Darwin On Trialby Phillip Johnson
A dispassionately logical assessment that gets right down to the philosophical underpinnings of Darwinism. Insistence on a naturalist, materialist explanation as the only kind acceptable as scientific, with "science" redefined to suit, produces a world view in which Darwinism must be defended as fact whatever its deficiencies, since no alternative meeting the criterion is available. The result is not the testing of a theory but a scramble to produce evidence to support a predetermined conclusion--largely unsuccessfully, as Johnson shows. What credentials does a law professor have to write on such a subject? When it comes to evaluating the merits of a case based on evidence and argument, maybe quite a lot.
Evolution Under the Microscope: A Scientific Critique of the Theory of Evolution
by David Swift
A molecular biologist's critical examination of how accumulating research findings fail to support the orthodox Darwinian paradigm that all forms of life have evolved from a common source. While there is no doubt of the capacity of species to adapt and change within limits, extrapolating such processes beyond the evidence to account for new forms and body plans is not justified. The facts are more simply and readily explained by the segregation and selection of existing gene sets from genetically rich ancestral stocks than by the appearance of new genes. Close examination of the mechanisms involved at the molecular level shows that the generation of new genetic information poses insuperable problems for the mutation-selection scenario of modern evolutionary theory.
"Swift's writing style is clear, interesting and with occasional glimpses of humour. This work is ideal for university students and scientifically literate adults who seek a current introduction to problems with evolution and an indication of where the evidence leads. . . . a bombshell which we will surely want to distribute on university campuses everywhere."
-- Margaret Helder, Alberta, Canada
"The best book I have read up to now about evolution! . . . It is awesome to read how, one by one, the 'convincing arguments' for evolution are analyzed and shown to be flawed."
-- Olaf Karthaus, Hokkaido, Japan
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
by Michael Denton
A biochemist's account of the neo-Darwinian theory's shortcomings as judged by the purely scientific evidence. This was the book that first caused me to reconsider beliefs that I had accepted uncritically, and thence to revise my view of the whole subject. Many authors that I have read since also cite Denton's as the work that initiated their doubts regarding the orthodox theory.
The Edge of Evolution
This is the follow-up to Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box (1996), in which he argued from detailed examples of biological molecular chemistry that the conventional Darwinian mechanism of random mutation operated on by selection cannot explain the complex machinery of living cells and their interaction. Here, he extends his case further by delving into the mutational pathways revealed by modern genetic studies, which show Darwinian trial-and-error to be a crude and clumsy device capable at best of producing marginal changes in evolutionary development, and that bringing about the essential processes that underlie the living world is far beyond its reach. Too many things have to happen in precisely the right way, all at the same time to generate the transitions that the evidence records. Changes that depend on a single point mutation will easily be found by chance eventually, but where two or more are required, the improbability rockets exponentially with the number until even one of the seemingly simple solutions that are observed in endless variety would exhaust the resources of the universe before coming together through such means. Even in cases where the results of single mutations have been demonstrated to be real and beneficial in certain circumstances, it turns out that the mutations are invariably degenerative, arising from the loss of information from the genome, and cannot, therefore, be considered as contributing to an evolutionary path characterized by the progressive accumulation of genetic information.
The conclusion that seems to fit most squarely with the evidence is that changes are not random but occur in preferred directions as directed by cues from the environment. This implies that the "program" for turning an organism to a different one when the right conditions come into existence was already there in the genome, making it a vastly more complex affair than even that required to accomplish the stupefying intricacies uncovered to date. The finding is broadly in agreement with opinions expressed by other molecular biologists, not widely recognized in the mainstream, that most, if not all, of the examples of "evolution in action" generally attributed to Darwinian mutation-selection are more simply explained by the segregation of already-existing genes by breeding and other environmental factors, without any significant mutation taking place at all. The question this leaves unanswered, of course, is where the genes came from in the first place.
Anyone with a computer and a desire to sell and be heard , can write a book about how something does or doesn't work(but that doent make it right-especially when its the on;y one of its kind--hardly a bandwagon of evidence).
How about we send some of these self published "anti-evolution" books to a college graduate biology or geology program and have the students do a review?
.PS, have you red Phil Johnson's work? why doesn't it have a comprehensive bibliography? It only seems to quote tracts and other religious crap. Theres really no scientific publications it relies upon.
