8 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Cute but wrong, April 3, 2007
I will come clean at the outset. As a geologists, I am a critic of young earth creationism. In the patheon of YEC organizations though, I can at least hold the "researchers" from the Geoscience Research Institute with a little higher esteam than I can hold for representatives from Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, Creation Science Research and many more. However, my purchase of Origins in Design has more to do with my preperation in debates against young-earth creationists, than out of general interest or respect for the man or the science.
Harold Coffin maybe not as well known as a Steve Austin with ICR or a Jonathan Sarafarti with Answers in Genesis, but at least I hold some degree of respect for Coffin because at least he tries to have his work appear scientifically based. Coffin has played at the YEC game for since the 1960's, but he does have the ability to cross over into the realm of more respective scientific work, with articles appearing in the GSA Bulletin, Geology and Palios. This more than what can be said for Austin or Sarafarti, who seems more interested with talking the talk, but incapable of walking the walk.
Origin by Design, is essentially the culmination of work performed by Coffin for the past forty or so years. Of particular interest for me, is his attempt to associate upright insitu fossilized trees - like those found in Nova Scotia and Yellowstone to a flood event. As well as his work during the early 1980's on blown down trees that are floating in Spirit Lake, Washington, after the eruption of Mount St Helens.
Coffin spends several chapters in Origins, addressing what is essentially had been, his life work.
However, even as Coffin is a higher grade of scientist then your average YEC "researcher." Coffin still falls into many of the same pitfuls that plague the other YECers.
That is, in order to claim a geologic area as the product of a global flood event, Coffin must ignore or omit some fundamental data to the matrix. I will not accuse Coffin of misrepresenting data, which is a common flaw I find with many of his fellow YEC "researchers."
As an example, Coffin proposed (and the book dedicated a full chapter) that petrified trees found in Yellowstone National Park, including Specimen Ridge, were displaced logs that floated to their current location on a large body of water and subsequently buried under mud and other volcanic debris from an erupting Yellowstone. As proof, he used the trees that were washed into Spirit Lake during the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens.
While Coffin's work at Spirit Lake was interesting and the results of his studies did find there way into mainstream journals, utimately there was little comparison between the landslide debris field of Mount St Helens and Yellowstone National Park. More to the point, if parts of Yellowstone was covered by water - 50 million years ago - the era when the trees at Yellowstone were buried, there would be evidence to support that view. The fact is, there is little evidence of lake deposits at or around the fossilized tree sites.
However, Coffin biggest error was his omission of the entire volcanic history of Yellowstone.
Most people know and recognize Yellowstone as the site of three massive volcanic eruptions that reshaped the area and serves as the driving engine of the parks geothermal wonders. Yellowstone involvement with volcanoes goes beyond the recent 2.1 million years. Near the location of the petrified trees of Yellowstone are the remnents of volcanoes - the Southern Gallitan and Absoraka Ranges - that date to 50 million years ago, which were in many respect, similar to the modern Cascade Range, including Mount St Helens.
Coffin admits that the deposits that entombed the petrified forest of Yellowstone were volcanic. He does not address though, the volcanic source and he ignores completely, the contribution of the Absoraka volcanoes. This omission of facts, killed the legitimacy of Coffin's work and his book.
Origin by Design
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