In The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe Tells the Story of Evolution's Epic Tumble

Darwinian evolution explains biological trivia -- variable finch beaks and the like -- but stumbles when it comes to the major innovations in the long history of life. No innovation could be more revolutionary than how homo sapiens, as Discovery Institute biologist Michael Denton puts it, "slipped suddenly into being on the rich, game-laden African grasslands of the late Pleistocene."

The most distinctive thing about man is of course his gift for language. On that, the great Tom Wolfe maste...