Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a London subway; takes a stroll through 4.5 billion years of time; and explores the new search for alien life, including aliens right here on Earth. With infectious enthusiasm, Bill Nye shows that evolution is much more than a rebuttal to creationism; it is an essential way to understand how nature works - and to change the world. He argues passionately that to continue to assert otherwise, to continue to insist that creationism has a place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well. It might also help you get a date on a Saturday night.
Undeniable is a book that stems from a debate Nye had with young-earth creationist Ken Ham, over where science fits into creation and how. Part of me was a bit worried before the debate and this book. When you debate religion and science things can get nasty, but Bill tries very hard to avoid that and I think he was fairly successful. I think if you go into this book expecting a fight, you’ll without any doubt find one. But for every few sentences on young-earth creationism(or science denying) there is an entire chapter for the topic of choice. He is hard on young-earth creationism and those who deny science, but he doesn’t have a problem with religion in itself and I think it’s important to know/remember that.
I will warn you. This is a science book, this is not a book that focuses purely on the debate aspect. It’s not a light book, but it’s definitely not on the same density as say Hawkins. Evolution is a fairly big topic, and it covers a lot of ground…so Undeniable is basically a crash course in what evolution is, how is works, and what it affects. We get topics like vision, bacteria, vaccines, GMOs, and cloning. It’s not something you can breeze through, you need time to process what you’re reading…unless of course you’re already a scientist well versed on evolution in a wide variety of fields. However, that being said everything in the book is presented in a very accessible way with a lot of nifty comparisons to make more difficult ideas easy, like only Bill Nye can do.
It did take me a while to get through this, but I really enjoyed it overall. It was sort of like a older more complex version of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy with each chapter topic being a new episode. For those who love science or simply want to know more about evolution then it’s definitely something to check out.
Reading updates
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23 January, 2016:
Finished reading
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23 January, 2016:
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