I have been away from Blogcritics for a few days, so I was hoping I would have something to contribute when I came back. When I saw that we are spotlighting the Intelligent Design sideshow in Kansas, I knew that I had a lot of old and new reviews to choose from.
I settled on this one, because I think the book deserves a lot more attention than it has gotten since it was published in 1999. Admittedly, it's academic in flavor and sometimes slow going, but there's plenty of meat, even if you read it selectively.
Following the review, I'll include a few links to reviews of more popular books on evolution at my Science Shelf website, where the latest addition is a roundup of books for the World Year of Physics.
The link in the middle of the review takes you to the page on my Children's Science web site where I give my personal assessment of intelligent design in an "Ask Dr. Fred" question from a ninth grader who, I think, was hoping for a different answer.
In Sudden Origins, University of Pittsburgh Anthropology Professor Jeffrey Schwartz has produced a book that will challenge — even overwhelm — its readers with a wealth of detail. Yet if they can stay the course, they will be rewarded with a thought-provoking new view of the history of life on Earth.
"Evolution is not a theory," argues Schwartz. "It is a phenomenon. What evolutionists ... strive to understand are the processes that make evolution tick. This is not an easy task, because evolutionary events occur over greater periods of time than any scientist, or generations of scientists, could observe."
Without taking on so-called "creation science" directly, Schwartz demonstrates that evolutionary theory is itself evolving, as all good scientific theories do in the face of new knowledge. What creation scientists cite as the theory's weaknesses, Schwartz presents as its strengths.
Article comments
1 - Leoniceno
Fascinating stuff, thanks Fred.
2 - Big Time Patriot
As far as "intelligent idea" the main argument seems to be that some people just can't get their head around the idea that evolution and chance CAN create wonderful things. Sorry, the lack of comprehending something doesn't seem to me to be really a good argument. I think I comprehend evolution but I can't really comprehend entangled photons or how that could possibly be true, but I choose to believe it anyway despite how far fetched it may seem, because there is SCIENCE to back it up. Science is all about testing and retesting the truth of theories.
A lot of modern religion seems to be about denying and redenying the reality of the world. Homosexuals have been around for at least several thousand years (we can only know from the written record for sure, I would imagine much earlier than that since it exists in other animals). But SOME religious people (not all) deny the fact that humanity has survived the existence of homosexuality for all these centuries and if you point it out, they just re-deny it.
As far as: "WHY is it unacceptable to allow the debate? Why is it unacceptable to teach the controversy? Why is it unacceptable to ask the question; are there better theories to explain the existence of life on this planet?"
I would rephrase this: "WHY is it unacceptable to allow the debate? Why is it unacceptable to teach the controversy? Why is it unacceptable to ask the question; are there better theories to explain the existence of trunks on elephants?" This would be my question about why the story of how the elephant got his trunk isn't being taught as an alternate theory in biology class...
3 - Fred Bortz
Big Time Patriot asks the Intelligent Design advocates' questions, then gives his answer.
My reply is different than his.
The ID folks ask:
"WHY is it unacceptable to allow the debate? Why is it unacceptable to teach the controversy? Why is it unacceptable to ask the question; are there better theories to explain the existence of life on this planet?"
These seem like reasonable questions at first glance, but the language is loaded and
based on the assumption that ID is science.
Here's my reply. Good science always leaves the door open to alternate interpretations of the evidence. Sometimes that leads to controversy, such as whether the Mars Meteorite ALH84001 contains fossils of ancient microbes (http://www.fredbortz.com/MFOEupdate.htm).
More often that leads to lively discussion, as is the case with most scientific work on evolution today.
The controversy over evolution is religious, not scientific, because the ID advocates build their theories on an inherently supernatural assumption that can neither be challenged nor verified, a unseen behind-the-scenes creator.
Science is doing fine in crafting natural explanations for evolution that don't need a supernatural Capital C Creator. Perhaps the Creator exists but is beyond our abilities to detect. That's a perfectly fine basis for religious discussion, but it does not belong in a science classroom.
So if we want to have a controversy, let's have it in the religious arena, and leave scientific pretenses out of it.
(Go to http://www.fredbortz.com/askcreate.htm to see what I say to kids on this topic.)