Customer Reviews

Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I found this book to be very fair in its presentation of Darwinism/Evolution and the responses from those who doubt some of it capabilities. Would highly recommend this book.

I am a PhD scientist, and I also teach honors high-school math and science courses to highly gifted young people. I am convinced that Explore Evolution (EE) will stimulate more interest and encourage more young people to pursue careers in the biological sciences than any other textbook I've seen.

Most high-school biology texts present biology topics (alas, also science) as a list of static theories and stale facts, rather than in the context of an exploration and learning process which is underway, fascinating, changing by the minute, and accessible to most anyone willing to invest themselves. Especially today, as the field of biology is expanding in so many new and exciting ways.

I am also convinced that this book will SWEEP the home-schooling community, as the prose is lucid and non-intimidating to any 'home-school parent.'

For those of you who want to understand why the ID community is critical of Neo-Darwinism, EE is an easy introduction. It is a bit shallow on its presentation of ID itself, as ID was not the focus. For a more thorough yet still accessible intro to ID, Behe's book is an essential read. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution Behe's sequel is brilliant and thorough, but a bit more challenging read.The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism

I appreciate the inquiry approach employed in EE for use at the high-school level, and have employed it many of my classes in the past. For example, I've had the students read Behe's book and Gould's 'Full House' books back-to-back (Gould's book is also brilliant, yet accessible Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin). Our class then took a field trip to meet with the late Dr. Gould, who was gracious and engaging.

Scientists are REAL people, they have real and interesting questions to explore, and they argue and debate about them all the time. That's half the fun! Giving our students a taste of that fun is an excellent way to interest them in science. And interested students learn more.

If you're expecting to see all the technical arguments in detail, you'll be disappointed. Remember, the audience is a high-school classroom. It is the gist of the argument/discussion that hooks them. But if you want the technical details, the book is well-referenced...and the references are refreshingly current.

The pitiful state of high-school science classes is well-lamented, and the legal and political debate over classroom curriculae will not end soon. The authors have tactfully removed the obstacles a typical school board would encounter. Thus, I expect to see EE popping up in school districts all over the country.

I bought this book a few years ago, and I am absolutely impressed with its quality.

Written at a high school level by actual real scientists, this book shows the other side of the evolution debate, stating what the textbooks teach on the subject, and then giving evidence against the Darwinist claims.

I would recommend this to every student that is being taught evolution in science class.

The authors of this book have provided compelling responses that counter the popular sentiment that Darwinian evolution is fact and that there is overwhelming acceptance of it as such by academic scientists, philosophers and sociologists with little need for critical testing. The authors accomplish this by presenting arguments of authorities who advocate both for and against the theory leaving the reader to decide where the weight of evidence lies. They do this with a clarity and simplicity that can be understood by the lay public, and excellent visual aids reinforce the explanations to make this book quite user friendly. Yet the book can also appeal to those sophisticated in their understanding of the issues surrounding Darwin's theory, and it promises to be an important resource in the classroom at secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels. The authors identify questions throughout the text that cry out for answers, thereby stimulating interested readers who are students to consider scientific careers by which answers can be derived.

E. Stan Lennard, M.D., Sc.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery, Ret., University of Washington; Online Instructor, Reasons To Believe

I have read this book all the way through. Some other "reviewers" clearly have not, particularly those who are doing the 1 star "reviews," which can be safely ignored as religiously motivated rants. However, these ill-informed fumings do illustrate why Explore Evolution is not just a valuable, but a very necessary book. Explore Evolution helps to explain current arguments used by two sides of a very contentious debate. Clearly some people are going to be more enamored with some of the arguments than others, but surely it has to be a good idea to know what the arguments are and to think a bit about what their relative merits might be.

Explore Evolution is a useful read from that perspective and also because it is reasonably precise while retaining the virtue of being concise as well. Most of the illustrations are well done and the general quality of the writing and design is good. Overall, this is the best product of this sort I've seen to date, evenhandedly laying out two sides of an argument and the evidence and logic employed by both sides.

"Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism", is very true to its title. Written in a way accessible to students, this book presents both sides of the evolution argument. While written by proponents of Intelligent Design (ID), I found that the book did not pull any punches in presenting the pro-evolutionary side of the debate, and is definitely not re-packaged creationism. In fact, it is very careful to point out where critics agree with certain aspects neo-Darwinism. The information is clearly presented and well documented, with plenty of end-notes for further research. Even though the authors are critical of evolution, they leave the reader open to draw their own conclusions and especially to do more studying and more research. Finally, the book is very up-to-date and presents some of the latest discoveries in biology. If I were a student reading this book, I think it would inspire me to learn as much as I could about biology, genetics, and evolution.

The book is an enjoyable read. It is not boring. It presents both sides of the issue and has references where one can check the opposing view for more information.

As a text book, it has one exercise (project) in it towards the end. It is a good intro for a high school student, but it still lacks a lot of depth. I would expect even more from a textbook.

Who should read it? Anyone can read the book especially after the 8th grade. Anyone who has no scientific knowledge of evolution or the case against it. An advanted person who is not familiar with the evidence might find it a bit of an overview. Most college students will find it informative if they are not acquainted with the arguments but they will not find it a challenge.

If you are looking for a thorough discussion where you might be able to talk about both sides of the debate in a very in depth, educated manner. SORRY! You will only find an intro here. You might be able to look up more of the references provided to get a more in depth understanding. This is an intro. It is NOT thorough in that you will come out with a basic college education in evolutionary criticism.

I was disappointed because of this. THINKING OF IT AS A TEXTBOOK, made me think that after reading it i would be very well rounded in my understanding of the subject matter and ins and outs, but i was not. While the references are good in my opinion, no one will want to take the time to locate, access and read all the various references used in the book. We really just need a more in depth version.

I'm giving it 4 stars. I think 3 is too little and 5 is too much. It is accessible to most English speaking people, easy to read, and educational. I learned a lot but not as much as I'd like to have learned.

We've read many, many books on the subjects of Inelligent Design and Darwinian Evolution. EXPLORE EVOLUTION presents the information in an interesting "verbal" table tennis style.

Though the authors only presents some of the Neo-Darwinism arguments(homology, fossil record, DNA, embryology, and such), they do so very well and quite thoroughly. I didn't have many questions left about those subjects after reading the chapters.

I highly recommend this book to anyone beginning to explore Naturalism, Neo-Darwinism or Intelligent Design - in addition to anyone continuing their research.

Reader-friendly format with excellent diagrams. I'd say it's well-suited for students that have at least completed high school biology, if not an undergrad biology course.

This book looks like a biology text. It isn't. It misleads, misinforms, and misdirects, in order to create the appearance of scientific controversy where none exists. In order to do this, it presents a straw man version of what contemporary biology actually is, contrasts this with unnamed "critics" whose views seem unconstrained by scientific reality, and then invites students to "make up their own minds" on the basis of what has been said.

The book claims to use "enquiry-based learning". It does not. Enquiry-based learning requires the students to collect materials and formulate their own questions. What we have here is the very opposite, with both materials and questions being presented to make a case.

Scientific positions are grossly mis-stated. To take one example I am familiar with, Woese's criticism of the concept of a single root to the tree of life is presented as if he were a scientific ally of the book's creationist alternative, an orchard (the book's term) of life. The very opposite is the case, since Woese seeks to replace this tree with a web; to make the different existing "branches" more, not less, connected.

Specific cases are repeatedly misrepresented. The "objections" to the classical work on the peppered moth are trotted out, with no reference to the fact that the work has since been independently verified. Behe's claims to have discovered "irreducible complexity" in the bacterial flagellum are repeated in some detail, while the crushing arguments against this claim that so thoroughly convinced Judge Jones are reduced to a parody outline. Molecular phylogeny and anatomical homology are both misdescribed, to bolster the central claim (expressed as usual by anonymous "critics"; notice how carefully the authors conceal their commitment to their Creationist agenda) that natural selection can only reduce the amount of information in a population, not increase it.

The work is mired in the past, perhaps deliberately. The tree of life is shown as drawn by Haeckel. Present-day biology is described repeatedly as "neo-Darwinian", a term more appropriate for the science of 60 years ago than today's. I set out to count the number of occurrences of some version of Darwin's name, but gave up when I had found 114 of them by page 36.
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Fuller analyses by NCSE and BCSE of the errors and misrepresentations in this book can be found by googling "Explore Evolution exposed"

In short, this book assembles (without having the courage to stand behind) all the traditional nonsensical objections to the central concepts of present-day biological science. It is Creationism coupled to politician-like deniability. It is a book to be ashamed of.