The battle of beginnings

the long version

Two sides have squared off and voices keep getting louder - whether in lecture halls or in the spate of books addressing the controversy. But neither side seems to be winning. Neither side has mounted an argument capable of turning the tide and securing a victory. Why? Del Ratzsch examines the history of the debate and takes aim at entrenched positions that he argues impede progress from either side. Dissatisfied with both creationist fallacies and materialist misconstruals, he seeks to lay the groundwork for more fruitful dialogue. In considerable detail he looks at the history and development of Darwin's theory and popular creationist misunderstandings of evolution, moving on to the history and development of creationist theory and popular evolutionist misunderstandings of it. He then discusses the nature of science and common creationist and evolutionist abuses as a prelude to showing why both sides have remained critical of theistic evolution. Above all, he argues that until misconstruals, philosophical confusion, logical missteps and various other snarls have been untangled, little real progress can be made in sorting out detailed analyses of scientific claims and cases.