Debunking Human Evolution Taught in Our Public Schools: A Guidebook for Christian Students, Parents, and Pastors by Daniel Biddle

Debunking Human Evolution Taught in Our Public Schools: A Guidebook for Christian Students, Parents, and Pastors Reviews

• 
  Michael

  Debunking Human Evolution has a role in the discussion in spite of the condescending tone
  
  I’ll start with a complement. The questions or objections posed in the book have utility in creating a discussion about the questions. Unfortunately, that is about it.
  
  My non-charitable comments are that this book is a bit bonkers. The audience is clearly for fundamentalist Christians struggling to refute the scientific understanding of the universe, the Earth and the origins of life and how it doesn’t fit with a literal interpretation of Genesis. It is not for non-religious or other religions as about 25% of the “evidence” is circular reasoning using the Bible’s claims as irrefutable proof.
  
  By about the first quarter of the book, I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of assertions they made. I gather that was intentional. I had to stop and start looking things up. To be fair, of the things they bring up are perfectly fine to question or even object to (such as Lucy being likely displayed as a bit more “human” than she was in reality). However, after you start looking into their claims and objections, you realize a few things.
  
  First, the questions posed (at least the ones that are sincere, which is the minority of them), can be actually answered.
  
  Second, their explanations and questions are moderately insulting to anyone that isn’t already committed to the author’s conclusions before they even opened up the book. The questions or objections are frequently leading, pose insulting rhetorical questions that appeal to intuition, are chock full of non sequiturs and fallacious reasoning.
  
  Thirdly, they are attempting to suggest that evolution is wrong (at best) or weakly supported (at worst) by posing item after item of objections - none of which really hold water and are just throwing spaghetti at the wall in the hopes that something sticks. However, since the audience are lay people and not scientists, it doesn’t matter for the author. Almost none of his target audience (church goers) will bother finding out the actual details behind what they are presenting.
  
  Lastly, after hearing a few evolutionary biologists and educators provide commentary on this group of authors (and similar groups) and their claims, it is jaw dropping how misleading and full of misrepresentations their “evidence” is. One example is that they frequently take quotes by people that actually fully support evolution, but the authors find a comment - out of context - and it sounds great for them.
  
  In the end, this book will appeal to those that strive to find justification to deny the overwhelming consensus of the evolutionary origins of life. If you even pretend to use critical thinking skills, this book will either leave you screaming at the wall, or force you to use patience and get through it for the sole purpose of understanding some of the faulty logic that this book’s target audience will use in evolutionary discussions. Be forewarned