Customer Reviews

In the Beginning: A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists Are Wrong

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most of the book is interesting. As the above reviewers noted, there is a section on each of the major transitions which Creationists say don't exist. There is a synopsis of the history of Creationism and Evolutionism. There is also a synopsis of the geological column. Like Frank Zindler, McGowan goes along with the Flood myth and describes the overwhelming task entrusted to Noah and his seven trusty assistants.

When McGowan tries to describe skeletons in simple layman terms, however, he didn't make it simple enough for me. Rather, I used the occasion for speedreading practice. For those who are unwilling to aceept transitions on faith, he should probably have relegated such discussion to the appendix.

It's a good book. The most thorough books on C/E that I know of are "The Counter-Creationism Handbook" by Mark Isaak and "Science and Earth History" by Arthur N. Strahler, but this is still a good one.

Chris McGowan is a vertebrate paleontologist in Canada who has written a number of books about dinosaurs and related subjects (e.g., Discover Dinosaurs: Become a Dinosaur Detective, Diatoms to Dinosaurs: The Size and Scale of Living Things).

He states in the Preface to this 1984 book, "I am going to stick largely to my own subject. I do not discuss the origins of the universe, which is best left to astronomers, and I deal with the origin of life only in fairly general terms. What this book will outline, however, is the subject of organic evolution, how new organisms have come into existence. Much of my evidence is based on fossils and the rocks in which they are found, because the fossil record is the most complete source of documentation for the slow process of evolution.... I hope this book will steer some people away from the creationist cause, while giving others a little ammunition withi which to fight back."

He rejects the creationist argument that "evolution isn't science in Popperian terms because it isn't falsifiable" because "The theory of evolution would be falsified if we found that the earliest fossils were not the simplest, or that all the different types of organisms appeared at the same time. The fossil record supports evolutionary theory on both of these grounds." (pg. 5)

He cites a discussion with a creationist friend of his, after McGowan argued, "(God) would have to have dropped all the animals off to their appropriate continents after the flood, wouldn't he? Over to Africa with the lions and elephants, across to India with the tigers, down to Australia with the kangaroos..." When his friend suggested that continental drift took care of that, McGowan countered, "If you believe that the earth is only about ten thousand years old, there has not been enough time for the continents to drift apart. They are only moving at about 5 cm per year." (His friend replied, "the rate of drift has slowed down since those days.") (pg. 88)

He writes, "Drs. Morris and Gish both ask why we do not find fossils with partly developed feathers, and I believe that the answer lies in the incomplete nature of the fossil record.... Let us be in no doubt---feather impressions ARE rare in the fossil record, and even when they have been preserved they only give us information about some of the feathers. The only place left to search for evidence of the transition from scales to feathers is in the living world." (pg.119)

McGowan is refreshingly honest about the evidence. "When Professor Robert Carroll of McGill University ... last asked me that question, I believe I suggested that ichthyosaurs had just dropped out of the sky. The embarrassing fact is that we have not yet found the ancestor of the ichthyosaurs. This has not prevented paleontologists from speculating, though..." (pg. 158-159)

He adds a personal note in the Afterword, "My thirteen- and sixteen-year old daughters, both in the public school system, have had no exposure to the subject as far as I can ascertain, and there are precious few university courses that do a good job of presenting the evidence for evolution. It therefore always amuses me when I hear the creationists demanding equal time for the teaching of their views."

Denton covers most of the major creationist claims, and shows why creationism is bunk. Those who detest creationists for trying to force their pseudoscience into schools will find this book invaluable, and those who are unfamiliar with the subject will find this a good introduction

Chris McGowan does an outstanding job of presenting the evidence for the occurrence of evolution. Where applicable, he demonstrates the inadequacy of creationism to account for evidence and how creationists must ultimately invoke divine causes to complete their model of origins

Without a doubt, the author gives the strongest evidence I've read that the typical creationist barb "there are no transitional fossils" is rubbish. Usually right after they say this, they quote some mainstream scientist to prove their point. However, that's clearly not the case, as McGowan shows.

Covering reptile-mammal, dinosaur-bird, fish-amphibian, amphibian-reptile, unicellular-multicellular, invertebrate-choradate, ape-human, horse, and other transition fossils, the author leaves no group behind and provides demonstrable proof that there is a visible transition in things both living and fossilized.

I subtract a star since the author does not argue against many other creationist claims (which are covered adequately elsewhere, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few more mentioned) and because the author's work is mainly a response to Morris' and Gish's books published in the 70s.