This book gets points for bringing together some of the greatest minds in science to discuss the topic of evolution. It loses points for the mealy-mouthed comments of the editor, who manages to make it sound like there really is a true controversy among scientists about evolution. He presents it as though there is a balanced argument on both sides, and hey, we can't know for sure, so can't we all play nice? This is not an accurate look at the issue, and many of the speakers he brought in on the side of "not evolution" demonstrated their lack of understanding of evolutionary theory. True to the spirit of every story has two (equal) sides, he managed to make it sound as though the proponents of evolution were merely giving their "opinion". This was OK in the early chapters, when he was just looking at the beginning of the controversy, and it could still be debated rationally whether evolution had, in fact, occurred. In the latter portion of the book, moving from the Modern Synthesis to the 21st century, this becomes less acceptable, as the commentary on the articles is misleading and gives the reader permission to say, hey, I have a different idea, and my idea is equal to evolution, because there really isn't any evidence, is there? Except, of course, there is. Lots of it. And this book does a disservice to that evidence by watering it down with timid commentary that points you in the direction of believe what you want, it's all good. Not a bad look at the history of the controversy; but not a very good discussion of the current state of the "controversy", which exists only outside of science, where people are ill-informed by books like this one. ( )