Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolution Debate [Paperback]

My son passed this book on to me when he was in a Catholic University. It was part of required reading in a Biology class, along with a copy of a book by Morris advocating the other viewpoint. Morris's book pretty much said, "the Bible says blah blah, blah, therefore, science is wrong." Berra's superb book began in the preface with a scathing indictment of the agenda behind Scientific Creationism - that agenda being enforcement of religious views on our educational system. In the process, Creationists misinterpret science wherever they like in order to make it fit the Bible.

As applied to Scientific Creationism, "Scientific" is a misnomer. In order to qualify as science, first , data is gathered. A "Hypothesis" based on the data is formulated. The hypothesis is tested and results are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The hypothesis, if it passes muster so far, is subjected to retesting by other scientists with verification of the results. The hypothesis describes "how" a process works, but says nothing about "why." A "Theory" may eventually be developed which explains "why", and has a stronger meaning in science than the usual dictionary definition. To become a theory indicates general acceptance by the scientific community, may be the end result of decades or even centuries of groundwork, and is always susceptible to modification or even rejection if new data demands it. This is the scientific method that helped to bring us out of the Dark Ages. Any theory that is not subjected to these procedures does not belong in science class.

Research for Scientific Creationism consists of careful perusal of the scientific literature, hoping to isolate quotes, ideas, or disagreements amongst scientists which can then be misinterpreted to support Creationist arguments. This is not hypothesis testing. There is no testing in Creationism, but then religion is supposed to be about faith, whereas science is about evidence.

Berra gives us several chapters outlining the very basics of evolution. Starting on page 126, he lists 16 assertions that Creationists hang their hat on, which are contradictory to basic sciences in geology, physics, biology, or chemistry. These are given in only a sentence or two, and Berra's rebuttals are almost as brief. He has a chapter about the politics of this sad situation, all in very blunt prose, not mincing words.

Fortunately, Scientific Creationism's assertions are easily dealt with and you don't have to be a serious scholar to be convinced. Unfortunately, about the time Berra wrote this great little book, a new tactic arose called Intelligent Design. Briefly, the most liberal brand of the ID movement accepts a 4.5 billion year old earth and most of evolution, as the way God created man...however, at some unspecified crossroads in evolution, an unidentified "designer" intervened. This "had to be" because certain aspects of biochemistry/the eye/the flagellum are "irreducibly complex."

The spectrum of ID belief runs the gamut of belief from close to Scientific Creationism to close to complete belief in all of evolution, beginnings of life from primordial sludge and the Big Bang. For the more liberal versions, there are perhaps 5 times as many who would vote for the concept to be taught alongside evolution in high school as there were for Scientific Creationism. This is sort of OK with a lot of the more conservative IDers because it gives them a "wedge" of entry. Later on, the agenda can be broadened to exclude "materialistic and sinful" theories such as evolution from the curriculum altogether. Willingness to obtain by legislation, judicial decree, or the sword that which cannot be obtained by evangelism has a long history within our species.

Back to the book, it is excellent. It is without peer for its day, due to its brevity & clarity, but it needs an update. I urge Dr. Berra to write an up to date version, edited to satisfy some of the complaints in these reviews, and to give the major portion of the book over to rebuttal of Intelligent Design. The chameleon has undergone a transformation and needs to be slapped back down again.

I bought this book for my sister back when she was in Junior High in 1994 because I wanted her to have the best introduction into the Evolution debate. I explained to her that in a science classroom she should expect to be taught science and science only. None of this anti-science, anti-reason, creationist propaganda that some teachers try to pass for SCIENCE. I explained that if she was interested in the creationist view of the origin of life on Earth she should attend sunday school - she never chose to do so. That's because there is something irrevocable about HARD EVIDENCE - it cannot be denied. To do so is to be willfully blind. Tim Berra eloquently explains and shows the reader why science is called that. Why anything that does not apply the SCIENTIFIC METHOD is NOT science.

Evolution and The Myth of Creationism explains its three related purposes: 1. To explain evolution to people who are genuinely confused by the claims of creationists, who try to pass fundamentalist christian beliefs as science. 2. Provide useful ammunition to the high school biology teacher or school board member who finds him or herself under attack by creationists. 3. To be a useful supplemental text for introductory college-level classes in biology, zoology, botany, or anthropology.

Tim Berra further explains that his book is blunt and to the point because "...scientists have, for too long, treated too lightly on the creationists, and have thereby fostered the impression that the creationists have a legitimate scientific voice. It is time for candor and clarity."

I would like to point out that in many instances, the fundamentalists pull quotes and distort them for their own purposes. To familiarize yourself with such tactics turn to the last section in the book - "Science, religion, politics, law and education." Here you'll read about a number of landmark cases and trials that show you that REASON does triumph. When you finish the book you'll understand that we may be living in the 21 st Century, but what we are going through is no different than what Christopher Columbus went through when the earth was thought to be flat.

Several books published in the 1980s critiqued "creation-science," a movement of religious fundamentalists who maintain that science confirms a very literal, narrow interpretation of the Bible, and who aim to influence public school curricula. The Supreme Court struck down on such attempts in 1987, which is why I wonder what Berra had in mind by publishing this book in 1990. What audience was he aiming to persuade? My impression from reading the book is that he assumes the reader to be a near-scientific illiterate, for he gets heavily caught up in conveying very basic information on evolution, biology, and the history of Darwinism, all of which can be found in most textbooks. For instance, on the first page of Chapter 1, he writes: "When you walk into your bedroom and flick the light switch and nothing happens, what do you do next? Chances are, you will turn the switch on and off a few times. Even though you are not conscious of doing so, you have formed a *hypothesis*...." (asterisks indicate bold print). Sounds to me more like a documentary for high school students than a serious critique.

Berra is so caught up in overwhelming the reader with basic scientific facts, he doesn't pay enough attention to the logical reasoning that is so crucial to a polemic on any topic. For example, most critiques of creationism address the old criticism that the theory of natural selection is based on circular reasoning and that therefore explains nothing. Far from refuting this criticism, Berra's definition of natural selection unwittingly confirms it: "The creativity of natural selection involves the retention and subsequent stepwise refinement of variations that yield improved *fitness*. Fitness in the Darwinian sense means reproductive fitness--leaving at least enough offspring to spread or sustain the species in nature indefinitely" (p. 68). That statement amounts to little more than saying that organisms which leave more offspring will be more successful; hence, "the survivors survive," as critics of Darwinism often quip. This tells us nothing about what kinds of features are likely to spread through a population, let alone what sort of long-term evolution is ever likely to occur as a result of natural selection. By Berra's definition, genetic drift (the phenomenon of new features spreading through a population at random) is a form of natural selection. Where is the evidence for the ambitious proposition that natural selection possesses immense "creativity"? I've examined the literature on Darwinism and creationism thoroughly and have never seen a satisfactory answer to that question, although I have read more than a half dozen books providing a more persuasive defense of Darwin's theory than this inadequate, outdated treatise.