I’m just finishing up the end notes of The Selfless Gene. Definitely an interesting book. Foster begins by pointing out that both people using evolution to evangelize for atheism and people using creation to evangelize for fundamentalist Christianity are taking the position that there is just one thing explaining everything in the world.

While acknowledging the emotional appeal of that attitude, Foster lays out the problems with it. If you say that everything is the result of natural selection, you really are left with the problems of goodness and beauty. If you say that the Bible provides a literally accurate story of creation (two of them, actually, with significant differences in their details), then you’re left with the problems of evidence and of evil.

Foster explores these issues first with current science and logical argumentation, and then with scripture and philosophy. This book is a pleasure to read from either perspective.

Apart from reading, I’ve been working, and things are feeling a little hectic. Since we’re doing things to increase our future workload, there are numerous meetings and phone calls going on, all of which distract me from my paid work. If I were a salaried worker, I think I would be enjoying it. It makes you feel like you’re getting stuff done, and seems full of promise. As it is, it just makes me very conscious that I’m not getting my paid work finished. This is the wrong attitude. I’m working on it.