Customer Reviews

What's Darwin Got to Do with It?: A Friendly Discussion About Evolution

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I was initially excited about this book when it was given to me, since it begins by attempting to clarify often misunderstood terms such as "evolution" and "creationism." It also explains a position which I favor, "Intelligent Design." That being said, I was then disappointed by the approach. Rather than being an intelligent "conversation," the book becomes more of an obviously biased lecture on problems with Darwinism. The defender of Darwinism is an old, crotchety professorial type man, while the proponent of Intelligent Design is a young, perky, cheerful woman. It isn't hard to predict which character readers will be drawn to. The support for Darwinism is often portrayed with very silly (even for this comicbook approach) superhero characters, making the pro-Darwin argument seem ridiculous even before any evidence is actually examined. The pro-Intelligent Design support, however, is always portrayed in a rational, thoughtful manner.

Perhaps the best part of the book is its final pages of background information, in which the silliness is discarded, and some good points in favor of Intelligent Design are fairly made. Unfortunately, most young readers will likely skip that part, having completed the comic I did find it ironic, though, that the authors described a "trick" used to misconstrue Intelligent Design as religion by saying: "The trick works like this: (1) misconstrue the design theory position, (2) give the misconstrued position an erroneous and derogatory label, (3) attack the label, (4) dismiss the argument." This is, of course, exactly the tactic that was and still is used against Darwin's theories.

As long as a reader understands that this book is not written from a neutral perspective, it is worth reading. As I said, I agree with the basic position, but I wish the authors had not tried to portray an obviously pro-Intelligent Design book as a neutral discussion.

A quick look easily could fool a dilettante because of the quaint characters concerned about conveying their views connected with issues of origins. After a brief Introduction on competing ideas, the illustrated adventure leads to the meeting of Professor Teller and Professor Questor, two biologists who challenge each other's views regarding origins questions. From page to page the banter flies rapidly like a tennis ball going back and forth, thus forcing the observer-readers of the book to see both sides.

Both players score philosophical points, but creationist Questor tends to have the final "word". What's the outcome? In this game the reader of the book wins because he/she (whether evolutionist or creationist) will be challenged to reconsider the strengths and weaknesses of the performance of players on both sides.

When this book was recommended to me, I cringed inwardly -- another creation/evolution book. And in cartoon style? Give me a break...

It was a delightful surprise. "What's Darwin Got to Do With It?" is not a rehash of the same old stuff. The cartoon format keeps the presentation succinct and clear. No long philosophical essays -- just sharp, clear points. But the authors did not stop with that. They have shown, step by step, the logical errors involved with Darwinism. Interjected at a few points are pages pointing out both pitfalls where definitions are concerned and logical errors in arguments we have all heard dozens of times. Encompassing it all is the cartoonist's skill, which had me smiling most of the time and chuckling out loud a few times.

This book is not only enjoyable, it is thought-provoking and a substantive addition to the material available dealing with the controversy surrounding evolution.

WDGTDWI is a good introduction to creationist literature and its misleading rhetorical tricks, illogical arguments, sly ad hominem attacks, and inconsistent statements.

WDGTDWI makes a great show of explaining logical concepts, apparently believing that claiming to be logical is the same as actually being logical; but the errors in logic are numerous and obvious, starting with the book's format, a fictional debate between an evolutionist and a creationist. That debate format sets up a clever little debating trick, called a "false dichotomy," that creationists use all the time.

False dichotomy arguments have three steps. First, the creationist presents "Darwinism" -- usually a garbled version of evolutionary theory -- and intelligent design creationism (IDC) as the only two possible choices. Second, he points out alleged flaws in "Darwinism." Finally, he argues that if "Darwinism" is flawed, then creationism must necessarily be correct, since it is the only other option available.

Notice that this strategy allows the creationist to focus exclusively on the flaws, real or imagined, of "Darwinism," while keeping creationism itself safely out of the spotlight. That is crucial, because creationism is so flimsy, it cannot withstand even the slightest scrutiny.

The false dichotomy strategy places great emphasis on mud-slinging, which is why creationists "go negative" so much. Think back to books or conversations you've had with creationists. I bet they rarely offered positive arguments for creationism, and instead spent most of their time attacking evolution. That's the false dichotomy strategy in action, and it's completely illogical. (Which makes it pretty funny to see favorable reviewers gushing about how "logical" the authors were!)

For dichotomy arguments to be valid, the two options must be cumulatively exhaustive (no other options are possible) AND mutually exclusive (they can't both be true simultaneously). For example, let's say X is found dead in a locked room, along with suspects A and B. If A proves that he could not possibly have killed X, does that necessarily mean that B is guilty? Not at all. There are other possibilities, so A and B are not cumulatively exhaustive. X may have killed himself, died of natural causes, or been killed by C, before A or B entered the room. So proving A innocent, does NOT prove B guilty.

Furthermore, A and B are not mutually exclusive either; they could have co-operated in murdering X. So proving B guilty does NOT necessarily prove A innocent.

