Of Pandas and People - Overview

Overview

The book argues that the origin of new organisms is "in an immaterial cause: in a blueprint, a plan, a pattern, devised by an intelligent agent." The text is non-committal on the age of the Earth, commenting that some "take the view that the earth's history can be compressed into a framework of thousands of years, while others adhere to the standard old earth chronology." The book raises a number of objections to the theory of evolution, such as the alleged lack of transitional fossils, gaps in the fossil record and the apparent sudden appearance ex nihilo of "already intact fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc." The book makes no explicit reference to the identity of the intelligent designer.

Kevin Padian, a biologist at University of California, Berkeley reviewed the book and called it "a wholesale distortion of modern biology." Michael Ruse, a professor of philosophy and biology, reviewed it, saying "this book is worthless and dishonest." Gerald Skoog, Professor of Education at Texas Tech University, wrote in his 1989 review that the book reflected a creationist strategy to focus their "attack on evolution", interpreting the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling as though it legitimised "teaching a variety of scientific theories", but the book did not contain a scientific theory or model to "balance" against evolution, and was "being used as a vehicle to advance sectarian tenets and not to improve science education".

The title Of Pandas and People apparently refers to biologist Stephen Jay Gould’s book The Panda’s Thumb, possibly in hope that people would be confused by the similar titles, or as retaliation for arguments made in the earlier book. Gould used the giant panda's "thumb", which was found to be an evolved sesamoid bone, to support his argument that "ideal design is a lousy argument for evolution" and that "odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proofs of evolution – paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process constrained by history, follows perforce."