Looking for a little help

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
  • About Evolutionary Psychology by Behavior OnLine Editor, 12/28/96
    • Darwinism: A Satisfactory Delusion by James Brody, 11/9/97
      
      

Hi! I hope I'm not invading into space I shouldn't be, as I have only a B.A. in English Lit and an extremely recent introduction to EP, but I was hoping someone could suggest some good things to read to help me get to know more about it.

A friend of mine gave me Wright's "The Moral Animal" to read as an intro to a field that she likes. I enjoyed the book very much; many of the observations of human behavior were insightful, and at least some of the evolutionary explanations for the behaviors provoked a lot of thought.

My trouble with reading the book was two-fold: 1) Having next to no knowledge about Darwinism to begin with made it hard for me to read it critically; therefore, I've no idea how "radical" the new field of EP is, or how much credence it has been given by different scientific communities. 2) As will be the case with nearly all books written by one individual, objectivity is impossible, and I'm always troubled by not knowing how reliable each of the million studies that he cites is.

Just in the last week, I've seen how divisive the issue of creationism vs. evolutionism is. Can you recommend any good, close to objective books that I might read? I hardly have the time to research it sufficiently myself, and reading summations of research done by interested parties isn't always the best way to learn about new things.

I'm not prepared to give up my faith in God (weak as it may be at times, it is there), nor probably will I ever be, but I want to hear more from both sides. I'd like to read an objective criticism of evolutionism -- so far I've either seen claims that 1) the evidence is irrefutable, and anyone who doesn't believe is blinded by an irrational belief in God, and 2) the evidence is full of holes that evolutionists choose to ignore and cover. I would imagine that the truth is in between somewhere - I'd like to know where.

Thanks for listening, and for any suggestions you might have. The forum here is excellent - I enjoyed reading all of it.

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