he effectively demonstrates how this theory can complement rather than threaten the foundations of religious belief. The basis that he rests this view on, as noted by other reviewers, is the concept of NOMA, or the "non-overlapping magisterial areas" of science and religion, popularized by Stephen Jay Gould. In other words, it isn't the business of religion to concern itself with strictly scientific questions, nor is it that of science to expound upon religious and philosophical questions (although this doesn't mean that individuals who are religious can't have an interest in science, and vice-versa). With this view as a departure point, Ayala shows not only what a gift Darwin's theory has been to science--with ample description of the ways in which evolutionary theory has been applied to a number of areas of study--but also to religion. In explaining aspects of nature that seem cruel or poorly designed, he shows that a refutation of "intelligent design" and acceptance of natural selection lets God off the hook, so to speak, by providing a plausible explanation for an imperfect world. In a similar vein, he follows the lead of the theologian John Haught (who he cites) and the paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who he doesn't) in showing how evolutionary theory can also provide an alternative explanation to the question of the existence of evil in the universe, solving the problem of theodicy (although admittedly this explanation doesn't have much to say about individual evil, such as how Hitlers and Stalins come to be).

Yet, even aside from the big questions of religion and science, Ayala's treatment of natural selection and evolution do a good job of demythologizing these concepts. For example, I found it helpful to learn that the process of natural selection is not the random, purposeless path it is often made out to be: while the mutations that lead to new species are indeed random, the process of natural selection that leads to such mutations becoming firmly established is not, but is instead a common-sense response of organisms adapting to a given environment over time.

In a time when the stridently atheistic views of bestselling evolutionists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have received much attention, it is refreshing to read the work of someone like Ayala, who can calmly make the case for the peaceful co-existence of both evolution and religion.

During a public lecture held in the Spring of 2008 at the City College of New York, eminent evolutionary geneticist Francisco J. Ayala castigated biochemist Michael J. Behe for his inane espousal of Intelligent Design creationism, asserting that, as a biochemist, Behe ought to know better. Ayala's criticism was not one replete with venom, but instead, tinged with sorrow and pity, while still accusing Behe of being derelict in his professional scientific duty by not recognizing the overwhelming scientific facts in support of modern evolutionary theory. That lecture was truly an excellent summary of the main points of Ayala's 2007 book, "Darwin's Gift To Science", which is still one of the very best summations of the evidence for evolution and a most effective condemnation of - what eminent philosopher of science Philip Kitcher has referred to as "dead science" and yours truly as "mendacious intellectual pornography" - Intelligent Design creationism. Ayala, a former Roman Catholic monk, has rendered in elegant, exquisite, prose a most valuable service by using clear, concise logic in explaining how and why biological evolution is valid science, while Intelligent Design creationism isn't. Ayala's is a compelling line of logic, which doesn't founder on the hidden shoals of religious fervor, making the best, most persuasive, case I have read lately explaining why science and religion can co-exist successfully.

Ayala's introductory chapters discuss the origins of both Intelligent Design and Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection. In Chapter Two, Ayala presents Intelligent Design as seen originally by English theologian William Paley, presenting an excellent historical survey of its religious origins within the early Christian Church. In Chapter Three, not only does Ayala provide us with a concise summary of Darwin's research, beginning with the HMS Beagle voyage, he argues persuasively that what Darwin did with his theory of evolution was to offer proof that design could exist in nature without requiring the existence of a Designer, in short, "Design without a Designer". How? By demonstrating that by the process of natural selection, complex organic structures could emerge without recourse to some external, "divine" intervention.