WDGTDWI's argument has exactly the same flaws. "Darwinism" and IDC are not cumulatively exhaustive options. There are other options available, including theistic evolution (TE), deistic evolution (DE), non-theistic design theories, such as Raelianism, and other options, such as panspermia, self-organization, Lamarckism, etc. So even if the authors showed "Darwinism" to be wrong, it would still not follow that IDC must be correct, since TE, DE, or some other option might be correct instead.

Nor are the two options mutually exclusive. On 139, the authors admit that the designer might use common descent (evolution) in accomplishing his design. This is a huge blunder, badly undermining WDGTDWI's entire argument.

In short, since "Darwinism" and IDC are neither cumulatively exhaustive nor mutually exclusive options, WDGTDWI's dichotomy argument fails. The whole book is one big error in logic.

There are other serious blunders too.

IDCs desperately covet the mantle of scientific respectability, so they can weasel their way into public school science classes; thus the authors insist (16) that their most important rule is "stick to the evidence," apparently accepting traditional science's emphasis on empirical data. But two pages earlier, the authors stated that IDC relies on non-empirical, non-objective evidence (whatever that means; Scripture perhaps?). It seems that IDCs want the same respect that scientists have, but they refuse to do what scientists do to earn that respect.

WDGTDWI insists that IDC is based on scientific evidence, NOT on religious appeals to Scripture (p. 140); but WDGTDWI repeatedly refers to divine purpose, indicates that divine purpose is a necessary aspect of design, takes great pains to link evolution to atheism and IDC to theism, and the book's one specific citation (p. 9) is to the Bible. How is that NOT religious?

On 75, rebutting Steven Gould's argument that the panda's thumb doesn't look designed, the authors correctly state that just because the thumb doesn't fit Gould's idea of design, that doesn't mean it couldn't fit someone else's idea of design. The authors' analysis is completely correct; but unfortunately that same analysis demolishes their own, anti-evolutionist argument. Just because evolution doesn't fit their idea of design, that doesn't mean it couldn't fit someone else's idea of design. Evolution itself may be a designed process, so it's completely illogical for creationists to imply that evidence of design disproves evolution.

On 102, the authors state that "Darwinism" implies that man's life has no purpose, and that's bad. Then on 104, they state that "Darwinism" implies that man's life does have purpose, and that's bad too! Huh??? Expecting consistency in a creationist comic book is probably expecting too much, but couldn't they keep their story straight just for three consecutive pages?

WDGTDWI implicitly rejects the Genesis story that Earth is only a few thousand years old and that Noah's Flood was a worldwide catastrophe (p. 10). Unlike other IDC spokesmen, WDGTDWI doesn't openly insult Young-Earth literalists, but YECs are still not going to be happy with WDGTDWI's obviously anti-literalist position.

Finally, on 145, the authors state that "Darwinism" is rarely, if ever, contained in high school textbooks. Well, if that's the case, then why did the authors spend 145 pages bashing a theory that apparently exists only in their own minds? Can you spell S-T-R-A-W-M-A-N?

WDGTDWI's comic-book format fits in with its comic-book level of IDC "thinking." Faulty logic, obvious inconsistencies, and, finally, an admission showing that their target was just a meaningless strawman. And that's "intelligent" design???

What a great book for brainwashing the youngsters. Hopefully soon
all American middle schools will carry this book, then biology
class will be as simple as saying 'God did it!' 'Recess!' and us
Americans can finally have our children get better grades then
those other snobby countries with all that fancy evolution jibber
jabber that requires students to 'study'. Children study?! - what
nonsense!

I read this book to see what is going on in the Creationist's mind. Boy, oh, boy, I learnt a lot.

A lot about how totally idiotic many of the arguments are, that is.
I was just skimming through the book and not thinking about anything carefully, and I found no less than 17 Flaws in the book's reasoning. Considering the fact that the book is mostly pictures, 17 flaws when a boy is just flicking through is pathetic.

One of the main flaws of this book is it assumes that with evolution, you rearrange the Genetic Code all at once and said it was like scrambling a computer program's code. That is simply not true. Evolution is the slow manipulation of the Genetic Code. The Genetic Code is changed little by little. You don't just turn the Genetic Code on it's head. If the code works, it progresses from there. If it does not, the Mutation is just one of Billions of Genetic Dead Ends, and nothing happens until the next mutation comes along.

It is also self Contradicting, and there are massive Loopholes in it's logic. The most blatant example is the fact that it doesn't actually try to prove Intelligent Design/creationism is true, it merely tries to prove evolution is wrong (Albiet, Unsuccesfully), working by the analogy that: "If Intelligent Design is correct, then Evolution is wrong." However, Just because something is true doesn't mean the opposite is ture. In other words, IF Evolution is wrong, it doesn't mean Intelligent Design/Creationism is correct. This is along the lines of one of the things they said in the book.

A terrible book.

