To help you plan your summer reading, NCSE is pleased to offer a preview of three reviews forthcoming in Reports of the NCSE. Explore the roots of the creationism/evolution controversy in classical antiquity, enjoy a compelling poetic treatment of Darwinian themes, or just peruse a collection of recent articles on creationism by leading scholars.
First, James G. Lennox reviews David Sedley's Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity (University of California Press, 2007). "Sedley's is a controversial book that reaches well beyond the world of classical scholarship. It is a study of defenders and critics of the idea that the cosmos, the orderly world around us, is the product of a divine, extra-natural designer," Lennox explains. "I urge everyone concerned about the revival of 'intelligent design' to read this compelling story of its origins in Ancient Greece."
Second, Cleo Fellers Kocol reviews Philip Appleman's book of poetry, Darwin's Ark (Indiana University Press, 2009; originally published in 1984). "All of the poems delineate, describe, or elaborate on Darwin's theory. The connections between us and them, humanity and the 'lesser' animals, slide effortlessly into place, and the very earth we stand on oozes into our consciousness as we read these poems. Appleman blends the past with the present in an elegant fashion," Kocol writes.
Third, Glenn Sanford reviews The Panda's Black Box: Opening up the Intelligent Design Controversy (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), a collection of articles edited by Nathaniel C. Comfort. The book is "an accessible reader that quickly and deftly surveys the current evolution-['intelligent design'] debates from a range of philosophical and historical angles," Sanford concludes, adding, "It provides a useful synopsis of considerable scholarship on the issues involved."
If you like what you see, why not subscribe to Reports of the NCSE today? The next issue (volume 30, number 4) features Phil Senter discussing how creationists think about vestigiality as well as reviews of a host of books on paleontology, and the latest dispatches from the front lines of the evolution wars. Don't miss out — subscribe (or renew) now!