The most important chapters (Chapters Four to Eight) in Ayala's book deal with the evidence for evolution and against Intelligent Design. Chapter Four is an especially lucid, quite persuasive, overview of Natural Selection, and how it has been confirmed, not only by ecological and paleobiological data, but especially, in recent years, by overwhelming evidence from genetics and molecular biology. Ayala also explains how natural selection has served as the "engine" responsible for organismal complexity, refining further his earlier point (Chapter Three) as to how there could be "Design without a Designer". Chapter Five is an admirable summary of the ample evidence for evolution, from embryonic development and the fossil record, to biogeography and genetics. Chapter Six summarizes human evolution, emphasizing recent molecular data that affirms the close kinship between humanity and our nearest living relatives, the chimpanzees. Chapter Seven emphasizes the importance of recent developments in molecular biology which merely affirm the fact of evolution, discussing the degree of similarity of macromolecules such as nucleotides, and how they have been used in constructing molecular phylogenies and estimating the "molecular clock" of evolutionary divergence between lineages. Chapter Eight makes especially short work of such ludicrous Intelligent Design concepts as "Irreducible Complexity", explaining, for example, how the evolution of the molluscan eye from primitive mollusks to the most complex, modern cephalopods like the octopus and squid, demonstrates that a complicated structure such as the eye, can arise independently in two lineages - cephalopods and vertebrates - as the product of natural selection, not by direct intervention by an "Intelligent Designer".

Almost as an afterthought, Ayala addresses how and why religion and science should be viewed as separate, equally valid, aspects of human intellectual thought. He summarizes and stresses how mainstream Christian religions have reconciled themselves to the ample weight of scientific evidence for biological evolution (Chapter Nine), citing the views of some prominent contemporary theologians. Finally, in the concluding chapter (Chapter Ten), Ayala discusses the empirical nature of science itself, using as the two key illustrative examples, Darwin's field research during the HMS Beagle voyage and Mendel's pea inheritance experiments.

I bought this book and an additional one by Ayala for my son's science and religion honors seminar at UMD. The professor wouldn't accept the topic, as he believed that the sources weren't detailed, profound, scholarly (choose one)enough to write his paper on!
Go figure...

The one question that Francisco Ayala does not answer from solid scientific evidence is the evolutionary emergence of Man. Let me state at the beginning of this review what is not my problem. Intelligent Design is not science, it is an old Islamic theory that there is no true causality in nature - so I am not a defender of Intelligent Design. Nor am I "creationist" in the sense of holding that species are the direct creation of a Creator. In other words, I accept Darwins' "The Origin of Species" as good science - what I call into question is his "The Descent of Man", and the conclusions that he draws from this.

Francisco Ayala is cconvinced that human beings are one with their biology, in fact, are defined by their biology. "The Descent of Man" is merely the application of the Darwinian model of the Origin of Species to human beings - with no factual data to back it up. In his examination of Homo Sapiens, he overlooks the nature and scope of the intellectual and volitional powers of human beings and reduces and degrades them to the level of non-human species, with no consideration of the effects of these powers in human history and culture.

Even from an evolutionary point of view, the nature and activities of the human intellectual and volitionary powers cannot be reduced to biological laws which are predictable and measurable. The intellectual and volitional powers depend solely upon the judgment, free choice and personal autonomy of each individual and have effects outside the human organism in such number, range and variety that they defy and exceed measurement and predictability of purely biological powers. From the point of view of biological laws, this number, range and variety are so improbably as to seem essentially miraculous.

Dr. Ayala has not been able to show a causal link between the human biiological powers and the human intellect and will, since all the evidence from the Human Genome shows that such a causal link is organically and genetically impossible.

2nd, the causality of the biological powers in human beings is limited to somatic and psychosomatic effects exclusively.

3rd, the human intellectual and volitional powers have a scope and range and structure untouched and beyond that of evolutionary and biological powers.

4th, the human intellect is a distinct order of realitgy from that of biology.

5th, the origin of Homo Sapiens is an historical and not a scientific or evolutionary quesion.

6th, the Human Genome is its cartography is semiotic, not biological.

These are facts from Molecular Biology itself that Dr. Ayala did not face in his chapter on Human Evolution and he does not solve the problem of the incomplete of Homo Sapiens in Darwin's "The Descent of Man". In this book, he gives the impression that all the questions and problems connected with the evolutionary origin of Homo Sapiens have been answered, and his book is alive with questions that indicate that, scientifically, Homo Sapiens is an uncharted continent.

