Customer Reviews

Omphalos; The Evolution Debate, 1813-1870 (Volume IV)

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

 

 

Philip Gosse's little book is a gem of quiet, reverent thinking by a talented biologist. He simply (and unusually, for his age) was courageous enough to ask the question, "how would the earth and all its various interconnected systems look different than they do now, if the world had been created in an instant by a single creative act?" To explore this question, he asks his contemporary young earth creationists to follow him on an imaginative journey back to the very first day of the earth's creation, and he examines the nature of various living things that he sees. Do the trees have rings? Are there seeds just now sprouting from the ground? Do Adam and Eve (and all the mammals) have hair? Teeth? Bones? Belly-buttons?

Every living thing in the world, he begins to prove, is part of an interconnected temporal system, and has a four-dimensional nature that goes to its very core. Nature cannot be created ex nihilo without creating time ex nihilo and nature's whole process "in medias res", so to speak.

This is where Gosse's meditation has been so misunderstood. His argument is that IF the world has been created out of nothing by an act of creative power, AND that event happened recently as his fellow churchmen were fond of claiming, THEN there could be no physical evidence of the point at which that creation took place. To put it crudely, the world is by nature a spinning top, and if it has been created at all, it has been created spinning, and there will be no finger-marks on it, no scars of a sudden acceleration.

Gosse's thoughts were directed at the believers of his time, and were not intended to convert skeptics. It is sad that his prejudice against Darwin and the evolutionists (which he shared with most people of his day, believing and non-believing) has been held against him.

The next step for a 21st century person of belief is to think beyond Gosse about the Big Bang.

Grosse was apparently the first to publish the idea that God might have created the earth with the appearance of age. For this reason, and its value in understanding the history and philosophy of science, I give the book four stars. Otherwise the book was a good example of nineteenth century scientific writing: too many words, excessive examples and illustrations. There are a few very quotable lines spread throughout the text, but most of the book is redundant.

Gosse was an eminent zoologist and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a staunch defender of a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible as was normal among the Plymouth Brethren of his time, of which small evangelical Christian grouping he was a member and a lay preacher.

He knew Darwin of course personally and although they fundamentally disagreed there was no animosity between them. Gosse argued that Darwins theories were incompatible with Bible teaching and offered a reconciliation approach - much maligned by the contemporary press. His book "Omphalos" flopped.

The question whether Adam had a belly button remains unanswered. Does that matter?

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science. (After his death, he was portrayed in unflattering terms by his poet son in the book, Father and Son (Oxford World's Classics).)

Gosse states in the Preface, "I venture to suggest in the following pages an element, hitherto overlooked, which disturbs the conclusions of geologists respecting the antiquity of the earth. Their calculations are sound on the recognized premises; but they have not allowed for the Law of Prochronism in Creation." (He later defines "prochronic" as "unreal developments whose apparent results are seen in the organism at the moment of its creation," as opposed to "diachronic," which is "occurring during time.") He adds, "I do not claim originality for the thought which I have here endeavored to work out. It was suggested to me by a Tract, which I met with some dozen years ago, or more; the title of which I have forgotten; I am pretty sure it was anonymous."

He fairly and accurately states the evidence for the antiquity of the earth. "Looking only at nature, or looking at it only with the lights of experience and reason, I see not how it is possible to avoid one of these two theories, the development of all organic existence out of gaseous elements, or the eternity of matter in its present forms. Creation, however, solves the dilemma.... The life-history of every organism commenced at some point or other of its circular course. It was created, called into being, in some definite stage."

Thus, Gosse proposed what modern creationists would call "creation with an appearance of age": he states, "no example can be selected from the vast vegetable kingdom, which did not at the instant of its creation present indubitable evidences of a previous history. This is not put forth as a hypothesis, but as a necessity ... it could not have been otherwise."

Concerning man, "If it were legitimate to suppose that the first individual of the species Man was created in the condition answering to that of a new-born infant, there would still be the need of maternal milk for its sustenance, and maternal care for its protection, for a considerable period ... the navel cord or its cicatrix remains, to testify to something anterior to both." He adds, "Just as the newly-created Man was, at the first moment of his existence, a man of twenty, or five-and-twenty, or thirty years old; physically, palpably, visibly, so old, though not really, not diachronically. He appeared precisely what he would have appeared had he lived so many years."

Of course, Gosse is most ridiculed for his suggestion that fossils were not "really" the remains of extinct animals. He writes, "the readings of the `stone book' will be found not less worthy of man who deciphers them, if we consider them as prochronically, than if we judge them diachronically, produced."

I agree with the two previous 4-star reviews: it's a well-considered hypothesis that was published just before Darwin's Origin of Species; and, like Origin of Species, it's written as a thorough argument, with many more examples than an intelligent reader needs.

Strangely, I've never heard of creationists quoting from this book, which is the only positive/explanatory theoretical argument I've seen in "creation science". Gosse describes how any instanteous creation must involve the end product in time as well as space. Just as a REAL magician pulling an instantly-created adult rabbit from a hat would pull out a complete one with hair and teeth (and ready to pee and poop), Gosse explains why the Biblical Adam MUST have had a navel (except of course that God could have done whatever he wanted with Adam). As mentioned by the second reviewer, there's no need for creationists to try to explain how the Grand Canyon could have formed in 6000 years, etc. What DID the world look like when God finished creating it, if not the world as we know it (as Gosse insists)?

This work should be the foundation of any creation science, though it would be extremely difficult (impossible?) to prove if true and impossible to falsify (as discussed above).

Gosse makes a pre-Darwinian attempt to solve the hen-and-egg riddle. A chick cannot survive without its mommy, he argues, so he opts for the hen.

To account for this, Gosse maintains that the newly created adult animals and plants matured in the mind of God, or in "ideal" or "prochronic" time. The time following the Creation he calls "actual" or "diachronic" time.

Gosse christens his brain-child "prochronism," but it has come to be known as the "Gosse hypothesis" or the "Omphalos hypothesis."

Skeptics admit that this hypothesis is not falsifiable, but point out that it is not verifiable either. Skeptics further suggest that diachronic time could have begun not only in prehistoric times, but at any point in the past. In satire of Gosse's book, these skeptics have coined a hypothesis which they call "last Thursdayism."

You say that your friends and relatives remember sharing an experience with you in years past? I will only say that those witnesses were created last Thursday with memories similar to yours. You say that you have wedding certificates and birth certificates? I will only say that those documents were created last Thursday.

I have found these comments amusing, so I expected the book to be amusing also. I was disappointed. The author goes on a lengthy summary of prehistory which can be followed only a person well-educated in geology. Then he goes on a lengthy description of plant and animal species which only a person well-educated in biology could follow. "Ciliated gemmule"? "Monadiform germ"? No comprendo!

If you really want to learn something about science, this book might be for you. If your motives are insincere, like mine, don't bother.