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12211153's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
slow-paced
3.75
bel017's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
This was first published in 2002, not 1987 (which is what the story graph currently says??). Anyway ...
I really enjoyed the parts of this that I understood. I found it to be extremely well researched and reasonably even-handed. It almost has the flow of a novel.
When I picked it up (as a second-hand bookshop in Tasmania) I had no idea of the controversy that the book is a part of. I read up on it on Wikipedia and felt like all I was missing was some popcorn. In this book Hooper paints a portrait of squabbling scientists eager to prove their beliefs, and that is played out outside the book with criticism of the author and the book. I have zero stakes in this game, and the representation of a bunch of privileged old white men heatedly arguing over the minutia with personal attacks and footnotes--but with little reference to the bigger picture or the outside world--was hilarious. I work in politics, not academia, but Hooper just nailed that world.
I am not a creationist, the author is not a creationist, I do not know if I've even ever met a creationist (I don't live in the US). It's a shame it's been fodder for creationists, even though if they actually read the book they'd see that evolution isn't being questioned. As Hooper says (p. 312) "... the fact that 'Darwin's missing evidence' is imperfect does not disprove the theory of evolution."
A starting point if you'd like to learn more about where the book sits in the ongoing saga of the peppered moth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution#
I really enjoyed the parts of this that I understood. I found it to be extremely well researched and reasonably even-handed. It almost has the flow of a novel.
When I picked it up (as a second-hand bookshop in Tasmania) I had no idea of the controversy that the book is a part of. I read up on it on Wikipedia and felt like all I was missing was some popcorn. In this book Hooper paints a portrait of squabbling scientists eager to prove their beliefs, and that is played out outside the book with criticism of the author and the book. I have zero stakes in this game, and the representation of a bunch of privileged old white men heatedly arguing over the minutia with personal attacks and footnotes--but with little reference to the bigger picture or the outside world--was hilarious. I work in politics, not academia, but Hooper just nailed that world.
I am not a creationist, the author is not a creationist, I do not know if I've even ever met a creationist (I don't live in the US). It's a shame it's been fodder for creationists, even though if they actually read the book they'd see that evolution isn't being questioned. As Hooper says (p. 312) "... the fact that 'Darwin's missing evidence' is imperfect does not disprove the theory of evolution."
A starting point if you'd like to learn more about where the book sits in the ongoing saga of the peppered moth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution#
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