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stephenmeansme's review against another edition
4.0
A lucid, thorough takedown of Creationist attempts to undermine the theory of evolution by natural selection, and, by extension, pretty much all of modern physical science. In spite of being over 35 years old at this point, the book holds up very well, not least because Creationist arguments never die, they just smell worse and worse with age.
Kitcher is exceedingly charitable to the Creationists and never accuses them of willfully misrepresenting actual science. Additional decades of experience have shown that too many Creationist types are willing to "lie for Jesus" if it gets their feet in the door. But it adds to the force of Kitcher's rebuttal that even taking the most charitable approach, Creationism fails utterly at being remotely scientific. (And Kitcher takes care in laying out a nuanced understanding of scientific progress, not merely naive falsificationism.)
Of course, for all the pretensions and pseudoscientific posturing, Creationism isn't science and never really wants to be: it's the (fundamentalist) conviction that evolution is Evil and Bad and unacceptable to a (certain kind of) Christian worldview. Kitcher lays out in the final chapter a view of the potential compatibility of (non-fundamentalist) Christianity and the established science, but again I think he's a bit too charitable. (Then again I'm a filthy heathen...!)
Overall a very handy resource for picking apart the thorny (though not particularly sophisticated) tangle of Creationist nonsense.
Kitcher is exceedingly charitable to the Creationists and never accuses them of willfully misrepresenting actual science. Additional decades of experience have shown that too many Creationist types are willing to "lie for Jesus" if it gets their feet in the door. But it adds to the force of Kitcher's rebuttal that even taking the most charitable approach, Creationism fails utterly at being remotely scientific. (And Kitcher takes care in laying out a nuanced understanding of scientific progress, not merely naive falsificationism.)
Of course, for all the pretensions and pseudoscientific posturing, Creationism isn't science and never really wants to be: it's the (fundamentalist) conviction that evolution is Evil and Bad and unacceptable to a (certain kind of) Christian worldview. Kitcher lays out in the final chapter a view of the potential compatibility of (non-fundamentalist) Christianity and the established science, but again I think he's a bit too charitable. (Then again I'm a filthy heathen...!)
Overall a very handy resource for picking apart the thorny (though not particularly sophisticated) tangle of Creationist nonsense.
booksandbacteria's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
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