From Genesis to Genetics: The Case of Evolution and Creationism
A biology textbook author and emeritus professor at UC-Riverside, Moore offers an ardent but frequently simplistic defense of evolution and its place in science education. Addressing an audience of parents, science teachers, civic leaders and "all who desire harmony in a diverse society," Moore presents a serviceable account of evolutionary biology and its evidentiary basis both in Darwin's context and in subsequent research. As an account of the creation-evolution controversy, the book is impaired by equivocation between refereeing the debate and advocating the evolutionist cause. Moore's tendency to stereotype evolutionists as fearless truth-seekers and their critics as repressive fundamentalist demagogues quickly grows tiresome, as the book's polarized display of heroes and villains misrepresents scientific and cultural developments on both sides. Readers with a religious background may be disconcerted by Moore's approach toward religious history and scriptural interpretation, as both are consistently exploited to put creation doctrines or myths in the least complimentary light. Particularly ironic, in light of Moore's lament that today's students are not learning how science works, is the extent to which the actual history and structure of evolutionary theory are distorted in the name of "making the case for evolution." This approach culminates in the kind of sanitized synopsis that makes professional historians of science despair of "textbook science" as a window on scientific reality.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.