This is one of the very few textbooks to question the peppered moth example of natural selection:

Although this is an attractive and plausible hypothesis of how natural selection could occur, some of the evidence does not support the hypothesis or has been called into question. For example, the moths settle most frequently on the under-side of branches, rather than conspicuously on tree trunks…Also in several unpolluted areas the dark form is quite abundant, for example, 80 per cent in East Anglia. Research is continuing in order to test the hypothesis. (page 204).

Sickle Cell Anaemia is also covered thoroughly, and the book makes very clear that the allele for defective haemoglobin is disadvantageous everywhere except in malaria areas.

This textbook is also honest about the evolution of life from non-living molecules:

There is a great deal of argument among biologists about how this could have happened or whether it could have happened at all. It is possible to make amino acids in laboratory experiment in the conditions suggested, but it is impossible to be confident that these really were the conditions on Earth millions of years ago. (page 206).

The textbook often uses tentative language such as:

The theory, as it stands at present, suggests... (p. 206).

If evolution has occurred, it most likely started in the water... (p. 206).

It is supposed... (p. 208)

So the fossil record shows that plants and animals have changed from one form to another over a long period – or does it?
Could it be that 350 million years ago there were all the fish, reptiles, amphibia, birds and mammals that we know today plus all those we know as fossils? Perhaps there were so few mammals at that time that we have not yet found any in the rocks of that period. In such a case, all that the fossil record would show is that some creatures have become more abundant, some have become scarce and some have died out altogether.
This seems a very improbable interpretation of the fossil evidence and fails to offer any scientific explanation of the origin of life or the diversity of organisms. (p. 208-209).

So this textbook does at least question the fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. The suggested alternative explanation might be held by a subset of old-earth creationists, but is not a common view. It is interesting to note that one of the author’s major criticisms of this theory is that it does not provide a “scientific” explanation of origins. Even if it was true, the author prohibits it purely by the way in which he defines science.

This textbook fails to mention the major problem which the gaps in the fossil record pose to the theory of evolution.

Evidence for evolution from Homology is also explained:

The argument for evolution says that, if these animals were not related, it seems very odd that such a similar limb skeleton should be used to do such different things as flying, running and swimming. (p. 201).

This textbook contains a chapter on “Ideas and Evidence”

Linnaeus… remained totally opposed to the idea of evolution. He claimed merely to have discovered the design of the Creator. (p. 394)

Although Darwin’s book was widely read, his theory of natural selection was not accepted by the scientific world till about 1880 and is not accepted by some religious groups even today. Some of the reasons for rejection were that it contradicted religious belief in a single period of creation. It was seen as an attack on religion as a whole and denied that there was a ‘fixity of species’. There were weaknesses in the theory, such as the problem of inheritance, and these were exploited by its opponents. The theory was clinched only in the early 20th century. (p. 351).

There is no mention of modern scientific alternatives to evolution as a theory of origins.