Customer Reviews

Science and Creationism (Galaxy Book)

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

 

 

This book, along with Douglas Futuyma's SCIENCE ON TRIAL and Richard Dawkins' THE BLIND WATCHMAKER, was one of my first books on creationism and evolution. Overall, I think the book is excellent; however, I found the individual essays to be of varying quality. In my opinion, Ken Miller's essay, "Scientific Creationism versus Evolution: The Mislabeled Debate," is probably the most useful essay in the entire volume. Ken Miller, a Catholic biologist, is arguably the best pro-evolution debater today. (See his recent book, FINDING DARWIN'S GOD.) Also of value were Robert Root-Bernstein's essay on demarcation criteria for distinguishing science from pseudoscience, both of Stephen Jay Gould's chapters, Isaac Asimov's illuminating chapter on the "threat" of creationism, and the text of Federal Judge William Overton's decision in the historic Arkansas case. However, other chapters were lass valuable. In particular, I think Roger Cuffey's bibliographic essay, "Paleontologic Evidence and Organic Evolution," will be worthless to almost everyone except specialists. Similarly, I was also disapppointed by the contributions of Sidney Fox and L. Beverly Halstead; I was left wishing they had each written essays more accessible to laymen. But despite these flaws I think the book is an important one. Creationists, evolutionists, and anyone else interested in the creation/evolution controversy will want to be familiar with this important book.

This is a collection of 21 essays by various scientists, philosophers, historians, theologians, etc., about the relationships between science and creationism. A few of the essays are bad: Sidney W. Fox's essay, on research into the beginnings of life from inanimate material, is far too technical for this volume, and badly written--a fatal combination. And I have no idea what the point of Kenneth E. Boulding's "Toward an Evolutionary Theology" is supposed to be. There are other minor annoyances (mislabeled diagrams, etc.), attributable to the editing, or lack of it. But most of the essays are very fine, and thought-provoking. It is often pointed out, for example, that by any modern definition of Science, "Creation Science" isn't Science. But George M. Marsden, in "Understanding Fundamentalist Views of Science", argues that creationist thinking is similar to--and has its roots in--Baconian science of the 17th and 18th centuries. (Personally, I think that Francis Bacon would be horrified by the bungling of "Creation Scientists".) Included in the book is the "Decision of the Court", by Judge William R. Overton, who ruled in 1982 that Arkansas' "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act" was unconstitutional. This is simply a spectacular piece of writing, which should be required reading for anyone on either side of the Creationism/Science debate. Creationist writers all promote some variation of the statement, "no transitional forms are found in the fossil record". False. In "Paleontologic Evidence and Organic Evolution", Roger J. Cuffey lists *hundreds* of examples of continuous sequences of transitional fossil forms, across species, genera, families, etc., referenced to over a hundred scientific papers. No one who has even glanced at paleontologic literature could make the "no transitional forms" mistake. (Similarly, no one who has read Brent Dalrymple's book, _The Age of the Earth_, could make the "10,000-year-old Earth" mistake.) This is a great book for anyone interested in the facts, but Creationists will not be interested. As Isaac Asimov writes in "The Threat of Creationism", his contribution to the book, "However much the creationist leaders might hammer away at their 'scientific' and 'philosophical' points, they would be helpless and a laughing stock if that were all they had. It is religion that recruits their squadrons. Tens of millions of Americans, who neither know nor understand the actual arguments for--or even against--evolution, march in the army of the night with their Bibles held high. And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Amen.

This collection of essays concerning the scientific method (as it relates to biogenesis, evolution, and Evolutionary Theory) and the religion called "Creation Science" is perhaps the best out of nearly 100 similar books I have read. The essays at the start of the book explain in good detail why evolution is a fact, and why Evolutionary Theory, which describes that fact, is not a fact--- a distinction that few Creationists CHOOSE to understand. One essay discusses why young-Earth Creationists believe what they believe; another explains biogenesis (which is seperate and distinct from evolution--- biogenesis covers how life began, while evolution is the process of changes among that life afterwards); two essays discuss the latests "monkey trials" whereby Creationists attempted to bypass the rules of science and used politics instead to force their religion into public schools. All in all, an EXCELLENT book.

