STEVE JONES: The small questions I'm asking myself have to do with genetics of snails and fruit flies. Not, I suppose of much general interest. However, they're a sub-set of a larger question which is, "Is life simple?" And the answer is probably more simple than you would have imagined, because the rules of evolution are straight-forward, and most attempts to bend or modify them have in the end turned out to be fairly unnecessary. It does look as if Darwin was, more or less, right. Most new discoveries fit well into his ideas. At the end of the century biology looks like a more straight-forward science than it did even 20 years ago, which I find a bit surprising — because, to the public, life seems fundamentally a mess. Of course, if you concentrate only on the details they get more and more complicated. The DNA sequence is more of a mess than anyone would have ever imagined; It's not a pretty sight. But descent with modification, as Darwin put it, or genetics plus time, as we can rephrase him today, is still the foundation of life. Biology is not like physics; Newtonian physics is in a deep sense wrong, whereas Mendelism and Darwinism are in a deep sense right.

JB: What are you trying to do to persuade the public of that?

JONES: I've had the rather daring — some people might say arrogant — idea of rewriting the Origin of Species itself, in my new book Darwin's Ghost. The idea was to take what Darwin called his "long argument" and reconstitute it with the facts of 1999 rather than 1859. As I say to annoy my publishers, it may be a rotten book, but it's a great idea — and I was amazed how well Darwin's argument stood up. We're thinking of special pitch-impregnated edition for sale in Kansas so that it burns well, but it would be nice to think that a few creationists might read it before they condemn it to the flames. However, the difficulty with arguing with anti-rationalists is that they're not susceptible to rational argument. People like Steve Gould have done a noble job in trying to apply rational argument. But most of them really will not be persuaded by whatever facts you present them with so that perhaps my book will have zero effect on them.