Origin of the Human Species

Rating:
Summary: Promising book undone by lack of method
Review: Dr. Dennis Bonnette is a Catholic, a thomist and a theistic evolutionist. As such, I expected him to have written a masterful treatment of the subject of human evolution, enlightened by the magisterium of the one true Church, structured by the intellectual rigor of the best philosophical system I know of, and spared the necessity of ignoring or distorting scientific evidence which plagues all creationist writings. Those expectations were all the higher as *Origin of the Human Species* seems to have received almost nothing but glowing reviews.

Unfortunately, Bonnette is not particularly interested in what the magisterium of the Catholic Church has to say. He does devote one chapter to it, but it is awkwardly located (in the middle of the book), less than nine pages long, and mostly based on the decision of the 1909 Biblical Commission, with scanty references to the Council of Trent and Pius XII's encyclicals Humani Generis and Divino Afflante Spiritu.

Bonnette's thomism, moreover, seems to have been shaped to a large extent by the writings of a 20th century Australian philosopher, Austin M. Woodbury, whose books unfortunately exist only as unpublished manuscripts; and those of Jacques Maritain, whose very Kantian distinction between dianoetic and perinoetic knowledge Bonnette makes extensive use of to undermine the certainty of scientific knowledge.

As for the scientific validity of Bonnette's arguments, it is much undermined by his endorsement of Vedic scientists Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, whose books try to rewrite the whole field of paleoanthropology by using allegedly suppressed evidence and various paranormal techniques such as past-life regression. (Readers curious to learn more about Bonnette's attitude towards Cremo's books can read his own five-star reviews of two of them on this very site.)

Bonnette also claims that his evaluation of the emergence of intellect in man is «consistent with the work of anthropologist Thomas Wynn», but Wynn is not mentioned anywhere in the body of the text, the bibliography or the index, and I had to do a search on this site to learn that Wynn is the author of a 120-page study on «The Evolution of Spatial Competence» (1989.)

Summarizing his evaluation of the science in the first edition of the book, Glenn R. Morton (author of the very stimulating *Foundation, Flood and Fall* and *Adam, Apes and Anthropology*) wrote that «Bonnette's anthropological knowledge is positively paleolithic, the average age of his anthropological references being 1980 with only three references to the literature of the 1990s. Indeed, the average age of the scientific reference is 1978. Because of this, the book abounds with falsified claims.»

But perhaps the major flaw of the volume is its lack of method. Rather than a full-fledged book structured by an overall argument, with each chapter resting on what the previous chapters have established, *Origin of the Human Species* is much closer to being a collection of articles. Indeed, the longest and most praised chapter of the book, «The Significance of Recent Ape Language Studies» (with whose conclusions I wholeheartedly agree) was initially published in 1993 as an article in the Christendom Press periodical *Faith & Reason*.

The chapters themselves are often unstructured cacophonies of quotes from authors of various persuasions, generally leading to unconclusive assessments by the author. Chapter 1, for instance, on «Darwinian evolution versus scientific creationism» ends with Bonnette's willful suspension of judgment and a determination to leave to others the «ongoing great debate over the general scientific validity of biological evolution.» In chapter 14, Bonnette even confesses his fear that because of Cremo's work, his whole «effort might be in vain.»

Finally, the style is often atrocious, as Bonnette overuses the possessive case and noun determination and seems to be allergic to the definite article, creating such monstrous phrases as «gradualistic human intellective emergence» or sentences like «inability to determine presence of spontaneous movement or sense organs reveals present inability to make a definitive determination, not absence of a demarcation line within organisms» or «in alteration of DNA macromolecule genetic micro-structure, germinal material organization suffers confluence of two-fold agency». So much for the lucid and easily accessible language one of the reviewers praises. (To be honest, I must admit that these are the most horrid excerpts I came across and fortunately much of the book is better written.)

I am not saying that *Origin of the Human Species* is all bad. On the contrary, I am almost tempted to say that most of it is good. But a book should not be a grab-bag of truths, anymore than a military campaign should consist in roaming about in enemy territory and firing in all directions, which is more or less what this book feels like.

Rating:
Summary: Comments on Origin of the Human Species
Review: This book is very definitive about the philosophical meaning of the human origin.
It is not a simple read for the everyday man on the street, yet he could derive some benefits reading this book.
This book would make a great college textbook about the subject of human orgins and the science and philosohy behind it
all.
It is important for us to know about evolution especially when it comes to educating our young people. Being a homeschooling mother, I believe reading this book greatly helps to improve my personal understanding of human beginnings and allows me to refute some of the myths about evolution toted as fact to our children.

Rating:
Summary: Bonnette's masterful analysis (ISBN 1932589007)
Review: [This review refers to the newer Sapientia Press edition (ISBN 1932589007).]

Dr. Dennis Bonnette has, by all accounts, done a masterful job of honestly assessing, and even more coolly dispatching, the exagerrated claims of Darwinian agitprop-men like Ridley, Dawkins, and Dennett. The other reviews here mention well enough the foci of this book -- a Thomistic critique of Darwinian naturalistic assumptions, a very close analysis of ape-language studies, etc. -- so I won't go into great detail there. (That's what reading the book is for! *wink*wink*)

The two special merits of Bonnette's book are 1) its conceptual broadness and 2) its philosophical acuteness. First, Bonnette shows the broad arenas of thought that are being disputed -- and then shows what other areas of thought too easily get the green light in Darwinism (e.g., naturalistic presumption, causal contingency, shallow exegetical assumptions, etc.). He doesn't pound away at one or two arcane theoretical points; rather he shows the theological, philosophical and anthropological contours of this debate.

Second, while he covers a lot methodological ground in Origin of the Human Species, Bonnette never relents from his Thomistic precision of thought. He doesn't just throw quotes around. He carefully analyzes the relevant points with a thoroughness his mentor, the Angelic Doctor of Aquino, would admire. In a word, Bonnette sees the forest for the trees, and vice versa.

If you're serious about "the evolution debate," buy this book. As the author himself wrote to me: "I shall never get rich selling this book. But I do hope it will help resolve the 'evolution vs. Bible' problem that has caused so much loss of faith on the part of many scientists, students, and scholars."