coyne_kansi.indd
October 18, 2011 • 7:19 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Others have already commented on the articles, but here’s my quick rundown:
Aamulehti (Morning Paper) is a respectable newspaper, second largest in the country, although with few readers in the populous Helsinki area. But they promote your book nicely.
The book review is very favourable. Very cool and matter-of-fact actually, but the reviewer didn’t find a single negative thing to say about WEIT, the highlights being ”One of the best books on popular evolution” and ”And evidence, by God, this book is bulging with”. The ”by God” thing is probably the reviewer´s humour, although most people don’t even associate the idiom with religion. Other content is mostly about evolution being a fact, not a theory and that it’s not based on chance.
The interview is quite favourable too, but a bit simple and in my opinion, a bit clumsy and vernacular in comparison to the language and content of your own blog. I guess the interview was a phoner, which kind of dumbs things down a bit.
Your interview seems to have hit a nerve, since the discussion under the article is extremely vivid, but very incoherent and tiring to read. The comments are mostly on the atheist side. But there are a few religious ones, too, even deeply. And I was surprised how they repeated the same old falsehoods any American faith head would say. Einstein, Newton, science is just another religion, science doesn’t know everything, many scientists are religious… couldn´t be bothered to read them all.
Anyhow, congratulations on the Finnish version of WEIT. Vastapaino is quite a small publishing house though, so you may not get rich on Finnish sales after all (the translation of ”The God Delusion” (”Jumalharha”) was published by a small house as well). Probably those interested in evolutionary biology have already read WEIT in English, but those yearning for serious ammo against their nutty religious neighbours or incredulous anti-science mother-in-laws might go for the Finnish translation. Best of luck!