I think people have the right to choose to believe whatever they want. However, when the depth and breadth of scientific knowledge are understated, or when an author pretends that scientific investigators are unprofessional or incompetent I get sore...

If you want a book to convince a youngster (or person niave to science) that Creationism is supported by scientific evidence, this book rates 4 or 5 stars. BUT if you want a book that genuinely explains what evolution theory is, or what is the true nature of the creation/evolution "debate", then this book gets "zero".

The book is a cartoon of two characters who are supposedly debating scientists--the male is pro-evolution, and the female is pro-creation. The book pretends to present evolution's side as well as the creationist's side, but the male is just a "Straw man"...

...How different the debate would be if the pro-evolution character were a competent scientist. See for example the debate between Saladin and Gish at:....

You will get a much better feel of what the issues are and what kind of evidence there is.

If there is a problem with the scientific evidence for evolution, it is that there is so much evidence and the proper analysis of it can get "technical". To genuinely understand the evidence, the average person would have to invest alot of time and thought to locate authoritive sources, and to digest the material. Rest assured that alot of myths are out there. Becoming truly knowledgable is not so easy. Stick to authoritative scientific sources if you want to know the science!

Anyway, a cartoon book this thin would hardly be able to adequately outline what evolution theory is, much less cover the bulk of evidence that supports it. This book does neither.

Some places to look for good info on evolution/creation:

1) Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe is a book that

Creationists have used as "proof" of intelligent design. Its arguments were used in WDDHTDWI. Behe's book makes for interesting reading. However his "analysis" is flawed in several ways. His concept of "Irreducible Complexity" is not scientifically "well defined", nor is it pertinent to the feasibility or liklihood of evolution.

2) The famous/infamous evolutionist site: www.talkorigins.org has numerous articles debunking creationist myths and explaining evolution. Has lots of links to creationist sites as well. Plenty of Bibliographic references.

3)... is a web site with lots of trilobyte info. For "proof" of evolution from the fossil record, look to sources that show the extensive history of sea life. As I understand, the marine fossil record is often better preserved, so it shows evolutional continuity: Existence of intermediate forms and the evidence for macro-evolution

Books by Richard Leaky, or by Mayr. The latter author may be technical but you will get an accurate picture of what the scientific philosophy/issues/methods are, what is known and what the evidence is for evolution.

History is important: The Causes of Evolution by Haldane gives a perspective of the development of our knowledge early in the 20th century.

Another book: The Major Transitions in Evolution, by Smith and Szathmary shows mechanisms of the evolution of life.

Oh yeah: Darwin's Origin of Species (by Darwin!!!)

Finally, if you want to see where YOU came from: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution, eds. Jones, Martin, Pilbeam

In the tradition of Galileo and other scientists, the authors present the argument of a theory in the form of a discussion between scholars. At the same time, they make a case for intelligent design. Although some might criticize the use of cartoons, I don't think this detracts from the arguments presented that evolutionists have still failed to adequately answer.

If you are looking for an exhaustive study of the question, this is not the place (although the last section gives excellent further reading). If you want to see what a real debate should look like, however, as opposed to the drive-by shots taken on blogs and by the well-fortressed academia, this is a great read. It is also good practice for constructing your own casual debate, if only to get an evolutionist to take an honest examination of their theory, looking for truth instead of trying to prove their point.

Regarding the other negative reviews, once again they are philosophical rather then evidence-based. IDers have had to examine and re-examine the evidence and their stands and develop solid arguments over the years, while evolutionists have gotten a free pass by the elites, public schools, and popular media. Authors like Newman, Wiester, and the Moneymakers are putting them on the defensive.

A terrible book. Shamelessly biased towards Intelligent Design Theory from the beginning. Even if the 2 characters were debating vanilla & chocolate icecream, you'd still be compelled to be revolted by the maniacal behavior of the Darwinian Theorist professor. It's bad news when you have to make people of the opposing view seem like complete knuckleheads in order to convince the reader of your point. This in turn hurts the credibility--and the views--of the authors themselves.

This is a delightful book. It's cartoon format makes it appropriate for junior high kids, but it's content is substantial enough to be beneficial to adults. The authors set out to clarify just what is at stake between those who claim that life is wholly the result of chance and mechanism--orthodox Darwinists--and those who argue that life bears evidence of intelligent design. In so doing, they present the recent insights of "design theorists" such as Michael Behe, William Dembski and others, in a light and accessible way.

Their treatment is winsome and avoids villifying either side in the debate. The authors also avoid specifically theological and biblical disputes, focusing instead on publically available evidence, primarily from developmental and molecular biology and paleontology. They also distinguish between an argument for intelligent design generically and the more specific arguments for creationism. This illustrates what may be the book's greatest virtue: it provides the important distinctions necessary to discern what is really at stake in the controversy over the origin and nature of life. I highly recommend this book for students young and old, for teachers and school librarians, and for parents who want a quick summary of the debate between Darwinism and design.