Unraveling the Tangled Bank: A book review
The Selfless Gene: Living with God and Darwin by Charles Foster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I received Charles Foster’s “The Selfless Gene” through Booksneeze.com’s free review copy program. I thought the subject matter to be an engaging topic as I am a Christian who studied paleontology in college. I do find, at times, that my religious beliefs and my scientific knowledge are hard to resolve, and my analytical mind is still searching for the “right” and satisfying resolution between my faith in God and my knowledge of science.
In the book, Foster notes that, “The biologists will think that I have oversimplified the biology. The nonbiologists will justifiably moan that I have summarized too brutally some very big and complex ideas,” and I do believe this to be true. Although I found Foster’s writing to be readable and engaging, It seems to me that much of the science was too superficially explained to really be compelling and I felt that the religious arguments were also tentatively dealt with, making me feel that I was missing something. While Foster raises many interesting topics of discussion, it seemed that none were dealt with thoroughly enough to be satisfying.
I also felt that (and perhaps this is because of my own scientific bias) the book was quite biased towards evolution and was a bit derogatory towards some Christian groups. I realize that Foster feels that there are too many extremists on both sides of the issue, but I felt that he held a certain contempt for Young Earth Christian groups. He does indicate in his preface that he wrote the book because he was angry at the existence of the debate, and that he assumed that his book would ruffle feathers on both sides, but I felt the book was not as balanced as it might have been. It did, however, raise many interesting points regarding the interpretation of various parts of the Bible that I had not previously considered, so all in all, I do feel that this book strengthened my convictions and while it did not completely resolve the complex relationship between science and God (let’s face it, that will likely never happen!), I think books in this vein are much needed and to be applauded.
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