Ah, this is a big deal for the Darwin debate: Tom Wolfe’s book The Kingdom of Speech is now confirmed as being in the pipeline and Amazon gives a publication date of this summer, August 30.

I don’t know exactly what he says there about evolution, specifically in relation to human speech, but this is bound to be interesting. Wolfe is one of the great journalists of our time, and he’s had spoken out forcefully on the persecution of intelligent design proponents, comparing it to the “Spanish Inquisition.”

Here is the publisher’s official description of the book:

Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech — not evolution — is responsible for humanity’s complex societies and achievements.

From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.

That’s all we know, but I can say it reminds me of Chapter 10 in Michael Denton’s book, Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, which you only have to wait till later this month, January 26, to buy. Dr. Denton deals there with the enigma of speech and how it “evolved,” if it did. He too begins with early insights on the matter from Alfred Wallace.

Great minds, as you know. As I’ve said before, it’s the Thomas Nagel/Stephen King/Tom Stoppard Principle: When you reach a certain rare level of achievement and acclaim, you earn the right to speak your mind plainly in defiance of the bullies and censors. We look forward to reading Wolfe.