My reading right now:
Your thoughts on this book? I'll be finished with The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World today, and a little dose of Church vs. Science might be just the thing to fire me up over a week of dreary winter weather.
It was very good! It was quite different from "The Devil in Dover" by Lauri Lebo, which I'd read before. The Gordy Slack book is more pithy, more philosophical, and often more caustic-- and I don't really like how Slack buys into the portrayal of the Dover trial being about science vs. faith which the ID people are pushing, only from the opposite side. Lebo handles that discussion better. Both she and Slack are journalists, but Lebo also takes up the discussion of what it means for journalists to be objective, and how that does
not mean that they are required to portray two different sides of an issue in an equally favorable light. Lebo also spends a lot more time talking personally about the people involved in the trial (she spent a lot of time interviewing both the defendents and the prosecutors, witnesses as well as lawyers), whereas Slack seems to have spent more of his time talking to other journalists and discussing different angles on the trial. Both of them tackle the over-arching themes of what exactly constitutes science and what does not, and both Lebo and Slack have (in Lebo's case, had) intelligent, caring fathers who deny evolution and consider such denial a requirement for any good Christian....and both struggled on this topic with their fathers. Slack's book is funnier; Lebo's is more touching. Slack was writing about the trial for Salon.com; Lebo is a local and can offer that close perspective.
So how am I going to resolve this? I guess I'm going to have to recommend both! Both are compelling reads, and I read each within a couple of days. There was an uncharitable review of Lebo's book by Amazon by someone who disparaged her relationship with her father-- I jumped on and criticized that review, and the next day got a very nice email from Lebo thanking me for what I'd said. A few months ago the prosecution witnesses, lawyers, and others involved in the trial got together at Lebo's house for a reunion party, which should tell you how personal this whole thing became for everyone involved. Judge John Jones spoke at a conference I attended for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in 2006 and it was really nice to see how seriously he took-- and continues to take-- this issue, in spite of the fact that he has aroused the hatred of evangelical across the U.S. and has even gotten death threats for his ruling on the case.
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Topic: Yet Another "What are you reading?" Thread (Read 75959 times)