Justin M

Excellent, important content. But the narration...

Revisado: 05-05-25

I'm getting through this title and absolutely loving the content thus far. It's every bit as good as you'd expect from the author's credentials. Smart, erudite, incisive, nuanced, deeply impressive in breadth and depth, and eminently accessible. It's a masterful work.

...which I can only take in small chunks, because the narration commits what to me is a cardinal sin: endless repetition of the up-down-up-down-up-down inflection that every English-speaking amateur defaults to when reading aloud. I found myself imagining reading the words I was hearing, and thinking they'd seem so much smarter and more engaging in that medium. If the content of this audiobook were any less excellent than it is, I'd have stopped listening almost immediately and tried to get my credit back.

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Great content, but can be found elsewhere with better performances

Revisado: 08-27-20

This is the one audiobook I’ve listened to that I’ve wished wasn’t performed by the author. In every other case, I prefer listening to the author even if they’re not as polished as a pro because they bring an aunthenticity that can’t be faked. Not here. Holiday uses the same super-amateurish pattern of inflection on almost every sentence, over and over again, regardless of content, for the whole audiobook. If the content itself weren’t so compelling, I don’t think I’d have made it past the first hour. This should have been a five-star audiobook. It could be if it were re-issued with a new, professionally done performance. Hope that happens, because Holiday’s commentary is well done for what it is. None of it is new, but it’s well put together here. I imagine it’s much more compelling in text form.

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A Black Mirror version of science

Revisado: 11-28-17

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Creationists and ID sympathizers who want to think their ideas have scientific merit. Also, people who are new to intelligent design and want to understand how deep that rabbit hole goes.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The narration is impeccable. I've never heard better.

Any additional comments?
Meyer spends half the book attacking versions of evolutionary theory that have been superseded (one would do well to ask why he does this). Then he gives a slap-dash survey of more modern ideas, to which he apparently has no significant criticisms that aren't reducible to the standard set of creationist fallacies. Every chapter is shot through with misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and failures of reasoning; the pace at which they come is slow but steady at first, accelerating after the halfway mark and reaching a fever pitch by the end. Meyer's great depth and breadth of knowledge, and his capacity for a high level of rigor, are on full display – but he applies those assets with such caprice that the overall effect amounts to little more than a simulation of madness. Most of his substantive claims about biology can't stand up to 5 minutes of Googling – which isn't a surprise given that he has no credentials in any relevant field.

If you're a creationist or ID sympathizer seeking resonance in an ostensibly scientific book, Darwin's Doubt is as good as it gets. If you're hoping to be informed about biology and evolution, you are quite literally better off not reading anything.

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