Collapse of Evolution, The [Paperback]

Scott M. Huse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1997

One of the most successful books on the flaws in evolutionary theory. THe third edition includes two new chapters on astronomy and archaeology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Baker Books; 3 edition (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801057744
• ISBN-13: 978-0801057748
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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30 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No creationist argument too stupid for inclusion, December 21, 2007

By 

Darby M'Graw (Treasure Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collapse of Evolution, The (Paperback)

Huse has compiled a large array of creationist arguments. Apparently no argument was so stupid or so thoroughly discredited that it was turned away. Huse was apparently unable or unwilling to critically analyze the material himself. Credit is given to his various creationist sources, many times to Duane Gish and Henry Morris. This is the old school "Creation Science" creationism of the 1970s and 1980s, not your modern hoity-toity high-brow (by comparison) "Intelligent Design" creationism in disguise.

As one expects in a creationist book, Huse quote-mines with abandon, taking comments from real scientists out of context and twisting them to fit. Watch out for those deadly ellipses.

No argument turned away! It's all in here. Radioactive dating is not accurate: page 18 (page numbers from Baker Books reprint of 1988) Earth's magnetic field is decaying: page 21. Exponential population growth would have flooded the globe with humans: page 27 (because it is inconceivable that human population numbers would have been held in check by disease and predation). Discussion of Biblical "kinds": page 38. Absence of transitional fossils: page 41. that one was shot down over 140 years ago. The bombardier beetle: pages 77-80.

Some things in the book are so stupid they are astounding. On page 43, Huse states that according to evolutionary theory, humans descended from birds. Wowie zowie, that's stupid! On page 109-110, Huse presents the duck-billed platypus and insists that scientists claim it as a transitional form between birds and mammals. How can Huse criticize evolution when he clearly does not even understand it? (Brief educational moment: the "duck-bill" of the platypus is a unique adaptive structure, and bears no relation to the actual bill of a duck.)

Pages 16-18: Human and dinosaur fossil footprints found alongside each other. This one is so stupid that even other creationists have criticized it.And that's saying something.

Chapter 7 lists scientists who believe in Biblical creationism, including (page 119) Dr. Dennis Gabor, "The 1971 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in science." The what? Gabor won a Nobel for physics, not for peace. And the topic was holography, so even if Gabor supported creationism (I don't know or care) why would I look to him for expertise on evolution?

One bright spot: Chapter 8 includes a considerate listing of scientific issues on which a literal reading of the Bible differs from the evolutionary viewpoint. Anyone with enough honesty to track down the evidence and put some effort into understanding what it really means can use this as a guide for rejecting a literal reading of the creation myths in the book of Genesis.

Finally, what is the single stupidest argument for creationism? Huse includes it on page 45. Usually it is presented with monkeys, but Huse uses coelacanth for variety. I will paraphrase, "If we are descended from coelacanth, why are there still coelacanth?"

18 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage in, Garbage out, March 8, 2009

By 

Skeptical Searcher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collapse of Evolution, The (Paperback)

I should begin this review with the book's Appendix A, which is a single page and is titled: "Scientific Facts that Prove Evolution." The page is Huse's little joke, for the page is blank. Actually, as it turns out, the Appendix should have been titled: "What Scott Huse Knows about the Scientific facts that Prove Evolution." The page, of course, would remain blank.

Anyone who believes that this book presents valid arguments against evolution is as severely deluded as is the author. This book is a prime example of the maxim "garbage in, garbage out." Scott Huse has simply made a survey of various creationist books, extracted various items and gathered them together in a volume that shows extremely well the intellectual and scientific bankruptcy of creationism.

Where to start?

Let's start with his argument that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, supposedly because that law prohibits order from arising from disorder. The laws of thermodynamics are statements about the dynamics of energy (thermo = heat). What the Second Law actually states in its most understandable form is "In a closed system there can be no net increase in available energy." Another way of saying it is "Any process occurring in a closed system will result in less available energy in the system." In a closed system, a process can produce order as long as there is energy available in the system. However, once the available energy is used up in the system, the process can no longer produce order. In thermodynamic systems, the degree of the lack of energy is called entropy--another term that creationists frequently misuse. The earth, of course, is not a closed system because it receives energy from the sun, which drives processes on the earth, including evolution. What the Second Law actually prohibits is perpetual motion machines.

