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Description: Dr. Geoffrey Simmons focuses on the millions of structures and systems on the Earth that came about all at once, entire...with no preceding links, no subsequent links, no “sideways” links. To illustrate, he surveys examples like... - the hummingbird and its circulatory system
- insects and insect–eating plants
- the role of the thousands of species of viruses
- chemical signals and the sensory apparatus that detects them
- the self–regulating capacity of the Earth’s ocean/air/soil system
It’s clear: Nature containsonly leaps, not links. Only the intelligence and purpose of an all–powerful Designer can explain the intricate creatures, connections, and “coincidences” everywhere. Excellent for students and parents, especially homeschoolers, and for educators who want to present the “full picture.”
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Review Summary: A poetic interpretation of rationality. |
Date: 2008-12-30 |
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Details: This book is useful for those who choose not to know any better.
You can give this propaganda to most people and they will lap it up.
Leave the book on the donut table at your church for newcomers to pick up.
If you are blind...why not lead the blind? |
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Review Summary: Typical Example of Creationist Nonsense |
Date: 2008-12-12 |
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Details: Simmons' book is typical Creationist nonsense. The reviews of others tell us all we need to know. He apparently devotes part of his book to explaining why transitional fossils don't exist. I am an invertebrate paleontologist, and I can tell readers that there are thousands of transitional fossils, many quite amazing, such as all the transitional fossils between dinosaurs and birds, between reptiles and mammals, between land-dwelling, four-legged mammals and whales, and now the wonderful new transitional bat fossil that lacks sonar (published in Nature; I can't use URLs here, but just search using "new bat fossil").
That's just some vertebrate fossil lineages. The same excellent examples exist for invertebrates and microfossils also, and in fact many more than for vertebrates because their fossil record is better and more complete. I did my own research on the evolutionary transitions between species (that's SPECIES, not genera or families) of protists in complete stratigraphic sequences over millions of years. One can easily see how one species changes into another when you actually have complete, continuous, and gap-free sedimentary sequences that hold the fossils. Such sequences are rare, so it is difficult to find transitional fossils between species, but they exist and have been published in the scientific literature. But for genera and families, there are thousands of such transitional fossils.
I am quite familiar with many other Creationist books such as Billions of Missing Links. Usually the author doesn't understand what he is writing about, and often he misrepresents the facts or true state of knowledge. Only someone with adequate scientific knowledge can detect the omissions and illogical arguments. In either case, the author of such books almost always has a propensity for religious zealotry or an antipathy to science. Creationists take pains these days to hide their religiosity, because the law prevents religious claims from being taught to students in the secular, public school system, but it is always there beneath the surface. Of course, I recognize that there are a very few non-religious individuals who just don't like the concept of evolution or natural selection, and they have their own particular reasons for dismissing evolution. Behe, Wells, Dembski, and others associated with the Discovery Institute are very religious. I don't know what Geoffrey Simmons believes about religion. But I know his book is full of nonsense just from reading the reviews of others. |
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Review Summary: Geepers....how obvious! |
Date: 2008-12-11 |
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Details: Golly gee.....how can anyone possibly think that nothing could have come about if some unknowable, invisible, supernatural magic power didn't just come along and wave it's capricious magic wand and just "poof" all these things, like Hummingbirds, into existence out of thin air?? Ex nihilo ni hil fit, right? Geepers, it's just so obvious! Why can't everyone just accept that?!
Oops, I forgot, some people do actually "think" with logic and reason, and don't automatically embrace supernaturalism and magic as an "obvious" but unprovable component of the real universe in which we live. Why can't we just pretend the universe is like Narnia or something out of the Lord of the Rings, so that we can just "accept" without good evidence that life came about as this and other similar books say it did??
Oops again...forget about "dayhiker's" warning against the cadre of free-thinkers and rationalists that inhabit this world, and who demand real evidence for the gratuitous assertions of doctrinalists and theists. I guess we should just all believe him and ignore what Academia and the "thinking" world have to say about our origins and related matters eh?
What's really missing is billions and trillions of brain cells from mainstream fundamentalists all over the world. |
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Review Summary: billions of missing links |
Date: 2008-10-16 |
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Details: I was surprised by this book and that is why I decided to write a review, which usually I don't.
Billion of missing links is a long list, describing what we call in one word "Nature". I think mostly we think that we know what is going on around us, or at least we think that someone knows. We take our precarious inexplicable existence on earth for granted and try not to think about it.
I enjoyed opening my eyes to the wonderful, amazing world we are part of, the constant changing of everything, while keeping the delicate equilibrium of existence. I choose to believe chance (what does that word really means?) is not the only mechanism behind the fact that you are reading now on your computer the words I am writing right now.
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Review Summary: Totally bats |
Date: 2008-07-18 |
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Details: Once upon a time, I taught a mini-course in faulty thinking. It was the early 70's and there was a lot of faulty thinking around and a lot of romantic energy behind it. Even though my field was anthropology, I felt a duty to talk about the quality of thought apart from its cultural relevance. I thought then, and still do, that there is a rigor to thinking that's independent of our wishes.
This book was presented to me by a young friend. He was troubled by the 'missing' aspect, but his intuition told him that something was wrong here. Could I help?
He was especially upset about the chapter(s) on bats. If evolution proceeds in steps, how come there are no intermediate bat fossils? How on earth did bats learn to fly around in the dark and echo-locate dinner. The best answer I could give him was that I don't know and neither does anybody else.
Now, the fact that nobody has a good answer to this question might be a reflection on either:
*Darwinism, which has, with some modern elaboration explained everything else about the evolution and development of life.
*Intelligent Design, which-as far as I can tell-not only has explained nothing, but doesn't even claim to be able to.
So we are left with two possibilities. Either developmental evolution will, when the fossil record is sufficiently explored, be able to fill in the record and tell us how bats got to squeak in the night or the story of bats will be one that is explained by something else-maybe the notion of Intelligent Design which has, so far, explained nothing.
Personally, I told my young friend, I'm going to bet on the horse that's won all the races it's been in, not on the horse that won't even go out on the track.
Lynn Hoffman, author of the track-proven novel, bang BANG |
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out of 22 Reviews
