Customer Reviews

The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate (Rhodes, Ron)

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I always find myself in a quandry in reviewing book on a controversial topic on which I have strong views since I think that a good review should consider the book at least partly in its own terms. Also, believing in freedom of speech, I don't want to blast someone simply for disagreeing with me if they present their topic well. I was reading to learn what the other side thinks.

I agree with those scientists who argue that some things are outside of the purview of science, given that they cannot be empirically tested. I am willing to entertain the hypothesis of miraculous or supernatural occurances and elements in the universe, although I admit I find it unlikely. I am still waiting, however, for someone to explain how to empirically examine them. William Dembski claims to be able to demonstrate the need for Intelligent Design on the basis of empirically measuring "complex specificity", but he remains rather vague as to how this would actually be done.

Comparing this to other books on the topic, it is less scientific but in some ways more honest. Unlike William Dembski, Denyse O'Leary and the inexcusable Philip Johnson, Rhodes doesn't pretend to be concerned with the integrity of science or to be conducting an impartial investigation. His religious agenda is quite frank. He does not include what I call the Classic Clashing Cliches, i.e. that scientists are simultaneously a monolithic juggernaut crushing all dissent AND deserting the idea of evolution in droves.

Have a Bible handy - the book frequently gives citations without quotations. Obviously, if one believes that the Bible is the absolute, most reliable source, before which all other arguments must fail, there is little point in arguing science. The two systems of thought have different standards of truth and aren't comparable. I don't agree with Lewontin that science is the only begettor of truth; I do fault mislabeling nonscience as scientific. I have provided a list of authors at the end of the review who can discuss the science better than I. In this review, I have focussed more on things like internal logic and consistency.

The most interesting and novel part of the book is "Christians have diverse views" the discussion of the beliefs of various creationists, including both their arguments for their conclusions and criticisms from other creationists. Rhodes doesn't declare his own allegiance, but I am guessing that he is a Young-Earth Creationist (YEC). Rhodes hails the arguments from Intelligent Design, but some of these thinkers contradict his views about the ability of evolution to generate new species.

On the other hand, Rhodes is quite insulting about the moral capacities of non-Christians, including atheists like me. He also makes numerous accusations against Darwin for creating social injustices such as racism and sexism. Some of these, like the three-fifths clause in the constitution are absurd, since they predate Darwin, sometimes by thousands of years. I might add, Christianity has come in for considerable criticism on the same subjects and has a history of violence against non-Christians and different forms of Christianity. One might argue that everyone has a history of violence against everyone else, but there is no logical reason for singling out Darwinism for blame.

A lot of Rhodes' "science" seems to be drawn from tertiary sources; e.g., the "proof" that "many scholars" believe that Peking Man is actually a monkey or baboon comes from Willmington's Guide to the Bible and Hanegraaff's The Face That Demonstrates The Farce Of Evolution. Evidence from paleontologists or primatologists would be a lot more convincing. He doesn't seem to understand the idea of "transitional forms." According to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, these species are transitional in retrospect, not in prospect, since evolution doesn't have goals. For example, an Archeopteryx is not seen as an attempt to evolve birds, it is a species in its own right and is of course fully functional and fully formed. It becomes "transitional" only if its descendents later evolve novel forms.

On the matter of fossils, Rhodes makes two conflicting arguments. One is that the geologic column of species was formed during a short period of time, during a world-wide flood. In that case, a lack of transitional forms would be moot, since there was no transitional period. The arguments from gaps in the fossil record would then be meaningless. Rhodes sets Creation in the Cambrian period, but there would be no geologic periods if most fossils were laid down at one time.

By the same token, the fossils do not support Creationist theories either. One has to explain how numerous, no longer extant species are found in remnants of the flood, if Noah took all species on board. If one does look at the fossils independent of the flood hypothesis, then one would expect to find fossils of dogs, cats, people, giraffes, etc., in the Cambrian layers.

I am not certain if Rhodes believes in the hypothesis of "kinds", where, for example, one original canid evolved into dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, etc., or if he is merely recounting it as the belief of other Christians. It would contradict his argument that microevolution can only occur within a species.

While many cultures have tales of massive floods, they do not all consider Noah's family to be the regenerator of the human race as Rhodes states. Various cultures credit the families of Fuhi, Utnapishtim, Manu, Xisuthrus, Tapi, Decaulion & Pyrrha, etc. Their various arks, boats, chests and so forth came to rest in different places.

The book has numerous footnotes and a bibliography, but unfortunately, no index. I like that the running title that appears at the top of the pages of the text also appears as a heading for the notes, so that one does not need to keep flipping back to find chapter numbers. On the other hand, he gives incomplete citations, which would be fine if all his sources were in his bibliography, but they are not. Also, if Rhodes is going to quote an author who is quoting a third person, I believe he should make it a double quote. As an example, he cites an introduction to Darwin's work as quoted by Gish. I think he should have given a citation for the particular edition of Darwin, followed by, "as cited in Gish ... ."

I have not attempted to discuss most of Rhodes' claims about science; this has been done far better than I could do by authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Mark Perakh, Robert T. Pennock, Philip Kitcher, Mark Ridley, and various other writers.

Dr. Rhodes gives an excellent and very well-researched overview of this extremely important subject. He skillfully dismantles the icons of evolution and gives useful analogies to help clarify along the way. He also discusses Big Bang and Intelligent Design. This book is very succinct as well.

Ron Rhodes has written a lot of books on confronting people who don't agree with his view of things. Here he has written a book on evolution and creation. It is important to note that he is a theologian and not a scientist. And because of his limited background, this book is clear evidence that he is obviously woefully ill-prepared to discuss matters dealing with science.

