Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution [Paperback]

Stove begins his relentless critique of Darwinism by noting, "If Darwin's theory of evolution were true, there would be be in every species a constant and ruthless competition to survive: a competition in which only a few in any generation could survive. But it is perfectly obvious that human life is not like that, however it may be with other species. This inconsistency, between Darwin's theory and the facts of human life, is what I mean by Darwinism's dilemma." It is hard to think of a more obvious (once pointed to) yet devastating criticism of Darwin's theory, and there is nothing complex or esoteric in the observation. Stove's book is like this, and a reminder that the many complexities of evolutionary theory are also often dust thrown in the face of non-specialists. You can walk away from Darwinism after Stove's first paragraph. Stove's book is a strange balance of philosophic equipoise and near savagery, such is the scalding tone of this new epitaph for a theory. This penetrating study by David Stove is one of the most caustic, yet insightful, critiques of Darwinism. It's clarity springs in part from a philosopher's thumbing his nose at theoretical complications that ensare many critics and simply looking at the most obvious discrepancy between the theory and real life. This should not excuse refusal to look at details, but it is easily forgotten how many contradictions creep into what has always been a partly speculative extrapolation about unseen events in deep time. As this passage shows, Stove looks closely at the Malthusian confusions and ideological factors of the post-revolutionary era that haunt Darwinism, and proceeds to a general attack on sociobiology, and other aspects of the theory. It is unfortunate once again: a penetrating book on Darwinism is out of print without reaching paperback, and left to lurk in the stacks of (very) large libraries, where this reader found it, as usual by chance, and where a host of other anti-Darwin books are buried lest they disturb the brainwashed views of the general public.

A talented academic dedicated to sound reasoning provides a devastating critique of what Darwinists of all stripes are about when forcing the plainly observable nature of the human race into their theories. Stove categorizes and dissects the Darwinists' abundant euphemisms and contradictions, as well as shining the light on what they have swept under the rug, both in the past and in the present day. NOTE REGARDING PUBLISHER & AVAILABILITY IN USA: In the past, even when this site has indicated that the book was out of print, I found it for sale online by the publisher -- ASHGATE, NOT AVEBURY. Sadly, the hardback price is incredibly steep, so that what could easily be mass-marketed and make its way into wider paperback distribution is for now little better than out of print.

The Following Is From the Publisher (Ashgate):
Author - David C. Stove,formerly of Sydney University, Australia, died 1994, leaving completed manuscript
Series - Avebury Series in Philosophy
Title - Darwinian Fairytales

Stove attacks the theory of evolution at its weakest point, its logical flabbiness. In the spare and savagely witty prose that made his "Popper and After" and "The Plato Cult" so readable, Stove exposes how time and again evolutionists try to have their cake and eat it. Darwin's theory, he shows, postulated a relentless struggle for life in all species, and then, to explain why humans were not observed struggling, had to postulate an unobserved Cave Man age when they did struggle. Dawkins' Selfish Gene is falsified in its few predictions, such as that an animal will sacrifice itself for three siblings, but has an endless supply of logical patches to explain away its errors. It will be impossible to ignore Stove's arguments that the evolutionists' view of human life, in particular, is as much an offence to logic as it is to common decency.

CONTENTS:
(01) Darwinism's dilemma;
(02) Where Darwin first went wrong about man;
(03) 'But what about war, pestilence, and all that?';
(04) Population, privilege, and Malthus's retreat;
(05) A horse in the bathroom, or the struggle for life;
(06) Tax and the selfish girl, or does Altruism need inverted commas?;
(07) Genetic Calvinism, or demons and Dawkins;
(08) 'He ain't heavy, he's my brother', or Altruism and shared genes;
(09) A new religion;
(10) Paley's revenge, or purpose regained;
(11) Errors of heredity, or the irrelevance of Darwinism to human life.

Comments from Reviews:
'devastating wit'
--Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences

'an invigorating blend of analytic lucidity, mordant humour, and an amount of common sense too great to be called "common".'
--The New Criterion

Stove argues against the Darwinian theory of evolution, in both its original and sociobiological forms. His concern is not so much with traditional difficulties like gaps in the fossil record, as with larger logical questions about how evolutionary theory gives a false view of human life, especially altruism. Stove argues that the complexity of evolutionary theory hides its logical flabbiness.