Yesterday, I noted that Steve Meyer’s new book, Darwin’s Doubt is overwhelmed with trolls … and customers … at Amazon. Historian of the ID community, Tom Woodward kindly writes us to say,
As one of the “historians of ID” (“Doubts about Darwin” and “Darwin Strikes Back” were my two-part attempt at covering this story) I can say how bowled over I am over the historical publishing event we are living through. As I move through DD, one word kept coming to my mind and mouth and pen: Wow. I think I am well above 50 “WOW” scibblings in my page margins after the first 200 pages.
Our weekly apologetics/ID radio broadcast, “The Universe Next Door,” sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Society which I direct, is featuring the book three out of the next four weeks, including two full hour interviews with Steve Meyer and Casey Luskin. You can access the weekly broadcast by logging on to “bayword.com” at 5:05pm Eastern time, any Saturday afternoon, and clicking the “Listen Live” icon.
The DD publication surely equals, or more probably somewhat exceeds, the intellectual/historical significance of “Darwin’s Black Box” in 1996, or “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis in 1985/86, or “Darwin on Trial” in 1991.
As others have said, “Darwin’s Doubt” is unique in its breadth and completeness: is like a college course, delivered through a single book of 400 pages. I don’t know if I have ever experienced a read like this.
My kudos to Steve and his research team for making every topic so accessible. The chapters entitled “The Animal Tree of Life” and “Punk Eek” were sumptuous and masterful. Lastly, thanks to Steve for delivering many juicy historical nuggets (e.g. pp 340ff on Charles Thaxton; pp 170ff on Murray Eden and Marcel Schutzenberger at the Wistar Symposium).
Let the tremors begin!
Of course, in Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe was only addressing a couple of specific questions: For example, how could the bacterial flagellum have evolved by Darwinian means (not Ken Millerian means, where things just happen)?
It’s been 17 years, so it was time for a fuller, therefore more devastating assessment of Darwinism.