THe evolution of Man from lower life forms is an evolutionary supposition, there is no evidence for a descent of man, only his classificaion as "mammal" in the Tree of Life, with his origin unexplained because our knowledge does not reach that far. Evolutionists are not satisfied with that lacuna in our scientific knowledge and want to fill that gap and complete their evolutionary chain, which, or them, has to terminate in Mah.

But there is not a shred of evidence to support it and it is possible that when the Human Genome reveals its secrets, its genetic cartography, its genetic codes and the multiplie genetic signatures, we will read, in endless sets of amino acids and base pairs, the unique identity of the human organism of the human person to whichc that organism belongs. Because the human embryo and the Human Genome are specifically human, with no evolutionary roots in any nonh-human ancestor. But scientific facts do show that evolution does not enter into the beginnings or development of the human species, and the semiotic calligraphy, instead, begins to reveal the genetic autobiography of one made "a little lower than the angels".

Father Clifford Stevens
Boys Town, Nebraska

With "Darwin's Gift," biologist Francisco Ayala sets out to convince his readers of two points: (a) evolution and religion need not be in conflict; and (b) that evolutionary theory is actually a good complment to religious belief.

Teh first claim is mostly uncontroversial, at least as long as one believes in a figurative interpretation of the bible, rather than a literal one. Ayala revives Steven Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria claim (NOMA) that religion and science occupy different 'domains,' - science handles the world of natural fact, and religion handles the world of non-material values (and "why" questions).

I am not religous, but if I was, I am quite sure that I would find this somewhat insulting. Yes, religion gives people meaning, but does it not also claim to have a factual basis? Does religion not claim that we all come from a higher power, but that this higher power created us in some particular way - in some particular fashion? And if so, what happens when science comes along and disproves that story (as it has with the six day story and woman being created from man's rib). So if I were religious, I would find the view that my religion is compatible with science INSOFAR AS it does not make fact claims, but limits itself to claims of values, a bit insulting and dismissive.

Next point: Ayala tries to convince us that evolutionary theory offers a good supplement to religious faith because it offers a way for religions to explain what they never could: faulty design in nature. Interesting angle, but it is not iron clad.

The dilemma is this. Intelligent design theory (the theory that Ayala takes the bigggest aim at) only claims that a designer must have been involved; it does not get into claims about that designer. So what if Ayala can show that the designer was a bumbler (by looking at such strange designs as the human eye with all of its kinks and quirks). And who cares, even, if we can show that the designer is probably twisted (what kind of designer would design something capable of muscular dystrophy, which has to be the most cruel disease known to humankind)? All ID says is that there was a designer; anything more, William Demski points out, is a theological matter.

Of course, even though Ayala's point is not iron clad, it is still quite solid on this score. After all, the human eye COULD have been designed, but it appears more and more to be the work of multiple 'designers' over long periods of time making gradual improvements by tinkering. Sound familiar? Evolution.

And when we look at many of the world's designs as pointed to by intelligent design theorists, we see forms that may look somewhat designed (evolution can account for that just as easily as ID), but forms that look like they have been gradually tinkered with and modified over time (evolution can explain that BETTER than can ID). We need only look at the eye, with all of its post-hoc wirings, or the brain, with all of its seperate compartments and parts, all of which are wired together much the way a stero system would be wired if bought piecemeil.

Anyhow, Ayala wraps this discussion into a rather brief survey of the evidence for evolution, which - suprise, suprise - he finds quite solid. Ckontras this with the 'evidence' for intelligent design, which has been easily refuted on more than many occasions. No transitional forms? That is absolute baloney, and Ayala points out at least twenty transitional forms that somewhow never make it into ID literature. DNA is too complex to be anything other than designed? Again, Ayala points out that a good reading of DNA reveals that it very much resembles a book written not all at once, but gradual and piecemeal (with some genes being turned off by other genes, etc.)

Ultimately, I give Ayala's efforts 3 stars out of 5. I don't find many of its arguments convincing (nor did I when SJ Gould wrote many of them in his book "Rock of Ages"). I seriously doubt he will change many minds with this one, and I see his arguments against ID to be some of the weaker arguments that have been leveled (again, ID speculates only that there is a designer, so saying that the designer is faulty does not disprove ID, which cares not to speculate about the abilities/competencies of the creator).

