Brief Review: Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels

Rev. Jim Witteveen

eahEvolution’s Achilles’ Heels
Creation Book Publishers, 2014
Edited by Robert Carter
Price $18.00

Several months ago, Jon Dykstra reviewed the documentary that was developed in conjunction with the book Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels. I recently had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Richard Fangrad, CEO of Creation Ministries International’s Canadian branch. There was a book table at the event (which is always a draw for me), and this was one of many very worthwhile resources on offer. In his review, Jon gave the documentary a 10/10 rating, and I can only concur that the book is every bit as valuable in its own way as the documentary is.

There are eight “fatal flaws” to the theory of evolution that are addressed in depth by nine Ph.D. Scientists, including Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Dr. Emil Silvestru, and others. As in the documentary video, the flaws dealt with are:

  • Natural selection
  • Genetics and DNA
  • The origin of life
  • The fossil record
  • The geologic record
  • Radiometric dating
  • Cosmology
  • Ethics and morality

In his foreword, Dr. Carl Wieland reminds us that the issue of origins is predicated on interpretation of the available evidence, and not on the evidence itself. His insights on this issue are important and worth citing:

“This whole controversy, incidentally, has never been about unearthing ‘facts for creation’ vs ‘facts for evolution’. When it comes to matters of history (as opposed to experimental or operational science, the science that concerns itself with how the world works), the issue has never been the facts so much as their interpretation. We all have the same world – the same ‘facts’… And philosophers of science have long reminded us… that raw, uninterpreted facts never speak for themselves. As the late Harvard professor, Stephen Jay Gould, once wrote, ‘Facts do not “speak for themselves”;  they are read in the light of theory.’”

The nine scientists who contributed to this book begin with the following presuppositional framework, in the words of Dr. Wieland: “the straightforward truth of the Bible, in particular the Genesis record, affirmed and taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and authenticated by His rising from the dead.” This starting point, even more than the PhD’s piled up behind the names of the authors of this volume, makes Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels a very worthwhile resource.

This is particularly true for Christian students who will certainly have to wrestle with these issues as they prepare to engage in post-secondary science studies, and deal with them on a foundational level, not merely on an issue-by-issue basis. Given the often technical content of the eight chapters in this book, the material is well-presented, neatly laid-out, and accompanied by a number of helpful graphs, charts, and illustrations. Highly recommended without reservation!