Undeniable

October 6, 2014
“The Science Guy” jumps off from and expands the arguments from his public debate with creationist Ken Ham, positing that to deny the reality of evolution is tantamount to denying science as a whole, ignoring the advances in medicine and agriculture that make modern human life possible, and destroying our children’s future by leaving them ill-equipped to understand the world. With his conversational wit, Nye both counters classic creationist tactics—such as the appeal to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the idea of the uselessness of half a wing—and explains evolutionary concepts such as punctuated equilibrium, bottlenecking, the theory of the Red Queen, and “good-enough design.” Connections to fields like geochemistry and oceanography support his stance that “the natural world is a package deal; you don’t get to select which facts you like and which you don’t.” Nye takes advantage of his soapbox to address hot-button issues like vaccines and antibiotics, genetically modified foods, and cloning (perhaps overstepping when he dives into the psycho-evolutionary basis of evolution denial). Nye’s popularizing talents shine in this one, and if he’s preaching to the science-loving choir, at least he’s giving them easy-to-understand explanations to bolster their inevitable dinner-table or internet arguments.

October 15, 2014
A sweeping tour of the mechanics of evolution from the Science Guy."Science is the way we know nature and our place within it," writes Nye, who is open-minded and curious but also someone who likes the best explanations devised by the human project: "In science, a hypothesis should not only explain the evidence we have found," he writes, "it should also make predictions about things not yet discovered....Science is inherently work in progress." What kind of evidence do we have about evolution; what kind of dynamic thinking, informed by all we have experienced, can we bring to its understanding? What method of inquiry allows us to advance our understanding? Nye neatly deconstructs the arguments against evolution, from basic mistakes of biology and physics to more cosmological concerns-that the naysayers "avoid the exploration of evolution because it reminds us all that humankind may not be that special in nature's scheme. What happens to other species also happens to us"-and he takes very seriously the problems posed by introducing creationism to school curriculums around the country. While he has no trouble sinking his teeth into the creationists and anti-evolution activists, Nye really takes flight when he is trying to puzzle out how we get here from there or considering the strangeness of sexual selection ("Consider the peacock, the epitome of costly signaling"). In addition to Darwin, the author examines the contributions of a host of scientists from a variety of disciplines, including biology, geology and genetics. With the smoothness and encouragement that mark his writing, Nye suggests that "[t]he only way to get the answers is to keep looking at living things and learning more about the process by which we all came to be." Proof positive that evolutionary theory can be popular and inviting.

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