Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I finally got around to reading this book, and was astonished to find that nearly all of Michael Denton's impossibly wrong account of hierarchies in taxonomy was included as chapter six. Denton, in his "Evolution: A theory in crisis" bases the whole of his argument against common descent on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of molecular data. The error is so egregious that, had he submitted it to any organismal biologist for review, it would have been obvious enough to warrant the cutting of the chapter. Denton himself has acknowledged the error, and retracted his attack against common descent. So what does it say that this "textbook" accepts with an uncritical eye the argument, verbatim, and makes it the foundation of its discussion on molecular systematics? Only that the authors were ill-informed about the field. It is unfathomable that any student will get anything of scientific substance from this book. The arguments are incoherent, and the data are woefully out of date. The representations of modern biology are laughably simplistic. As a propoganda tool, Of Pandas and People is of marginal value, as its muddy arguments are not likely to make much of an impression on thoughtful students. As a "science textbook" it is downright shameful.