My first impression of it is that it is excellent. First, aesthetically: The cover of the book is beautiful, and there are numerous color photo inserts throughout the book that illustrate embryological development, fossils, and so on.
Dawkins takes a couple of chapters expounding upon transitional fossils, one on plant and animal transitionals, and another on human transitionals. He has really taken pains to correct common misconceptions about evolution, and he often corrects the same misconception multiple times so as to make sure that the reader fully understands why monkeys still exist, for instance.
He also does an excellent job of rebutting the old 'common design' claim people make in response to evolution. Remarkably, his answer to this is nearly identical to mine.
From now on, creationists are without excuse for being ignorant about Evolution. Every time a creationist comes to my blog to challenge me, I'm going to send them to this post, which will give them directions for becoming educated about evolution. If they won't listen to the efforts of world famous biologists to educate them, then I cannot expect that they will listen to my efforts to educate them on evolution or that they will be receptive to them. So, if you are a creationist, or someone genuinely curious about evolution, here is what I recommend for you:
1. Read The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
2. Check out an Index to Creationist Claims, which thoroughly rebuts just about every creationist argument there is. Search Talk.Origins to find the answers you need to the questions you have.
3. Read Why Evolution Is True
It's a little more in-depth, provides even more evidence for Evolution than Dawkins, and assumes the reader has at least a little knowledge of evolution.
4. Read the 29 Evidences for MacroEvolution. This is much shorter than any book you'll read, but it is fairly in depth and it lays out just about all the evidence (or all the main lines of evidence) for evolution that exists.
Now all you have to do is demonstrate evolution. Creationists already argue for a common designer and the fact that the stuff of creation is the same in life doesn't mean that it was not designed.
ReplyDeleteIn order for evolution to be proved, it has to demonstrate that new genetic information can be added to the pool that did not previously exist.
In the 29 evidences for example, he never gives one example of new information being added to the Genome.
The 29 evidences also fails to acknowledge the huge amount of failures that Darwinians have experienced at the hands of their theory.
For example, Darwinian theory predicted a partial ladder among races in the genes for humans; however, no partial ladder exists.
Second, Darwinians predicted that ladder to humanity; however, they now know that humans have 250 unique genes and these genes are in all humans. There is no evolutionary ladder in the genes going to humanity.
I just wish Darwinians would stop deceiving the public and be honest for once.
I find myself hoping that Anonymous is a single ignorant entity, as opposed to a large group of individual ignorant people. Luckily, it/they keep(s) talking about '250 genes', as though mentioning that concept is somehow an argument in and of itself. And a 'ladder' apparently, though I have no clue what part of evolutionary theory that is supposed to represent.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, you're asking for proof that a mutation can cause an increase in information? Do you know what information is? Please define the term, as you understand it.
I shouldn't laugh. But it's hard when people use words they don't understand.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteIf you had bothered searching my blog, or talk origins like I had asked you to, you would have found an answer to the old tired "information" argument.
Furthermore, you cite no sources for your claims that Darwinians predicted a "partial ladder" among the human races, and in fact I'm not even sure what you are talking about there, so you need to explain that.