Darwin on Trial
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Darwin's theory of evolution is accepted by most educated Americans as simple fact. This easy acceptance, however, hides from us the many ways in which evolution—as an idea—shapes our thinking about a great many things. What if this idea is wrong?
Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson looks at the evidence for Darwinistic evolution the way a lawyer would—with a cold dispassionate eye for logic and proof. His discovery is that scientists have put the cart before the horse. They prematurely accepted Darwin's theory as fact and have been scrambling to find evidence for it.
Darwin on Trial is a cogent and stunning tour de force that not only rattles the cages of conventional wisdom, but could provide the basis for a fundamental change in the way educated Americans regard themselves, their origins, and their fate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his own era, Darwin's most formidable opponents were fossil experts, not clergymen. Even today, according to the author, the fossil record, far from conclusive, does not support the presumed existence of intermediate links between species. A law teacher at UC-Berkeley, Johnson deems unpersuasive the alleged proofs for Darwin's assertion that natural selection can produce new species. He also argues that recent molecular studies of DNA fail to confirm the existence of common ancestors for different species. Doubting the smooth line of transitional steps between apes and humans sketched by neo-Darwinists, he cites evidence for ``rapid branching,'' i.e., mysterious leaps which presumably produced the human mind and spirit from animal materials. This evidence, to Johnson, suggests that ``the putative hominid species'' may not have contained our ancestors after all. This cogent, succinct inquiry cuts like a knife through neo-Darwinist assumptions.
