Customer Reviews

Of Pandas and People, The Central Question of Biological Origins

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(77)

 

 

I finally got around to reading this book, and was astonished to find that nearly all of Michael Denton's impossibly wrong account of hierarchies in taxonomy was included as chapter six. Denton, in his "Evolution: A theory in crisis" bases the whole of his argument against common descent on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of molecular data. The error is so egregious that, had he submitted it to any organismal biologist for review, it would have been obvious enough to warrant the cutting of the chapter. Denton himself has acknowledged the error, and retracted his attack against common descent.

So what does it say that this "textbook" accepts with an uncritical eye the argument, verbatim, and makes it the foundation of its discussion on molecular systematics? Only that the authors were ill-informed about the field.

It is unfathomable that any student will get anything of scientific substance from this book. The arguments are incoherent, and the data are woefully out of date. The representations of modern biology are laughably simplistic.

As a propoganda tool, Of Pandas and People is of marginal value, as its muddy arguments are not likely to make much of an impression on thoughtful students. As a "science textbook" it is downright shameful.

This book engages in simple false alternative negative argumentation against evolutionary theory and provides no positive arguments in support of intelligent design.

The book opens stating, "...we will present interpretations of the data proposed by those today who hold the two alternative concepts: those with a Darwinian frame of reference, as well as those who adhere to intelligent design.", yet research scientist George Gilchrist of the University of Washington was able to find only 37 instances of the keyword "intelligent design" in over 6,000 scientific and academic journals worldwide. Of the 37, most were irrelevant dealing with computer software or hardware, architectural or engineering design, advertising art, literature, fertilizer manufacture, or welding technology. Only 7 had anything to do with biology, and of these, 5 were discussions of the debate over using the Pandas textbook by various school boards and 2 were comments on Behe's book in a Christian magazine.

There is not a single instance of biological research using intelligent-design theory to explain life's diversity, and though both Davis and Keynon are professional scientists, neither has apparently published anything in the professional literature about their theory.

This book is systematically dismantled by Robert T. Pennock in his book, "Tower of Babel" and has been criticized by creationist, Norman L. Geisler, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, because the book "appeas[es our] enemies [by] avoiding the word 'creation' like the plague" and for not clearly distinguishing their view from that of "naturalistic (pantheistic) 'creationsits' who see the creator within the universe."

Pandas is guilty of violating every fallacy of argumentation outlined in chapter six of David Kelley's book, "The Art of Reasoning" ...lessons learned by first-year philosophy students, and amounts to little more than vague and ad hoc negative argumentation based on a false dichotomy with frequent hyperbolic congratulatory statements epitomizing delusions of grandeur.

Two stars because it makes an excellent example of what not to do when arguing in support of a theory, and makes excellent dissection material for students of the philosophy of science. It clearly illustrates the difference between the religious and scientific attitude: To hold on to belief come what may is a sign of religious virtue. Contrarily, science takes it to be a virtue that one withholds belief in the truth of a proposition until it is supported by the weight of evidence. And there's the basic theme of the book: To believe in Intelligent Design Theory in the absence of good evidence is a matter not of science, but of faith.

This review is based on the original 1989 edition. I have not seen the later revised edition.

The "science" in this book is extremely bad. For a school board member to recommend this book as a supplementary science text is evidence of incompetence.

One long example of this, which I am glad to see has been covered by other reviewers, is the account of taxonomy based on genetic sequence data. Their account of the standard evolutionary interpretation is wrong, wrong, wrong! Having also read Michael Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis", I know where they got this seriously incorrect understanding of evolutionary genetics. A correct understanding of evolutionary genetics would reveal that the sequence-based taxonomy is in remarkably good agreement with the fossil-based taxonomy.

In the acknowledgments, it is stated that "First came a round [of review] by scientists engaged in teaching and research, then a round by high school teachers, then a second round by scientists." Apparently by "scientists" they mean "Creation scientists", because it is clear that no one competent in molecular biology ever approved the content of this book.

Another error: "For instance, in skeletal structure, the North American wolf and the now-extincet Tasmanian wolf are nearly indistinguishable. If found as fossils, they would surely be counted as members of the same species." I am not a qualified paleontologist, so I asked one. They told me (as I expected), that this is just plain wrong. Find a qualified paleontologist and try this experiment yourself.

