Albatrossity2
Posts: 2780 Joined: Mar. 2007
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[quote=Dr.GH,June 15 2007,16:13][/quote] Quote (Dr.GH @ June 15 2007,16:13) | Quote (Albatrossity2 @ June 15 2007,15:50) | And I just finished and submitted my review of Francisco Ayala's "Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion" for the American Library Association's review journal (Choice). |
How was it? I just picked up a copy at a talk Ayala gave. |
I sent you my review by PM, since I don't think the ALA would take kindly to me posting it here on a website where they can't charge subscribers. And it is a short review; they limit you to 190 words...
In brief, it is sort of a schizophrenic book. As you know, he was training to be a Catholic priest before he went to grad school and got his PhD with Dobzhansky. That could explain the schizophrenic aspects, I guess. The description of basic evolutionary biology is quite good, and is worth reading if you don't have those facts properly straight in your head (are you reading this, FtK?). And he has an interesting notion that I have not heard before, that evolutionary theory solves the theodicy problem. You have to buy theistic evolution for this argument to be acceptable. And that is my real problem with the book. He sells it as a way to reconcile religion with science. And it might be that. But only in a narrower scope than he acknowledges, since he is only interested in talking about one religion, christianity. Granted, that is the religion whose adherents seem most recalcitrant on this subject, but I think it is a bit presumptuous to think that this is the only religion worth considering. So in the end it is an apologetic, similar to Miller and Collins. Shorter, and with a very succinct and readable biology section, but nevertheless a christian-targeted apologetic.
-------------- Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers
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