Christianity will be fruitfully provoked by their encounter with Illich through Hartch’s work and contemporary readers of Illich now have a tremendous resource to turn to in trying to understand those events that precipitated his career as a social critic. Finally, those entirely unfamiliar with Illich and his contribution will find this book to be an accessible, informative introduction. Graham Baker McMaster University Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation Bill Nye, Edited By Corey S. Powell New York: N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, 2014. 309 pp. Bill Nye ‘‘the science guy’’ has extended, in book form, his arguments from last year’s debate against young earth creationist (YEC) Ken Ham. In the second chapter he sum- marizes this debate (9-18). It is worth noting that the popularity of last year’s debate, which received several million hits on YouTube, exemplifies the confusion that still sur- rounds the relationship between evolution and religion. The polarity of these two posi- tions represented by Nye and Ham is an inaccurate depiction of the real debates occurring in academic circles. Indeed there is a wide range of positions beyond these two conflicting ones (reductive materialism and YEC) including various models of theistic evolution (where God is understood as using the evolutionary process to bring about bio- logical organisms) including both non-teleological and teleological. The strength of Nye’s book lies in countering several anti-evolutionist arguments. For instance he demonstrates, contrary to YECs arguments, that there is no contradiction between the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the ever-increasing complexity of liv- ing systems (22). Nye rightly points out that the Second Law is applicable only to closed systems but not the Earth since it entails an open one. The irony with this is that the sec- ond law of thermodynamics provides a scientific argument for the finitude of the past alongside the expansion of the universe as demonstrated by the standard big bang model. If anything the second law of thermodynamics when used in such a way, unlike YEC reasoning, coheres with modern scientific knowledge and is also consonant with theistic belief. Nye presses questions of logistics concerning Noah’s Ark in the supposed cataclys- mic flood believed by YECs. He asks how eight unskilled people could cater to 14,000 animals. Nye amusingly inquires how it is possible to get from 7 thousand species to the roughly 16 million we have inhabiting the earth today (13). This would amount to eleven new species arising daily. Nye also addresses the notion of the uselessness of half a wing and similar type argu- ments. In a nutshell he points to exaptation (without using the precise term), which con- notes that a particular trait may evolve by serving a specific function at one point but then afterwards comes to serve another. So in this vein Nye explains that in reality there is no half of anything, for example in the case of Tiktaalik fish with transitional components in Book Reviews / Comptes rendus 547 at MEMORIAL UNIV OF NEWFOUNDLAND on December 10, 2015 sir.sagepub.com Downloaded from