Huse also declares that during the nineteenth century geologists "arranged the earth's strata according to the various types of fossils they contained." He continues, "Strata with simpler fossils (presumed to have evolved first) were put on the bottom of the column while strata containing more complex forms (presumed to have evolved later) were placed toward the top of the column. Thus the entire geologic column was founded and built on the assumption that organic evolution was a fact." The problem with that is the geologic column was developed by geologists who were also creationists, and they did their work many years before Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. The structure of the geologic column reflects real nature of the strata. You will find that the layering of the strata reflects a change in life forms over time. The strata certainly do not reflect the creationist model which is based on the idea that the fossil record is the result of the biblical flood. Their argument is that the flood arranged the remains of the animals according to their density or weight. So why don't we find the remains of elephants with dinosaurs, or fossils of modern birds with archaeopteryx? Incidentally, Huse falsely said that modern bird fossils were found with archaeopterix. Huse is therefore flat-out wrong and shows his basic ignorance in the matter.

Huse also used Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man as evidence against human evolution. One could argue in the same vein that Christianity is false because of the falsehoods and errors that have been promulgated in its name. Huse totally ignores (or, more likely, is ignorant of) the very large number of genuine fossils that have been found in support of human evolution. Just do a search on human fossils on Amazon, and you will come up with a multitude of books. Just make sure any you select are not by creationists. Such books tend to be full of misrepresentations.

Huse also refers to the finding of the Neanderthal fossil in the 19th century as the supposed link between humans and their early ancestors, but says it was just a human with arthritis. Huse fails to mention that scores of Neanderthal fossils have been found ranging in age from infants to old individuals and both sexes and that all of these have typical Neanderthal characteristics that are distinctly different from modern humans. Though Huse couldn't have known it at the time he wrote his book, DNA analysis of some Neanderthal bones shows, in fact, that they are also different in their DNA from modern humans. Even when Huse wrote his book, it was generally considered that Neanderthals were not in the direct line of the descent of modern humans, but were a side branch that died out without any living descendants. See In Search of the Neanderthals, by Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble.

Huse refers to Thomas G. Barnes, who proposed that the study of the earth's magnetic field shows that it has been decaying. Barnes extrapolated the decay to indicate that it would have been impossibly strong more than 10,000 years ago--therefore, the reasoning is, the earth cannot be more than 10,000 years old. The faulty assumption is that the decay rate has held consistently over that time. However, paleomagnetic studies have shown that the earth's magnetic field waxes and wanes in cycles over time, and is not consistently acting the way Barnes assumes.

Huse also claims that there are no transitional fossils, which is also one of the big lies of the creationists. Fossilization is an extremely rare occurrence, and it is to be expected that there would be many transitional fossils missing. Nevertheless, there have been numerous transitional fossils that have been found. Amazon has numerous books on the matter. Check out, for instance, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, by Donald Prothero.

I could go on and on, but you should get the idea. Huse's book is no different from most other creationist books. It is full of falsehoods, misrepresentations, and ignorance of the real evidence for evolution.

25 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another load of tosh!, January 4, 2007

By 

D. Huang "arvay" (Fairbanks, AK, United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Collapse of Evolution, The (Paperback)

Although I have a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from conventional schools, I do not consider myself a stereotypical hard-boiled scientist. I do not immediately discount unconventional theories, I am open to spiritual ideas, and I am not an atheist. I did purchase and begin to read this book with a completely open mind; I was genuinely curious about what this "Intelligent Design" stuff was all about.

I was utterly disappointed to find that this book is a bunch of ignorant tripe, full of poorly-supported opinions argued with possibly the WORST logic skills I have been astonished to encounter.

If you are interested in how life has come into being and how it came to be the way it is today, by all means, I suggest conventional science as the first step. If you are interested in religion, philosophy, and the spiritual side of nature, I suggest conventional religion as the first step. I must conclude that "Intelligent Design" is a trashy attempt to disguise the latter as the former, which ends up being horrible at presenting either.

This is such irritating trash. I was completely incapable of finishing even the first chapter, and I am a compulsive reader who will read almost anything (like the cereal box, over and over, or even trashy supermarket tabloids when I am waiting in line!). I could not even bear to donate it to the library, as I usually do with books I've finished, because I could not bear the thought of passing it on. I had to dump it into the recycle bin.