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Darwin's Bluff: The Mystery of the Book Darwin Never Finished Paperback – February 8, 2024
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Print length284 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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Publication dateFebruary 8, 2024
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Dimensions6 x 0.71 x 9 inches
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ISBN-101637120370
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ISBN-13978-1637120378
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"It is a testimony to the mythical status of Charles Darwin that most of his admirers do not know or do not take seriously the fact that Origin of Species was sold as an abstract of a much longer work. Reviewers of Origin took Darwin at his word and cut him considerable slack when evaluating the case for evolution by natural selection. The promised volume would presumably explain the modus operandi of this mysterious process. However, the promised volume never came, though a hefty manuscript survived its author. Robert Shedinger takes a deep dive into Darwin's correspondence, as well as the unfinished follow-up manuscript, and concludes that Darwin abandoned the project simply because he couldn't meet the objections to natural selection made even by broadly sympathetic reviewers of Origin. In addition, Shedinger casts a forensic eye on how scholarly interpretations of Darwin's life have subtly served to obscure this ultimate intellectual failure. The result is nothing short of a demythologization of modern biology's origin story."
-Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology, University of Warwick, author of Dissent over Descent
"Darwin's Bluff particularly resonates with me. In 2009, as a card-carrying Darwinist serving as a fossil curator in one of Germany's natural history museums, I mounted an exhibit showing Darwin's famous work outweighing the works of his leading modern detractors. To prepare for hard questions from reporters, I decided to give the naysayer books a quick read, books I had been assured were all froth and foolishness. I soon discovered that I had been misled. The arguments in those pages were neither shallow nor illogical. Instead, I came to see that it was actually modern Darwinism that rested on a carefully constructed bluff.
Robert Shedinger's latest book shows that the bluffing has a long pedigree, stretching back to the master of Down House himself. What emerges from Shedinger's deep dive into Darwin's private writings is a picture of a man wracked by doubts and insecurities about his evolutionary theory, but also a man not above a good bluff, one he sold so artfully that he may even have persuaded himself."
-Günter Bechly, former curator for amber and fossil insects in the Department of Paleontology at the State Museum of Natural History (SMNS) in Stuttgart, Germany; Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
"Robert Shedinger's fascinating book explores a puzzling question about Darwin's career: Why didn't he ever publish a longer book on evolution by natural selection that he had almost completed? Darwin continually promised his contemporaries that his forthcoming work would provide the evidence he was unable to include in his shorter book, The Origin of Species, which he called an "abstract" of his theory. Through painstaking historical research, Shedinger sheds light on Darwin's modus operandi and on the shortcomings of his scientific evidence, thus dismantling what Shedinger calls the mythology surrounding Darwin."
-Richard Weikart, Professor of History, California State University, Stanislaus; author of Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism
Product details
- Publisher : Discovery Institute (February 8, 2024)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 284 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1637120370
- ISBN-13 : 978-1637120378
- Item Weight : 14.7 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.71 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #40,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #72 in Evolution (Books)
- #109 in Scientist Biographies
- #124 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
I am an Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. I teach courses in Biblical Studies, Islam, and Science and Religion and hold a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Temple University. My current research is focused on finding ways for Christians and Muslims to move beyond their differences and work together for a better world. I have followed up my book "Was Jesus a Muslim?" with a new book "Radically Open: Transcending Religious Identity in an Age of Anxiety" which should be released during the fall of 2012. Further down the line I hope to publish a book "Jesus and Jihad: Reclaiming the Prophetic Heart of Christianity and Islam."
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After Origin was heavily criticized, Darwin wrote a book about orchids instead—which actually supported natural theology, not natural selection. So what ever happened with the unfinished follow-up book? And if it is the case that Darwin’s ideas were actually unsubstantiated, how did evolutionary thinking become so engrained in the sciences? Robert Shedinger’s recent book, Darwin’s Bluff, is an historical examination of Darwin’s written correspondence with friends, family, colleagues, and critics, as well as an analysis of Darwin’s scientific writings, attempting to assess why Darwin never wrote his much anticipated and overpromised book as well as how Darwin became hidden behind a veil of mythology. It’s time for the Darwinian veil to be rent.
He writes, “Breaking down the edifice of Darwinian mythology is important to reclaiming authentic scientific inquiry. Questioning Darwin and Darwinism (including neo-Darwinism) is not a negation of science, but rather its fulfillment. Many of the questions being raised today about the sufficiency of Darwinian evolution simply couldn’t be asked without knowledge of the dizzying complexity of life at the cellular and molecular levels. It is the deeply entrenched Darwinian mythology that actually serves as a major deterrent to a proper airing of these questions, and thus a major deterrent to scientific advancement.”
Great for fans of history and science!
The Origin of Species is not science – not in the classical Western empirical, inductive manner – and that’s what science is and has been since the time of Francis Bacon. He presents no experimental data. He merely avers that this is the way he thinks it is according to his observations. Darwin even states at the beginning of Chapter 13 that the whole book is “one long argument” thus not a conclusion from his data. Darwin admits, “For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.”
(Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species: unabridged 6th edition . Unknown. Kindle Edition.)
Shedinger points out that Darwin promised that another volume with the facts is forthcoming and that’s the ‘bluff.’
Along the way the book entertains with anecdotes and musings about Darwin. Charles was a trustafarian – he inherited the equivalent of millions in today’s money and never had to work a day in his life. I mean who else could leave the wife and kids at home and go on a round the world cruise for five years? Shedinger also speculates that Darwin must have particularly enjoyed connubial relations with Mrs. Darwin and expresses some sympathy for her as she had 10 children in roughly ten years.
Darwin’s promised second volume was unfinished at the time of his death. The unfinished book was published in the 90s and in any case did not produce any empirical data supporting his theory. One of the most interesting pieces of information that Shedinger presents is that roughly 50% of the scientific community complained about this lack of data at the time. Darwin answered most of these critics personally and promised that another book was coming that would contain the facts. It never did. Shedinger describes and narrates this story compellingly.
This book does an excellent job of portraying Newton as he was, a pseudoscientist just looking for fame.