Book Review: Evolution Under the Microscope

Author: David Swift
Spiritual Bias: Unknown
Origins Bias: Intelligent Design Proponent
Rating: Top Shelf
Level: Technical

Comments: 'Evolution Under the Microscope' is an excellent book. It is both comprehensive in the number of topics that are covered and detailed where it needs to be. In this book Swift makes the argument that while there are aspects of the theory of evolution that are indeed true, there are facts that are seemingly incongruent with the theory. The key problems that are pointed out in this book are: (1) the sudden appearance of various animal groups in the fossil record, (2) the lack of evidence for "constructive" mutations, (3) the improbability of macromolecule evolution, and (4) the incredible complexity at the molecular level which lacks a naturalistic explanation.

Now each of these problems would arguably be enough to do away with most theories, but evolution seems to persist as the prevailing scientific paradigm in biology. Swift argues that this is due to two main factors. First, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out, established scientific paradigms are very difficult to displace because many facts that challenge the dominant paradigm are often muted or filtered out. Second, there is no better scientific theory for those that hold to a naturalistic view of the world.

'Evolution Under the Microscope' is clearly one of the best books on the market today in the genre of origins. While it is somewhat technical, I would highly recommend it for anyone seriously involved in the issue of origins.

Sample Quote(s): "Arabidopsis thaliana (a type of cress) is generally regarded as a model species of the flowering plants and is used for many investigations of their biochemistry. It was, therefore, somewhat disconcerting to find that the amino acid sequence of its cytochrome c was significantly more like that of yeast than of most other high plants; and the situation is all the more enigmatic because other features of the A.thaliana cytochrome c gene such as the control regions, intron structure and codon usage are typical of the higher plants. To add to the confusion, some other proteins such as histone H3 also resemble that of yeast, but others are not; and some other plants have also been found to have atypical protein sequences. Facts such as these certainly detract from the weight that can be given to the molecular phylogenies as circumstantial support for evolution; but, not surprisingly, they generally do not find their way into evolutionary textbooks."

"So when textbooks propose that proteins evolved gradually, adding amino acids one at a time, starting with very short polypeptides, it totally ignores what we know of protein chemistry."

"As mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 7, Darwin had no difficulty in supposing that small variations could accumulate to produce dramatic changes because he had no knowledge of the implications of doing so. The same sort of extrapolations have been made since Darwin's time, right up to the present day, but they should no longer go unchallenged in the light of what we now know of subcellular biology. Clear cases of changes to species arising from natural selection are seen as convincing evidence for the whole evolutionary process - of how complex organisms have gradually developed from simpler ones. It is this extrapolation which I maintain is completely unfounded, and which I contest here."