Many of his arguments come directly from creationist literature (Behe, Morris, Gish and others) or from quotes of scientists taken completely out of context, which is to be expected from someone who desperately wants to get an answer that agrees with what he believes. He is well-versed in creationist literature. However, his perception of evolutionary science is at about the reader's digest level. As a previous reviewer states, he stacks the deck in favor of Young Earth Creationist arguments. Inasmuch, science seems to have no value, and arguments contrary to a 6000 year old earth are completely ignored (radioactivity, stellar distances, complexity in the geologic column, and the outright absurdity of flood geology), and is summarized as "God told us how old the Earth is so everything to the contrary is wrong."

Additionally, the author states that mutations and natural selection can not bring about new species (again, typical creationist dogma), but is, simply put, wrong. New species of plants have originated in recent times (Abbott and Lowe 2004), the same is true of bacteria, some species of which are now able to metabolize nylon (Kato et al. 1995). Both of these references are in scientific journals.

Ron Rhodes' discussion is completely fraudulent at one point- in his discussion of thermodynamics. It is for this reason that I claim he is either intellectually or morally bankrupt. He does not discuss even in the slightest what the second law of thermodynamics is (in order to fully grasp entropy, a mathematical, geometrical, and statistical base is necessary), instead he repeats the creationist adage that the second law prohibits evolution. It is highly unlikely that the source of this information was a science textbook.

The basic statistical gist of the second law of thermodynamics is that a system will tend to explore states when left to its own. This is the Boltzmann definition and has no indication of disorder or order- both of which are human constructs. It is true that in equilibrium mixtures (which are mostly hypothetical) disorder is favored, however in dis-equilibrium systems (which constitute nearly all terrestrial systems) order can be and often is favored. Thus Rhodes' rather incomplete view of the second law of thermodynamics suggests either ignorance or deception. Rhodes has decided either one of two things: to present an argument without having done adequate research into what he is saying (intellectual dishonesty), or is purposefully deceiving his audience (moral dishonesty). Either way, Rhodes' work is suspect.

I am a Christian, but it is people like those cited by Rhodes who drive away many individuals with this dogmatic nonsense who would otherwise come to seek faith. Rhodes is merely parroting misrepresentations that in the end help no one.

I end with a biblical verse and a commandment:
Even the fool when he keeps silent is considered wise, when he closes his lips, intelligent. (Proverbs 17:28)

And

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

I have read a heck of a lot of the works of Ron Rhodes, especially his Mormon material. As with his treatment of Mormonism, his approach to Evolution is riddled with logical fallacies, such as his fraudulent discussion of the 2nd law of Therodynamics and Maco Evolution, as well as his fudging when it comes to a 6,000 year-old earth and a global flood - just where is the evidence for these and other occurances, apart from circukar reasoning? Also, he ignores the impossibility of a literal approach to Genesis when it comes to the Tower of Babel, by not even attempting to defend this incident and the ultra-literalist apprach he and other creationists have.

This book is nothing more than card-stacking and is only for the gullible or already converted. No individual well-versed in evolution would buy any of the non-sensical assertions Rhodes makes in this book.

Ron Rhodes, President of Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries, has another 10 things you need to know book. Rhodes, whether one agrees with him or not, has a very effective writing style that takes complex material and lays it out in a simple and easy format. To that degree, this book is very effective.

His chapter, "The Creation vs Evolution Debate: Why It Matters?" deals effectively with the stereotypes and caricatures often made about creationists by evolutionists. However, a note must be made about the section on "Darwinism and Social Injustice." While it is true that Darwin himself had a narrow view of blacks as inferior to whites, he incorrectly provides the full backdrop on the three-fifths of a person count in respect to slaves in the United States. It has been effectively argued elsewhere that the limiting of slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a person was to restrict the South's ability to receive more representative seats at the federal level. Otherwise this chapter is very good, but a little too short.

His philosophical approach on the "Assumptions of Evolution" also highlights many naturalistic presuppositions in an easy reading style. Another strength of the book is that he mentions the differing views among creations themselves and intelligent design theorists. Although I think he leans towards young earth creationists and stacks the deck in their favor, he does attempt to show there is another side that have good, well reasoned arguments for their positions.

The book is low on scientific details and again, like many young earth creationists, I think he incorrectly deals with the correlation between entropy and biological evolution. This is something many young earth creationists do and I think they also fail at times to deal effectively with closed universe and open universe theories. A nice primer those who lack a lot scientific knowledge. This is probably a very good book for youth groups as an introduction into the subject. I do encourage all who start with this book to go on to more difficult texts because this book is very basic in its presentation. There are much better books on the subject, but they are for people who have more knowledge about the subject.

With the pace of life in today's world, it is very important to get as much information as possible, from as many points of view as possible. I found this book to be fact based and very current This information is important because most mainstream sources only provide one side of this debate. Well written and very readable.

**** It's been said that the two books the devil wants people to read the least are Genesis and Revelation. Many think you can either believe science or the Bible, not both. However, the case can be made that you need more faith to believe in macroevolution than in creation. Take the fact that from nothing comes nothing, the lack of transitional fossils, or the outright lies of Darwinism, among other points, and the reader is left with the truth. To support his case, a variety of theologians and scientists including Michael Behe, Hugh Ross, Norm Geisler, William Lane Craig, and Phillip Johnson, etc. The writing is done in lay terms, or when it's not, explained, so anyone can follow it without problems. It is both interesting and informative, demonstrating that you need not bend Genesis to fit science, but that science supports Genesis. ****

Reviewed by Amanda Killgore

This book IN A CONCISE MANNER PEOPLE (it's obviously not meant to be a huge detailed treatise so stop rating it poorly for not being one) covers key reasons as to why evolution and chance creation of the universe (THEORIES, YES PLURAL) are false, and it does an excellent job of it.