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Title: Facts and Rants
Review: Joseph's book contains abundant promise and abundant disappointment. Its bookends--the start and finish--provide provide reasonable interpretations of data from neurological and fossil research. The center, unfortunately, merely affords a bully pulpit for the author's unsubstantiated rants about religious literature, especially the Koran and the Bible. This juxtaposition of authority and speculation is paralleled by displays of scholarly writing (e.g., citing sources for stated views) at the outset and junior high writing (e.g., missing citations and bizarre interpretations of religious writ) in the middle. Joseph is to be commended for his imagination, but misrepresents his book as a scholarly contribution.
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