Darwin Had to Contend with Religious Dogma and Bad Poetry. An Illustrious Successor Is Equally Frustrated by Bad Science

Summary

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The "Holocene extinction event", a destruction of flora and fauna by the human race so extensive that it is comparable with the five other mass extinctions in the 550 -million-year history of complex life on earth, is ravishing the planet, but great writers on evolution have stayed silent as man destroys their raw material. Prince Charles, virtually every celebrity who opines on politics, the serious media, the British government, and all the other signatories to the Kyoto treaty, insist that changes in lifestyle and energy production can limit the effects of climate change. When the publishers of a Turkish edition of Almost Like a Whale flew him out, he was astonished when they told him that the Islamic government saw evolutionary theory as a challenge to its rule, and introduced him to his bodyguards.

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Extract

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Darwin Had to Contend with Religious Dogma and Bad Poetry. An Illustrious Successor Is Equally Frustrated by Bad Science

Whether we live in a golden age of scientific dispute is disputed, not least by Professor Steve Jones, but we certainly have lived through a golden age of science writing. Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, E O Wilson, Steven Pinker and Jones himself have taken evolution out of academia and engaged the educated public. Yet, for all their skill, watching them has been like watching a concert party for the troops in a war zone: an interesting diversion from the main event. They have been arguing about selfish genes, punctua...

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