There are better books.

Ayala does a decent job explaining the facts of evolution -- but not more than decent. (Better, more thorough, more scientifically bracing: "Why Evolution is True," by Jerry Coyne. I'm beginning to think longer really is better in evolution books. There are no shortcuts to the evidence and a reader unwilling to gird for a long argument will probably refuse to be persuaded anyway, or is incapable of being persuaded.) It's comforting to see a genre evolving as authors vie to be the best explainer of the science of evolution, mentioning but minimizing the threadbare objections that fill popular understanding. And I praise the author for trying to bridge science and belief, and for taking the stand during the Dover school board travesty as the voice of religious believers who are intelligent, genuinely curious, and humane. His work there is heroic.

That said, I think Ayala fails. Bridging religion and naturalism will take, well, a miracle, and I was disappointed that this book contains no miracles. We're still stuck at Gould's prayer for "non-overlapping magisteria" (translation: Can't we all get along? Pleeease?) and the reader of this book is left, at the close, in the heavenly waiting room. Ayala's defense of the religious magisterium is only pious. As a veteran of Catholic schools I heard the echo of countless well-meaning, church-loyal religion teachers who thought they were giving intellectually restless children an answer by saying science is science, revelation is revelation. Sadly, they weren't. The evidence is not the same, and never will be. What science offers is provable and disprovable, it moves forward, assassinating pieties (including its own) along the way. It destroys paradigms, scatters clouds and peers into space and time and finds nobody there.

It simply isn't good enough to say that what religion says (and which religion? the world is made up of more than Dominicans. Is the palm reader's word as good as the pope's?) should be accorded the same authority as what chemistry says. Or astronomy, or physics. Compared to science, scriptures and oracles are a foundation of sand--a worldwide, ever drifting, mountain of sand.

Among other traps, Ayala falls into the because-I-say-so method of reconciliation: I am religious, and I believe science tells us true things about the world (including biological evolution), therefore there is no conflict between science and religion. QED. So: I, Mark Sanford, am a devout Christian who believes infidelity is wrong, and yet I jetted away to canoodle with my Argentine girlfriend, therefore Christian faith and infidelity can coexist harmoniously. Not QED. We know the name of that argument, and it's not reconciliation. Speaking kindly, we call it cognitive dissonance. Less charitably, we call it hypocrisy. I'd label it, in "Darwin's Gift," wishful thinking.

I was hoping to discover (again, in my miracle) that Ayala had thought it all through. Instead, he felt it through.

Augustine's and Aquinas's proofs for God's existence haven't persuaded anybody outside of seminary for hundreds of years. Nor does William Paley deserve the fulsome treatment Ayala provides. Paley's watch was demonstrably wrong, as wrong as geocentrism, as wrong as the theory of bodily humours. The more thorough class of evolution-explaining books lays this out. Nor is theology evidence. In these excursions the author weakens his book significantly.

The title, by the way, is the author's distinctive assertion that evolution can solve the theodicy problem. He no longer has to blame God for nature's manifest cruelty, inefficiencies, massacres and mysteries. Whew. It's all because of natural selection and its wobbly, non-intelligently-designed path. Somehow I'm not reassured. Ayala proves that God is not a shoddy designer after all -- he's no designer at all! Except as the secondhand shaper of unchallengeable "revelation" somehow collected in a volume of peculiar short stories and homilies (myths, as they say, to die for), or perhaps as the still, small voice one feigns to hear in a cathedral nave. This is an old, old problem: the more one learns about the world, the less space remains for the old sky god, the punisher, the inexplicable he-who-must-be-obeyed. Humanists say this god has run out of road entirely--but yet ethics, morality, and something forward-seeming remain. This is a profound, painful challenge to the old pieties, and it's been raging for a couple of centuries now. It will keep raging. Barring a miracle.

This is a well-written, interesting and up-to-date look at what Darwin does for both science and religion. It touches all the bases and clearly makes its point. Darwin offers clarity to both science and religion.