Daily Archives: 04/01/2012

When I reviewed Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell  I was a year late commenting on what others had said about it, and the book came out a year before that. Not wishing to sully my track record, I’m over two centuries late in reviewing William Paley’s Natural Theology. I read the book because it’s almost universally compared (unfavourably) with Origin of Species, and even opponents of Darwinian evolution speak mainly of its weaknesses. I suspected that a book apparently so mistaken, which nevertheless was a bestseller throughout the nineteenth century, had probably been misrepresented. Having read Origin of Species recently, I thought it was an opportune time for comparison.