Customer Reviews

The Amazing Story of Creation: From Science and the Bible

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(13)

 

 

If you are looking for a book on creation, here it is. Read it to your kids. Great explanation of creation with Bible references and history facts. Will explain why Evolution is complete theory and its flaws. Great book!

The book is about the biblical view of creation, get a clue! If you want to read about evolution, get a book on evolution! This is a excellent resource for homeschoolers and others who want to teach the creationists view of creation to their children. If you don't believe in the billions and billions of years thing, then this book gives a wonderful review of God's 7 day plan. The book is excellent even if you disagree with the thinking. It's a shame unethical people use a book review as a platform to promote their bias thinking.

In this book, designed to explain creationism in simple terms, Duane Gish, with his strong knowledge and clear thinking, starts with the Bible and goes on to show that true science favours creation and not evolution.

As he discusses the different topics of the creation /evolution debate, and as he points the different design features of the living creatures and of the universe, he is able to show how darwinist geologists, biologists and astronomers have been engaging in "scientific bootstrapping".

Gish demonstrates, beyond reasonable doubt, that evolution is both a theological and scientific impossibility. As he points out, when he discusses the subject of "ape-to-man evolution", the evidence for evolution gets so vague and fuzzy, that some evolutionists are now suggesting that we have "man-to-ape evolution" instead. Such is the quality of the evidence!!

Many people think that Biblical creationism, because it is based on a religious text, is more a matter of faith than of science.

I blame them, because they are terribly wrong and should know better.

Creationists start with assumptions, alright. So do darwinists. Creationists put their supernaturalistic assumptions forward. Darwinists tend to hide their naturalistic assumptions as long as they can (at least most of them).

Creationists come up with some predictions clearly falsifiable on popperian grounds. Here are some of them:

1) Nature has many signs of complex specified information;

2) Information is a non-materialist entity with elements of statistics, syntatics, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics.

4) The accidental origin of life is so highly improbable as to be virtually impossible;

5) Since there is design, there is abundant evidence of appearence of design;

6) Methods used to detect design and information in other areas of human activity will detect design and information in the universe.

7) In the fossil record, in molecular biology and in today's fauna there are no transitional forms between kinds (vertebrates; investebrates; fish, amphibians; reptiles, mammals, birds, etc;

8) Mutations will be rare, mostly harmful and unable to code for new structures and functions;

9) Geology will show many signs of catasthrophism;

10) One can expect many living fossils and many polystratic fossils.

11) The few alleged links will prove not to be such on a closer inspecion (v.g. Archaeopterix is a bird; Neandertals are Man)

12) There are no vestigial organs nor junk DNA. One should look for design functions;

13) There is no such thing as embrio reccapitulation;

14) Astronomical evidence will insist in debunking the big bang and the cosmological principle;

15) The universe should be fine-tuned for life;

16) Dating methods that assume uniformitarianism will give conflicting ages among themselves;

17) The Ice Age and Continental Drift can only be explained by a a global catastrophe.

As you can see, when one is dealing with biblical creationism, one is doing much more than engaging in biblical exegesis.

Biblical creationism has all to do with making precise and verifiable statments about the real world.

Most of these statmens collide head on with evolutionary statements. That's the way, and creationists like it!

If you deny or have doubts about the scientific character of biblical creationism, just check the evidence on those topics. Dare to do it!

The proof that creationism is scientific is that it refutes evolutionary claims and evolutionary claims attempt to refute (so far without success) creationism.

Scientists like to be accepted as clear-thinking, objective scholars who observe and measure natural processes as they actually occur, documenting and confirming experimentally the physical phenomena of the real world. Their scientific method involves careful testing and replication of experimental data, without regard to personal beliefs.

Such ideals are not always attained, unfortunately. Scientists are fallible human beings, just like everyone else. Often they are downright bigoted, especially when asked to consider a concept outside their naturalistic worldview. Their process of "peer review" screens out all other worldviews and any data which support them.

For example, consider the complaint of one of their number, Dr. Lynn Margulis:

"More and more...today's universities and professional societies guard their knowledge. Collusively, the university biology curriculum, the textbook publishers, the National Science Foundation review committees, the Graduate Record examiners, and the various microbiological, evolutionary, and zoological societies map out domains of the known and knowable; they distinguish required from forbidden knowledge, subtly punishing the trespassers with rejection and oblivion; they award the faithful liturgists by granting degrees and dispersing funds and fellowships. Universities and academies...determine who is permitted to know and just what it is that he or she may know. Biology, botany, zoology, biochemistry, and microbiology departments within U.S. universities determine access to knowledge about life, dispensing it at high prices in peculiar parcels called credit hours." [Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, "Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution" (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1997), p. 265]

One might almost think that the above had been written by a committee of creation scientists complaining about their ostracism by the evolutionary establishment. The fact is, however, that Dr. Margulis is a doctrinaire evolutionist herself, strenuously opposed to creationism. She has impeccable credentials (a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley) and is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts.

Note also the complaint of one of the world's most distinguished evolutionary astrophysicists. Referring to his own theory of the origin of the universe which differs from the orthodox "Big Bang" theory, Dr. Hannes Alfvèn, says:

"This has been a great advantage because it gives me a possibility to approach the phenomena from another point than most astrophysicists do, and it is always fruitful to look at any phenomenon under two different points of view. On the other hand, it has given me a serious disadvantage. When I describe the phenomena according to this formalism, most referees do not understand what I say and turn down my papers." [Hannes Alfèn, "Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist,"American Scientist (volume 76, May/June 1988), p. 250]

Neither Margulis nor Alfvèn are creationists and both would undoubtedly be opposed to publishing creationist articles in any scientific journal.

