Customer Reviews

Collapse of Evolution, The

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

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?"

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.

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.

Huse repeatedly distorts, misrepresents, and omits scientific fact, scientific theory, AND the Bible. There is much debate among committed Christians about the biblical passages he cites; you could destroy his arguments using the Bible alone, without even going into the scientific arguments. Huse completely misunderstands and misrepresents the scientific process, scientific theories, and scientific facts. For instance, he argues that because the physical principal of entropy says that things tend to go from organized to disorganized, evolution can't happen. Trouble is (1)evolution doesn't say that living things go from disorganized to organized (see Stephen Jay Gould's excellent essays on that), and (2)that's a complete distortion of the concept of entropy.

I am a creationist (I believe in old earth, and I do not consider myself to be a scientific creationist, because creationism can not be scientific! I believe in God, but the basis for my belief is not science, but faith...)

The arguments against evolution are not well made. In the first chapter, Huse talks about how nature is complicated, but does not proberly explain the argument of irreduceable complexity.

The Bombardier Beetle argument has been refuted by Richard Dawkins!

The Earths magnetic field argument (is to demonstrate a young earth) does not mention that the mesurements of the magnetic field are more accurate today than when they started, nor that the magnetic field has been realtively constant lately according to measurements. I think the reason is not dishonesty, but ignorance.

I am sure I could make a better case for young earth creationism myself, even though I am not a young-earth creationist.

The book gets two stars rather than one: Because I was not bored when I read it, and because I know that the intention was good: to promote christianity

I feel sorry for any unfortunate soul who picks up this book looking for a deeper understanding of the science behind the current consensus view of the history of life on earth. The author either completely fails to understand, or willfully misrepresents, even the most basic aspects of what natural selection is and how it operates. This is evident not only from the text, but from the ill-conceived "demonstration programs" that are supposed to provide simulations of natural selection and how it works. They're garbage, and the reason they don't work is that they are not actually simulations of natural selection. The author is either ignorant or dishonest, and either way should not be considered an expert or even a reliable source by anyone seeking actual scientific information.

What a load of unmitigated tripe !
As another reviewer stated, (mis)quote mining at its best.
This surely demonstrates the dishonesty associated with these lunatic young earth 'creationist' types.
"Lying for Jesus" at its best.
Its not evolution that has collapsed, rather 'creationist' integrity.
Whatever he was smoking, its powerful stuff.
Save your money and go for a good read - maybe one of Richard Dawkins sensible and properly argued books.
The only reason it has one star is that the review would accept unless it had at least one.

The "why are there still monkeys" question is one of the most ignorant questions to ask when discussing evolution theory. even those who have taken the time to gain even an elementary understanding of the theory would know that there existed an ape/human progenitor, before humans OR apes. Men did not come from monkeys, but an ancestor which led to the creation of both. This book, which encourages such ideas, is equally full of ignorance and general misunderstanding of the science and theory.

As a high school science teacher, I have been immersed in the debate between creationism/evolution for many years. I decided to read this book and open my mind to the creationist point of view. What I found was an astonishing array of unsupported accousations, heresay, and blatant promotion of Christianity. The book reads as a pamphlet for why you should go to church and be a christian. As somebody who has studied the other side (scientific evolution) I am amused at the way it has been depicted. The author refers to evolution as atheistic at least 50 times in the book. Talk about biased. I am around teenage kids who are getting fed this militant psuedoscience at their churches on a weekly basis, and they are buying into to it. Evolution and its evidences can be quite technical and to put it into terms the kids understand means a watered down version is what they get. It becomes easy to refute with little nuggets of misinformed creationist propoganda. It is scary!! Fundamentalism in not only in Arab nations, it is right here in the USA in the form of young earth creatism. In the end the author even has the audacity to say something to the effect of... if you believe in god and he exists then you have won, if he doesn't what did you lose. If you don't believe in god and he doesn't exist what did you gain, if he does exists you get to go to hell. The moral is believe in God, what do you have to lose. Is it just me or is this a horrible way to live your spiritual life. "I might as well believe, cause he might exist and who knows" What happened to questioning and skepticism. This book is ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. I wish everyone would read this book to see the biased and prejudicial sentiments that are running rampant.

"There are two kinds of people: those who agree with you, and the bigots." So quips Dr. Scott M. Huse in the forward to his book The Collapse of Evolution. It is true that the debate over the origins of human life tends to follow party lines. In one camp is organized Christianity, whose belief in the voracity of scripture predisposes them to believe in biblical creationism. In the other camp, natural evolutionists are motivated for the most part by their unbelief. Says Huse, "Evolution is generally accepted to be a fact of science, not because it can be proven by scientific evidence, but because the only alternative, special creation, is totally unacceptable." The purpose of this book is to expose the fallacy of the assumptions that support evolution. Huse draws from the sciences of geology, physics, mathematics, biology, and anthropology, both to demonstrate that evolution did not produce all living things from inanimate matter, and to support a biblical view of creation. His conclusion? Evolution could not have happened, did not happen, and is in fact absurd and utterly impossible. Says Huse, "The basic premise of [evolution] is that hydrogen gas, given enough time, will eventually turn into people." In his chapter on mathematical evidences, Huse demonstrates that the probability of even the simplest forms of life originating purely by accident is about the same as the probability of a monkey typing a perfect unabridged dictionary. Drawing on the laws of physics, he further demonstrates that all of nature moves from order to disorder. Plainly said, lacking any outside intervention, the material world is in a constant state of decay and disintegration. It is not, as evolutionists claim, moving toward more order and greater complexity. In his section on anthropology, there is fascinating discussion about the so-called ape-men. For example, Neanderthal Man, long thought to be a "missing link," has recently been reclassified, not as part ape, but as fully human. Nebraska man, reconstructed from a single tooth found in Nebraska, was also hailed in 1922 as a missing link between man and ape. Later research proved the tooth to be from an extinct species of pig. Similarly, the bone fragment first identified as "Java Man" turned out to be the knee-bone of an elephant. Building evidence upon evidence, Huse sums up the debate like this: "I am reminded of the story of the emperor's new clothes. As you will recall, no one dared point out the obvious fact that the emperor was naked; instead, they competed with one another in their praises of the wonderful tailoring. It was left to a simple child to exclaim, 'The emperor is naked!' What a striking parallel to the theory of evolution!" Have you ever been caught in a debate between evolution and creation and realized you didn't really know what you were talking about? Here's a book that will provide you with some welcome resources, and a stronger sense that you join with all nature in manifold witness to God's great faithfulness, mercy and love.