"What's Wrong With Pandas?" is a detailed critique of Of Pandas and People written by University of Oklahoma zoologist Frank Sonleitner. Now longer than the actual book, Pandas, "What's Wrong With Pandas?" functions as a detailed reader's guide -- a reader can read a passage of Pandas and then look up the relevant section of Sonleitner's critique to see what a well-informed biologist thinks of the passage. As Sonleitner says, "What's wrong with Pandas? A lot!"
"What's Wrong With Pandas" (1991) critiques the first edition of Pandas, (1989).
"The New Pandas: A Closer Look. Is It Improved?" (written in 1994), reviews the second edition of Pandas, (1993)
Sonleitner's full review is lengthy and detailed. To cut to the chase, here is Sonleitner's conclusion about Of Pandas and People:
Conclusion All the "conclusions" of Pandas are false or irrelevant. Pandas "proves" that spontaneous gen eration is impossible, then claims that it occurred frequently throughout geological time (as instan taneous miraculous productions of new forms by designers). Biological organisms might exhibit some characteristics of manufactured things, but in basic ways they are fundamentally different. Changes are limited in experimental breeds because of the slowness of natural production of muta tions. Increasing the mutation rate by radiation exposure makes further change possible. The fossil record does provide intermediate forms connecting the taxonomic groups. The patterns of similar ity among organisms do not show what one would expect from common design by a single de signer. And the molecular data, grossly misinterpreted by Pandas, do corroborate evolution and re fute intelligent design! Furthermore molecular biology has shown that the hereditary material is full of extraneous copies, nonfunctional pseudogenes and other non-coding garbage, hardly the kind of "blueprint" that an intelligent designer would create. Throughout this critique, we have seen that "intelligent design" (creationism) is empty of explanatory power. The real phenomena do not even fit its alleged predictions.