Origin of Species 150th Anniversary Edition,   ISBN:9780882709192

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In a short 50 pages Ray Comfort has committed so many logically fallacies and made so many stupid arguments that it's hard to know where to begin when offering a critique of what he says.

In his biography of Darwin, Comfort usually sticks to the known facts, but he often highlights certain facts or misrepresents reality for apparent reasons. For example, he mentions (twice) how Darwin's father thought Darwin to be a terrible student. He tells that Darwin's original diagram of the evolutionary tree had the words "I think" beneath it. He includes a quote from Darwin that confessing evolution is "like confessing a murder." He seems to indicate that Darwin developed his theory, in part, through "experimentation in his garden and the countryside around Down House." This is not inaccurate, but it is a misleading and condescending portrayal. Within the biography, Comfort decides that God is needed so when speaking of Darwin's death he says that Darwin "went to make his Maker" and the last word of Comfort's short biography is "clergy" for clergy were indeed at Darwin's funeral. (Take that atheists!)

As for the rest of the introduction... Comfort first makes an argument by false analogy (ink spilling on to pages to make a coherent book is analogous to DNA being randomly sorted to make the genome of on organism) He then waves around two God-believers, Anthony Flew and Francis Collins. (Are you the reader, smarter than these two men? Are you? Are you?) Comfort conveniently omits that both these men reject creationism and intelligent design.

He then dismisses the fact that chimps and humans have 96% the same DNA. (He makes much of the fact that original estimates as to the level of similarity used to be around 98-99% before the genomes of both were compared.) Next he brings out the same old creationist refrains about missing links, evolutionary hoaxes, and not enough fossils. He quotes Richard Leaky saying there is "nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional species to man." Never mind that plenty of fossils have been found since 1990 and the very important fact that the theory of evolution does not need ANY fossils to be defended. It's simply fortunate that fossilization, as a process, does happen.

He goes into a 5 page diatribe about hearts. Which came first, blood, or the circulatory system? Instead of going back to the earliest stages of the evolution of circulatory systems, Comfort skips straight to the circulatory systems of fish. If he had been honest, he would have looked at worms that have a circulatory system that is basically a simple muscular tube which squeezes rhythmically to move blood-like liquid.

He repeats the usual stuff about eyes and vestigial organs. This man doesn't realize that although vestigial organs can serve some function for an organism (a penguin's "wings" being used for swimming) they are still vestigial because they are not performing the task that the organ was originally used for in an ancestor.

Next in the book. Shocking revelation: Darin was a sexist and racist. Think that sexism and racism existed before Darwin's theory? Nope, it all started then in 1869. To drive the point home he has several pages of quotes from Hitler. *yawns

He then misquotes Francis Crick and Dawkins to make it look like these two men are trying desperately hard to ignore the design they see all around them.

Quick note on the the pictures that Comfort chose to include. Some are of Darwin's life and are normal enough, but Comfort thinks the joke of Darwin portrayed as a monkey in late 19th century cartoons is so funny that he includes no less than four of these depictions. Really classy Comfort.

He then throws in his appeal to be saved. (By the way, he ruins the ending of the movie UP in his intro. Not nice.) Most of it is his standard spiel. You've broken the 10 commandments. Be saved! Christianity is better than those other silly religions. Be saved! Don't ask for proof; that's just silly. Be saved!

I'll end with this. Comfort has the startling pretentious audacity to include this story: "On February 24, 2005, a nine-year-old girl was reported missing from her home in Homosassa,Florida. Three weeks later, police discovered that she had been kidnapped, brutally raped, and then buried alive. Little Jessica Lunsford was found tied up, in a kneeling position, clutching a stuffed toy." Why does Comfort include this story that would make any decent person furious? Because he wants to let you know that God, too, is very furious that this took place. Then he makes this point: "The fury of Almighty God against evil is evidence of His goodness. If He wasn't angered, He wouldn't be good." My pulse quickened as I read that. It was the one time in the intro that I wasn't amused by Comfort; I was furious. What's even more sickening then Comfort's twisted logic on that point, is that the reason that he includes the story is to indicate that God is VERY angry not just at child rape and murder. He's also VERY angry when you, a 20-year-old-male look at a woman in the wrong way. He's VERY angry when you say "God damn it." Yes, dear reader, I know child rape gets you angry, but just remember that God is just as angry with child rape as He is with lust, or envy, or the belief in evolution...

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Ray Comfort is destroying minds with this misleading book. It's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to.

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One of the most controversial books in history. "Origin of Species" is a reprinting of Charles Darwin's landmark work, with additional information on the life of Darwin, the modern debate, religion, additional research, scientists before and after Darwin, and much more. For anyone who wants to read the legendary work for themselves, "Origin of Species" is a fine update and well worth checking out.

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The arguments in the forward by Ray Comfort (which seems to be what everyone is commenting on) are very well laid out. They use logic, reason, and science to illustrate a point just like Darwin used logic, reason, and science to illustrate his point. The forward simply states the facts as science currently concludes and compares them to what Darwin concluded. The illustrations and conclusions made in the forward are very helpful in examining the Evolutionary Theory for its scientific correctness.

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By including Mr. Comfort's lengthy "introduction" with Darwin's Origin of Species (albeit an abridged version of Darwin's monumental work) in one book, readers are afforded an excellent opportunity to examine and compare the relative merits of the creationist viewpoint advocated by Comfort and Darwin's theory of evolution. Interestingly, this format promotes a struggle between conflicting viewpoints and can be seen as an illustration of Darwinian principles applied to the evolution of ideas. Darwin can take comfort in knowing that careful readers of even this abridged version of the Origin of Species will appreciate that his is a robust theory based on a lifetime of careful study, keen observation and reasoning that is both logical and extremely insightful. Comfort, for his part never actually makes a case for creationism. Rather he first attacks Darwin's theory largely using the same arguments that Darwin, himself, laid out and blunted 150 years earlier in his original work and then attacks Darwin's character. Comfort follows this with a strange discourse using a parachute analogy to attempt to prove that only through Christian beliefs and practice can men be delivered from eternal damnation at the hands of a wrathful God. There can be no doubt about which of these conflicting vewpoints will survive and continue to evolve and which will become extinct in the minds of fair-minded and intellectually mature readers of this important book. And with the extinction of creationist views based on a literal read of Genesis, one finds that just as a multitude of life forms successfully share this earth, Darwin's theory can happily coexist with all of the mainstream religions and theologies.