Reports NCSE

Poor Darwin; one has to feel sorry for him, not just because he was ill so much of the time, but also because the world now knows so much about his heart palpitations, the color of his urine, and his bowel movements! But the man himself seems to have relished all the details of his symptoms, set out for many years in a diary and in lists sent to an unending supply of doctors and quacks. He is famous for taking "cures" at expensive spas, such as the one run by Dr James Gully (principally involving cold baths and a strict diet).

Using that “life and lies” formula in the subtitle of this anti-Darwin book was not a wise move by Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Wiker. It invites unfavorable comparison to a similarly titled book about a similarly celebrated white-bearded English sage with an ugly nose. I mean, of course, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter, a book within a book in the Harry Potter series.

Philosopher of science James H Fetzer argues that creationism, both in its fundamentalist young-earth form and in the guise of allegedly more sophisticated “intelligent design”, fails to qualify as science, and therefore is not a respectable theoretical alternative to evolutionary science. As the book’s subtitle implies, Fetzer holds that the attack on evolution is part of a comprehensive effort by the religious and political right to undermine scientific rationality and the authority of science.