Ruse, a supporter of Darwinism, weighs criticisms of the theory: scientific, philosophical and religious. It is an admirable attempt and a worthy goal, but I think that he falls short. Ruse's focus tends to waver, and he often wonders off on slight tangents without having really dealt crisply with the issue. Although he has a lot of documentation, in the end, he often falls back on broad generalizations that are more assertive than persuasive. I have read much better defenses of many of these issues elsewhere; some of them were published before this title, and Ruse would have done well to take Dennett's discussion of Steven Gould and spandrels under advisement before writing this somewhat limp explication. It is valuable to have all of these topics gathered into one book, but I wish it was a much stronger effort. As a Darwinist, I don't find this useful as a guide for clarifying and defending my position. If I weren't a Darwinist, I don't think I'd find it convincing. ( )