Andrew Parker (1) (1967–)

This is a odd duck of a book. Parker, a respected evolutionary biologist, believes that the story of Creation in Genesis, chapter 1 is not literally correct, but correct as a vague description of the process according to evolutionary biology. Parker assumes that it must be a sign from God to have some first millennium B.C. folks write this down. So, Parker's God is powerful enough to write a vague historical description of evolutionary biology and the rise of animals, but not powerful enough to actually create things in six days, or not powerful enough to leave us a rigorously scientific account. It's an odd duck of a theory that will appeal to no Bible literalist, who he constantly poo poos, nor will it appeal to any hardcore believe in The Science™. Who it appeals to, I know not. Lots of digressions, lots of personal history. Not boring, but not good. Needed lots of pictures and diagrams, but had basically none.… (mehr)

Frustrating. Andrew Parker’s thesis is the development of vision initiated the “Cambrian Explosion” by making predators much more effective and requiring the equivalent adaptation in prey. The problem is, Parker has gone to such lengths to make In The Blink of an Eye accessible to lay audiences that it’s almost inaccessible to those – even laymen – with more than a casual interest. For example, Parker insists on using “common” names for many of the organisms he’s dealing with – thus, we get “seed shrimp” instead of “ostracode” and “bristle worm” instead of “polychaete”. Nobody uses those terms – if you have even a slight interest in marine biology, you’ll know what ostracodes and polychaetes are. It gets even more absurd when Parker gets into taxonomic details – rather than use a family name, “Myodocopa”, to describe a particular group of ostracodes, we get “the lightweight notched seed shrimp group”.


To make matters worse, although Parker drops lots of interesting facts – male “lightweight notched seed shrimp” have a tiny diffraction grating on their antennae that they use to attract females by “flashing” them, for example – there is not one reference, either in footnotes or in text, or even a list of suggested reading. Thus there’s no way to do any sort of further research. I wonder if these were Parker’s ideas, or if his editor insisted on them? Puzzlingly, there are a lot of detailed anatomical drawings, which I would expect also would have been eliminated by an overcautious editor.


Being dumbed down so much, it’s any easy enough read; it takes a long time to get through all the details and anecdotes to the critical argument but the details and anecdotes are fairly entertaining. The best I can say for it, though, is that it might be useful for an intelligent pre-teen with a biological bent.… (mehr)

NCLA Review - Parker, a respected Oxford biologist, identifies parallels between the story of the Creation as presented in the first chapter of Genesis, and the creation of the universe as currently understood by science. However, Parker is not a literalist: he does not subscribe to the “Creation in seven days” perspective, but rather attempts to demonstrate that the elements of Creation occurred in an order consistent with current scientific evidence. Parker’s science is generally sound, but his thesis strains to fit the data. Also, the book is somewhat marred by digressions relating to Parker’s previous scientific work and theories. Overall, this is a book that seems to lack an audience; conservative Christians will have difficulty accepting the theology presented, while most liberal Christians will have already accepted a reading of Genesis informed by current scientific understanding. However, those persons with a strong affinity for and understanding of science may enjoy the scientific treatment in this book. Note that the paperback version of the book, due out in October 2010, has the slightly modified title The Genesis Enigma: why the first book of the Bible is scientifically accurate, which is a better description of the actual content. Rating: 2 —RMF… (mehr)