It is Volume 2, and cannot stand alone. Needed is Volume 1, with NDA advances, is what all the hubbub is about. There's a debate and students should participate.
You mean he does not address the origin of life. That's correct, but entirely beside the point. You can imagine that God created the first life if you wish, that's as good an answer as any. But after that all the evidence is that evolution developed species over a long period. You're also free to imagine that God guided/directed that evolution, as you're free to imagine that God guides/directs the weather today. But science has no evidence of that, one way or another.
There's a debate and students should participate.
There is no debate within the science community on evolution, outside of a couple of cranks like Behe and the politically funded Discovery Institute. Such cranks have existed for a century or more, making their money from religious people outside the field of science. They're no different than the "environmental scientists" predicting doom, while taking money from the political left. Both are scientific whores, not worthy of teaching in schools.
I know of non-Jews, who are afraid of the religious right because they believe they are bringing back a scientific dark ages, similar to when Christianity took over the Roman Empire. That some Jews might fear Christian fundamentalism for the same reason I have no doubt, and the attack on evolution is one of the battlegrounds.