After a short chapter on Darwin's life, the main part of the book focuses on teasing out the implications of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection as presented by Darwin himself.

Thus far it is what it says on the tin. The author then goes on less successfully to take part in controversies current at the time of writing (1982), in particular sociobiology and creationism. I was somewhat surprised to be told evolution was incompatible with Christianity. If the author had confined himself to saying that Darwin found it difficult to reconcile the two, that would have been fair enough. However, he inserted this into a comment on the 1980 US presidential election, ignoring the fact that many 20th and now 21st century Christians seem able to accept evolution as part of their world view. ( )