A shortcoming: the section on the origin of life gives short shrift to the RNA World Theory, which has held up remarkably well and which is backed up by evidence such as the discovery of catalytic RNA and the discovery that the core catalytic component of the ribosome consists of RNA.

Outdated: 'Arguments from ignorance' are used (science has yet to explain X, therefore the 'intelligent designer' must have done it), and some of these point out gaps in the fossil record (e.g. whale ancestor fossils) which have now been filled. Science marches on.

In addition to the factual errors, omissions and archaisms, logical errors are prominent, chiefly the 'argument from design'.

Boiling it all down, when the bad science and bad logic are excised, not much remains except for the cute picture of a panda on the cover. Really, it is cute.

I regret that the Amazon rating system does not allow the awarding of zero stars. One picture of a panda is not worth a whole star.

This book is a pseudoscientific masterpiece. Laudatory reviews from the authors' own corner musn't mislead us into giving this book anything less than two-thumbs down. The authors have used many tools of bad reasoning to establish their deliberately flawed theory - for instance presenting the Cambrian Explosion as an instantaneous event; rather than an 'explosion' in cosmic timescale. So the typical high-schooler who has little idea of the scope of cosmic time (in which a million years is mere table stakes) will deduce that the Cambrian Explosion is evidence of instantaneous Intelligent Creation! Voila! How fabulous! To develop a substantial understanding of the Cambrian Explosion one has to read much more beyond an Undergrad text book - one has to comb thru a 100 papers and at least 3 textbooks on evolution. Only then will one understand that the Cambrian Explosion happened over several millions of years and it in fact is one of the strongest bodies of evidence that supports evolution. The sections on molecular biology are so incorrect that it is virtually useless. "Creationism" sympathisers derive their opinions from such pseudoscientific tracts and swallow the incorrect criticisms therein and make statements like, "there are serious flaws and yawning gaps in explanations of evolution..." instead of taking the time and trouble to read through the voluminous scientific literature on the subject or at least going through a good text book in their library. But then who is interested in the pursuit of knowledge?

I had hoped that the editors would have addressed more fully the impetus and reasoning for their advancement of "Intelligent Design" idea (not theory). But alas, the text is muddled and full of misquotes by evolutionary biologists, just as it is in the publisher's review on the Amazon.com page. Ask any natural scientist, and they can present several concrete examples of evidence that support the main ideas of evolution. The "disagreements" that scientists have with evolution are in the subtle nuances of the theory, like the various mechanisms and smaller points.

Scientists, like me, spend their whole life working for peanuts with little or no recognition. We would love to be the next Einstein or Salk; if anyone of us were to disprove or come up with any hard evidence against Darwin's basic principles, we would be instantly famous and world reknown. It hasnt happened, we DO try to disprove evolution, thats why it is so robust, enough as to believe it to be truth.

No conspiracy here, folks. -Just science.

One doesn't have to open this book to appreciate how eager the authors are to make their point, even at the expense of truth and respectable scholarship. The blurb they wrote to attempt to get their work into the schools under guise of a textbook offers "in 1980 Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould pronounced the "neo-Darwinism synthesis" to be "effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy."

Anyone who has ever read Stephen Jay Gould (as opposed to merely fishing for anti-Darwin quotes out of context) would know that he is one of the most devoted proponents of evolutionary theory in the world today. Books such as "the Panda's Thumb" (ironic title given this book, eh?) blow to pieces the usual arguements about "structure of the eye", and similar complex biological structures, that are so often raised by creationists to discredit Darwin. In its place he presents the facts supporting a theory so elegant, logical, and just downright correct that the more we learn about biological systems, the more we see evolutionary theory supported down to the smallest microbe.

What Gould and many other scientists have long acknowledged was that while Darwin's basic theory of evolution is cleary correct, the fine points of the mechanism of genetic change are not yet fully understood. Gould points out the flaws in Darwin's original assumptions on this count, and analyzes the fossil record and other scientific evidence in a SCIENTIFIC manner to offer up what is now one of the leading modern theories to explain this mechanism...Punctuated Equilibrium. In doing so he never ceases to support Darwin's original premise, but goes about questioning the details of the original theory in a scientific, logical manner, and arrives at deductions which continue to support Darwin's greater theory. The quote given above is not a denial of Darwin's theory as a whole, but of a particular school of thought regarding how it is to be applied.

(His theory, BTW, blows out of the water 99.99% of all the creationist arguments against Darwin. Well worth reading, if you really care about this issue.)