This book, along with Douglas Futuyma's SCIENCE ON TRIAL and Richard Dawkins' THE BLIND WATCHMAKER, was one of my first books on creationism and evolution. Overall, I think the book is excellent; however, I found the individual essays to be of varying quality. In my opinion, Ken Miller's essay, "Scientific Creationism versus Evolution: The Mislabeled Debate," is probably the most useful essay in the entire volume. Ken Miller, a Catholic biologist, is arguably the best pro-evolution debater today. (See his recent book, FINDING DARWIN'S GOD.) Also of value were Robert Root-Bernstein's essay on demarcation criteria for distinguishing science from pseudoscience, both of Stephen Jay Gould's chapters, Isaac Asimov's illuminating chapter on the "threat" of creationism, and the text of Federal Judge William Overton's decision in the historic Arkansas case. However, other chapters were lass valuable. In particular, I think Roger Cuffey's bibliographic essay, "Paleontologic Evidence and Organic Evolution," will be worthless to almost everyone except specialists. Similarly, I was also disapppointed by the contributions of Sidney Fox and L. Beverly Halstead; I was left wishing they had each written essays more accessible to laymen. But despite these flaws I think the book is an important one. Creationists, evolutionists, and anyone else interested in the creation/evolution controversy will want to be familiar with this important book.

This is an excellent book. It begins with a summary of the story of Arkansas' Act 590. Next is an introduction by Ashley Montagu, who points out that the creationists "are in no sense scientists." After that is a superb article by Kenneth Miller. Miller shows how radioactive dating shows the age of the Earth's minerals. And he explains that had the Earth really been created 10,000 years ago, radioactive dating would prove it. He mentions that if the Universe was only 10,000 years old, we'd also see only 10,000 years of bombardment of the lunar regolith, and the most distant star in the night sky would be no more than 10,000 light years away. And he makes the excellent point that if we, right now, are not smart enough to think of a mechanism that explains life or existence, we need not give up and say that some complex creator is responsible. For all we know, not too many decades from now, we will think of such a mechanism. And even if we do not, that doesn't prove much.

Robert Root-Bernstein then has a fine article on what a scientific theory is. George Marsden explains the nature of fundamentalist views of science. And Stephen Jay Gould has two short articles, where he explains that evolution is indeed a fact. By contrast, the precise mechanisms for evolution, including the exact role of natural selection are still being debated. Laurie Godfrey's article shows the amount of distortion in creationist arguments.

Isaac Asimov has an excellent article on why creationism is indeed a threat. As he puts it, "there are numerous cases of societies in which the armies of the night have ridden triumphantly over minorities in order to establish a powerful orthodoxy which dictates official thought. Invariably, this triumphant ride is towards long-term disaster." If it happens here, American science will wither, and "we will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization."

Sidney Fox has a superb article on evolutionary protobiogenesis. It has some reasonable and detailed ideas on how life may have arisen on Earth. In addition, there is mention of the creationist view that life could not have arisen by chance. Fox quotes Thomas Hunt Morgan here, who in 1932 pointed out that we are dealing with large-scale processes that are effectively deterministic, and "we get a picture of necessity rather than chance."

L. Beverly Halstead studies fossils professionally, and has a powerful article showing how the fossil record does indeed support the theory of evolution. And the rest of the articles are extremely good as well.

One interesting point is the nature of debates about evolution. Here, one person related "The debates I have had were not debates. The creationists come with a script they present come hell or high water." I think that's worth reflecting on. Genuine debates ought to have some standards associated with them, including some semblence of academic honesty and no falsification of facts. They ought not be totally ad auditores attempts to have lies accepted as truth. Unless such standards are met, I think we're dealing with something other than debates here.

I highly recommend this book.

This book does a good job of putting "scienific" creationism in its place, and that place is inside a fundamentalist church, and nowhere else.

creationists are not all Religious and no creationist I'v met are crazy fanatics doing all they can to destroy the Theory of Evolution by just lying. Evolution is being fought because it has no evidence and that is the only reason. Do you put your trust completly in a person because they have a PHD, no. If you do then you are extreamly niev. About transitional fossils which all creationists claim not to exist. THEY DONT. If you doubt this then why has this new theory come up-Proteins have been Discovered which fix mutated proteins produced by mutant genes however Scientists say these proteins can only fix a certain number so when a certain number of genes mutate becomes to high(after millions of years)a large change takes place ie a large evolutionary step takes place. Scientists say this theory will help explain the LACK OF TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS. But yet you say this book claims that hundreds have been found. My experience
tells me not to trust evolutionists because when ever an arguement comes up it all they allways turn it into a personnal thing. Look at the anti-evolutionist books reviews and they are full a highly personnal negative statments telling people not to read the book without when they have not done so themselfs. The coments are allways along the same line dont read this because is just a fanatic preacher talking BS and has no scientific bases at all. How can you call yourselfs Evolutionists if you don't look at the whole story. You dont buy a computer just because it looks good on the outside do you.