Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Reaction to comment made in a Nature review of a current Darwinbook?

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No book of this sort can cover every important topic, perspective, and challenge. But we were surprised that there was no discussion of why evolution remains controversial at a societal level. Why, for example, do many in the U.S. remain skeptical of evolution? In this sense, evolution is unique among the sciences (with the possible exception of climate change research) in that the majority of the public do not even believe it is real! Clearly, this situation is not desirable, given that it is largely this same public that, through their taxes, provides the financial support for teaching and research in evolutionary science. How can this challenge be addressed, in the US and elsewhere? On a related vein, we felt that the editors missed an opportunity to demonstrate why the study of evolution is more important than ever. Beyond Gould’s chapter on managing insecticide resistance, there was little mention of evolution’s numerous and crucial practical applications to human health, agriculture, biotechnology, and conservation biology.” 

Why might they not have discussed that?

(From Kingsolver, J. and Pfennig, D. (2011), DARWIN IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY.
Evolution, 65: no. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01292.x — Review of
Bell, M. A., D. J. Futuyma, W. F. Eanes, and J. S. Levinton, eds. 2010.
Evolution Since Darwin: The First 150 Years. Sinauer Associates,
Sunderland, MA. 688 pp. ISBN-10: 0878934138; ISBN-13: 978-0878934133)

Comments
Some works have no need to address people who do not agree with what is being discussed. In my small groups at church, the books we read don't have chapters in them about Muslims that don't agree with the christian themes being discussed. Also, please take me off moderation.grizzfan
April 7, 2011
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