Product 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.”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80648 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Dan Hays, Salem Statesman Journal, May 20, 2007
Geoffrey Simmons is a rarity (referring to the types of books written). His book holds evolution, as he sees it, to the standard of scientific observation and finds evolution lacking

Jody Sjogren, Illustrator for Icons of Evolution
"You've posed all those "break-down complexities" that Darwin worried about, and you've done it with flair!"

John Patrick, M.D., Prof. of the History of Science, Medicine and Faith, Augustine College, Ottawa, Canada.
A wonderful book...clear and accessible to the nonspecialist

Customer Reviews

Totally bats
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

Mind-bogglingly bad
It is amazing to think that a person could write a book about a subject he has no understanding of. I got curious who would propagate such awful scholarship. Alas...the infamous "Discovery Institute" (The organization responsible for re-branding creationism as "intelligent design." If you are in the mood for a laugh, check out the simmons pz meyers debate on youtube.

Should an author know something about the subject of his book?
This is indeed an astounding achievement: the author writes coherently about a subject he knows nearly nothing about. The result is a book that will be highly enjoyed by everyone who does not know much about biology but dislikes the theory of evolution.

The book brings nothing new to the discussion, as all "arguments" are well known creationist canards. Biological and biochemical systems are deemed unevolvable because the author decides they are. He knows, after all, that his readers will never bother to check or ask a scientist if an explanation might exist (at best, as we see with the high-rating reviewers here, they will imagine a "Darwinist" and imagine their response - so much easier to do then to actually ask someone a question).

Then there is the oldie but goodie about no transitional fossils - meaning, the author does not know certain transitional fossils exist, so therefore they don't exist. He knows his readers will never try to check this claim either.

This applies even to the genuine gaps in the fossil record - the author, for instance, gives great weight to the fact that there are no transitional bat fossils (which is true). By ignoring all other transitions, however, he ignores the obvious retort. We have transitional fossils for evolution of tetrapods from lobe-finned fish, mammals from early synapsid proto-reptiles, etc. The lack of bat fossils, therefore, can mean two things: either the bats evolved just like everything else and we just haven't found the fossils of their earliest forms, or pretty much everything else on this planet evolved except for bats (who were created or intelligently designed by something or some One)

Then there is a bunch of other things (coevolution, for example, is a complete mystery to the author). It is a book that can be completely ignored on scientific grounds.

However, we should take it as an indication of what we should do as scientists to combat the spread of creationism in the public. It is obvious that just putting information out there doesn't work - many people will automatically disbelieve anything a biologist says (including everything I wrote here), while automatically and unquestioningly believe anything written by a creationist author. Instead of trying to teach people about evolution, we should concentrate on teaching them skepticism and scientific method: evolution can stand up to scrutiny of evidence, while books like this one will fail very rapidly under an onslaught of fact-checking. Average Joe Creationist will not be convinced he was wrong until we somehow convince him to check the evidence directly...