Customer Reviews

Creation, Evolution and Eternity: A Baha'i's perspective on religion and science. A philosophy of science study

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This book has three major flaws: it contains very little sciences, it cannot claim to represent main stream Baha'i ideas in the debate between science and religion and it is not "a study in the philosophy of science". The author does not know more about science than a junior college student and ignores most of the modern contributions on the philosophy of science. Regarding the Baha'i content, I feel very sorry that the author and the editor present the book as "a baha'i perspective on religion and science". The Baha'i Faith has deep thinkers and scholars who have made major contributions in the field, whereas the author presents very personal and outdated ideas (the author is over ninety) which are not consistent either with modern science or with Baha'i philosophy. It would be a pity if the general public thinks that this book represents the Baha'i level of scholarship or the current trend of Baha'i ideas on the subject. The book will not either qualify as "A study in the philosophy of science" because the author knows nothing about modern epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Back in September I posted this review: "I didn't get far enough into the book to find the science. Its in the title. I expected it to be in the book." Lame, I know. So, I went back and read CEaE.

Several major points required trying to think like Eliane in order to understand them. In principle, I agree with all the major points.... I just found it difficult to understand what they were at first. A major problem in comprehending this book is the vagueness in building the philosophical arguments. Certainly, this is from a lack of concrete evidence to connect the dots. Others working with the same topic have filled these gaps with hypothetical and admission of incompleteness. Eliane expects one to make the same leaps of logic whereas I fell into the gaps, making this a really difficult book to complete.

The tiny spelling and grammatical errors throughout the book also threw me off in places. A good editor ought to be able to point out the logical gaps and these little mistakes.

I was very facinated with this book because it gave much information about how the ancient scientific peoples were influenced by religion. The book is factual and does not preach about religion. The idea about the necessity of science and religion being in agreement inorder for a civilization to survive is expecially interesting given the recent news about state school boards being against evolution.