Nevertheless, they do highlight a problem that creationists encounter almost universally. People who criticize creationists for not publishing their articles in the standard scientific journals should realize that this door is closed tight. We have tried, and we know!

Scientists can be plain bigots when considering concepts they don't favor. We are not the first to recognize this. Another top scientist, Dr. Philip Abelson, noted this fact years ago.

"One of the most astonishing characteristics of scientists is that some of them are plain old-fashioned bigots. Their zeal has a fanatical egocentric quality characterized by disdain and intolerance for anyone or any value not associated with a special area of intellectual activity." [Philip H. Abelson, "Bigotry in Science," Science (volume 144, April 24, 1964), p. 373]

At the time he wrote this editorial, Dr. Abelson was editor of Science, the official journal of the American Association for Advancement of Science, so he surely knew what he was talking about! Yet he would have been as adamant as anyone else against giving creationists a hearing in his journal.

It is not that creationist scientists have not published in their own scientific fields. For example, before coming to ICR, Dr. Duane Gish had published at least 25 articles on biochemistry in secular science journals, Dr. Ken Cumming over 18 articles in biology, and Dr. Larry Vardiman at least 10 articles in atmospheric physics. Henry Morris's publications in engineering include five books and 20 articles. One of the books, "Applied Hydraulics in Engineering", has been continuously in print since 1963 and has been used as a textbook in scores of universities.

But none of them can get a scientific article promoting creationism published in the secular journals, whether technical journals or popular magazines such as Reader's Digest or National Geographic. In fact, very few religious magazines will accept an article on creationism, especially one that promotes six-day creation and a global Flood.

Lynn Margulis (arguing for the right of students to learn her Gaian theory of evolutionary pantheism) has expressed her concerns rather colorfully.

"Yet the Academy guards, using neo-Darwinism as a tool, superimpose a gigantic superstructure of mechanism and hierarchy that protects the throbbing biosphere from being directly sensed by these new scientists-people most in need of sensing it. The dispensers of the funds for scientific research and education and other opportunity makers, herd the best minds and bodies into sterile laboratories and white-walled university cloisters to be catechized with dogmatic nonsense..." [Margulis, op. cit., p. 279. Although Dorion Sagan is listed as co-author of this book, Dr. Margulis was author of the chapter containing the quotes cited in this article. She is the mother of Dorion Sagan and the first wife of the late Carl Sagan.]

Now if Margulis finds it frustrating to try to get the scientific evolutionary theory of Gaia (i.e., "Mother Earth") taught in the classrooms and laboratories and textbooks of science (along with Darwinian evolution), she ought to try to get a hearing for scientific creationism! All of this is why creationists have to publish their own books and journals if they want people to learn the truth about origins. The bigotry of the scientific and educational establishments has forced them to this position, even in a once-free country like our own.

I have had multiple copies of this book for over 20 years and have given many as gifts. It is marvelous in showing how Adam and Eve were multi-genetic and how all the races could come from just two individuals. It covers other areas of creation (plants, dinosaurs, etc.) but learning about the multi-genetics of our forefathers was the most profound for me. God clearly does not make mistakes and planed all the people in this world to be of all colors from the beginning (just like flowers and animals are). It does not get unnecessarily complicated and mind-boggling -- it is clearly written and very easy to read so children and adults both can understand it.

This book is well worth reading. There is a great deal of thought provoking information and well structured logical arguments. As you read the reviews, please take note that most of the "one star" reviews resort to gross generalization and name-calling. If you are interested in this subject, get this book and keep an open mind. Don't let the intolerance of this books detractors sway you. You must think for yourself.

Creationists are fortunate to have such a highly qualified scientist as Dr Gish on our side. Even the famous evolutionary origin-of-life researcher and opponent of Gish, the late Dr Sydney Fox conceded:

'Duane Gish has very strong scientific credentials. As a biochemist, he has synthesised peptides, compounds intermediate between amino acids and proteins. He has been co-author of a number of outstanding publications in peptide chemistry.' [_The Emergence of Life: Darwinian Evolution from the Inside_, Basic Books, NY, 1988, p. 46]

This gives the lie to sceptical claims that no creationist has ever published in scientific journals, and there are many more. And it means that Gish is extremely well-qualified to discuss theories of the origin of life from non-living chemicals. But he is also widely read in many other fields.

The style is lucid, and the book is beautifully illustrated. This makes this book a good introduction, mainly for young people but good for all ages.

This is an excellent book for your children to read about creationism and the facts that support it. Beautiful pictures, too. . Regardless, it addresses many problems of the evolution theory and facts that disprove it. Carefully, the author compares both theories. One of many interesting facts I learned was that the sun, as a burning star, is continually changing , of course. Millions of years ago, it would have been too large and too hot to sustain life; therefore, a fact disproving evolution took place millions of years ago. I found that and the other facts I read fascinating, which I won't spoil for you. As a teacher, I appreciate teaching my students many different theories and letting them decide. They deserve a well-rounded education, not a one-sided one only on evolution. This book can help in that. My only gripe about this book is that it doesn't list all of the recent discoveries made in favor of creationism and some facts that I have read about elsewhere. That's why I gave it 4 stars and why I think it's a good introduction book to someone interested in another view besides evolution.

It is refreshing to read a book that gives the science student a chance to read about God's creation as it relates to the human theories. It will have a prominent place in my classroom and in my home library.

I have read this book several times. As a graduate from one of the well known "school of mines" and having set through countless hours of all major sciences, I find this book to be a breath of fresh air from the usual "if we had a fossil, it would look like this" scientific dribble of professors who are looking to further their own conceptions and not looking at evolution as the theory that it is. As a teacher, I find it a great resource to present other view points. After all, real learning is being presented with different ideas and assimilating what one believes by oneself.