Anyone wishing to understand the workings of evolution, and the *facts* so often misquoted in pseudo-scientific works such as this, are recommended to read "ever since Darwin" and "the Panda's Thumb" by Gould. There you will see how a *scientist* handles the kind of "questioning" and "controversy" rightfully covered in a science class. You will also likely come away moved by his own belief that Darwin's theory is wholly compatible with God, that science and religion compliment one another, and that faith need not require setting science aside...nor does it excuse writing shamefully dishonest "textbooks" that feign scientific method, while not even being honest enough to quote a scientist in the proper context.

Shame on the authors for abusing the writings of a great man to sell their book. Given how they handled that quote, I would not myself trust one other word they ever wrote, on anything.

The book's flaws have been fairly well documented by previous reviewers; I have little to add, other than my assent to the conclusion that the book is so poorly argued, and so insistent in the use of arguments and evidence whose inadequacies the authors must surely have been aware of, that it cannot be interpreted as a case of well-intentioned stupidity; it is, rather, an attempt to intentionally mislead any schoolchild unfortunate enough to be exposed to it. For this, Davis and Kenyon should be ashamed of themselves.

Of course, as the November 10 reviewer ("Dr. Ransom") notes, we should "think for ourselves." But the operative word, let's note, is *think*. Thinking for yourself does not mean believing everything you read; it does mean giving every position a fair hearing -- and the majority of those who are giving this book one or two stars appear to have done that. (The question to ask is: what are you supposed to do when you find a poorly argued work? Apparently merely pointing out that it is poorly argued gets you labeled as "foaming at the mouth.")

Contrary to Dr. Ransom's entirely unsubstantiated claims, supporters of evolution do not have to "preach" it or suppress challenges to it in order to maintain their position. (These "dogmatic" methods are how religious claims are maintained, not scientific ones.) To criticize a book is not to avoid thinking for yourself; indeed, if the book really is bad (as this one is) and the criticism is reasonable, then such criticism is simply the fruit of the thinking process. And being able to tell the good arguments from the weak ones is indeed precisely what good liberal education is all about.

Pandas and People says different species appeared all at once, such as birds appearing as they are today, complete with feathers and beaks and such.

Wrong.

It says scientists don't have evidence that whales evolved from land-based critters.

Wrong.

It says the bones in the inner ear of mammals didn't evolve from bones that were once part of the jaw in older creatures.

Wrong.

It claims scientists are wrong about classifying animals because dogs and wolves are similar to Tasmanian wolves, which are classified as marsupials, like kangaroos.

Wrong.

Look at the trial transcripts from the Dover school district trial and see every dishonest thing about this book brough out in the open under oath.

http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/intelligentdesigncase/dovertrialtranscripts.htm

Read Dr Kevin Padian's testimony.

It is sad that anyone would give this book to a child or young adult. it is worse that junk science, it is outright dishonest.

As someone who has spent some time looking at the raw cytochrome c data across a wide variety of species, I was rather alarmed by the presentation of cytochrome c in this book. In the book, it is made to appear as if it contradicts evolution. The major reasons it appears this way is because the information is presented very superficially and the authors don't seem to understand what evolutionary theory would predict about it. As a result, the authors tell readers "evolution expects this ... but it's not found", when in fact, if they authors understood evolution better, they would never have thought "evolution predicts this...". The reality is that the pattern evolutionary theory would predict for cytochrome c matches what we see in a very precise way (stunningly precise for anyone who isn't an evolutionist). The end result is that the authors make evolution look like a hodge-podge of guesses and failed predictions, which is not an accurate view.

For readers unfamiliar with the biology, the book presents enough science to appear credible and will appear to contain strong criticisms of evolution. Readers who are familiar with the details, however, will note omissions, inaccuracies, and oversimplifications which skew the naive reader's perception against evolution. I don't like voting "1" since there are decent aspects of the book (easy to read, well illustrated, contains okay science up until they make some assertion about evolutionary theory), but, unfortunately, those positive aspects end up serving to enhance the misleading aspects of the book. So, it gets a "1". (Although it would be an interesting exercise in critical thinking for teachers to ask students to find problems with the book's information.)

This book is pseudo scientific attempting to create the illusion that evolution is scientifically unsound. It is not only completely wrong when it expounds on evolution, it is a malicious attempt by fundamentalists to undermine what they see as against their beliefs.