The Big Bluff

Darwin’s Unfulfilled Promissory Note

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) has become a mythical figure of gigantic proportions, and his theory drives a surprising amount of popular discussion. I often hear pundits referring to “evolution,” and by that they always mean Darwinism. It’s as much science as they care to know, in most cases.

That fact makes reading Robert Shedinger’s Darwin’s Bluff: The Mystery of the Book Darwin Never Finished (Discovery Institute Press, 2024) an unusual experience. By meticulously analyzing Darwin’s massive correspondence with his associates, Shedinger, a professor of religion at Luther College in Iowa, quietly blows up the Darwin myth. He shows that, in actual history, Darwin never demonstrated...