The Genesis of Nature and the Nature of Genesis

Creation and Evolution are topics which raise some hard questions: How did Nature start? (What is the real "origin of species"?) Were living things created by God, or did they evolve? (or both ?) How long ago did it all happen? What do the fossils actually tell us? Why are we still arguing about Darwin 130 years after his death? These questions are from a grey area where science, philosophy and religious belief overlap. The scientists themselves do not agree about the answers. This beginning of Nature: is it a matter of Revelation, or Folk Tale, or science? How much of the science of the past is "Just So story"? After 40 years of teaching biology to bright A level students, the author has some feel for which parts of evolution theory make good sense and which parts give special difficulty. He has friends of every shade of opinion - from staunch Darwinists at one end of the spectrum to enthusiastic creationists at the other - so he has got to know "the bits that really matter". The aim of the book is to unscramble ideas and make some suggestions, rather than to convert the reader to a particular view.