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s 
entertaining bestiary. Why bother swat- 
ting Dixon’s butterflies with a meat-ax? 
Well, in this case, swatting a few is 
instructive for two reasons: first, be- 
cause the book’s obsessively detailed 
fantasy is disguised as the product of 
scientific reasoning, and it’s worth point- 
ing out the difference; and second, be- 
cause annotating the flaws in After Man 
has left me feeling a renewed confidence 
in the scientific status of evolutionary 
biology. 
Evolutionary biology is in a dreadful 
funk at the moment. Some prefer to call 
it a scientific revolution, but “funk” — a 
state of depression and cowardice — 
seems like a more accurate description. 
The falanx, one of the earth's 
principal carnivores, is a 
large doglike rat that preys 
on the herbivores of the 
plains and forests. 
Every learned journal and scientific 
meeting is sprinkled with papers be- 
moaning the shortcomings of Darwinists 
and telling us what we must do to be 
saved. One after another, Jeremiahs and 
iconoclasts are leaping onto their 
soapboxes and accusing their fellow evo- 
lutionary biologists of circular reason- 
ing, hollow explanations, baseless as- 
sumptions, and general all-around 
mushheadedness. Some of these accusa- 
tions have some real sting to them, but 
the cures being peddled along with 
them — genetics based on French an- 
thropology, systematics rooted in Vien- 
nese philosophy, dialectical paleontol- 
ogy, and the like — are mere Laetrile. 
Hence the funk. 
Reading After Man with a critical 
eye helps to dispel that funk. I feel dead 
certain that Dixon’s raboons and purrip 
bats and sand sharks are not going to 
evolve in any world that might follow 
the extermination of man. I don’t be- 
lieve in his clawed armor-plated apes 
(“khiffahs”) that weave huge, commu- 
nal nests in the treetops and feed on 
SPECTACULAR! 
THE 1982 LUNAR PHASE 
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In the spring and fall of 1982 we repeat our 
popular program for travelers who en/oy 
outdoor things 
Naturalists Tour of 
the Scottish Highlands 
MAY AND SEPTEMBER. 1982 
We stay at small country inns and, by spe- 
cial permission, on the island of Rhum in 
the Inner Hebrides. We hike across moors, 
through forests and in unspoiled mountains 
among alpine flowers, sample local dishes 
and fine whisky, meet Highland people 
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Detailed brochures of this tour and a copy 
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705 WASHINGTON STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10014 
TELEPHONE (212) 691 7429 
88 
