Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (Hardcover)

by Robert T. Pennock (Author) "Creationism is evolving..." (more)
Key Phrases: common descent thesis, common descent hypothesis, theistic science, Phillip Johnson, Henry Morris, John Morris (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The face of creationism has been through some major plastic surgery in the past decade or so. The leading proponents of "intelligent design theory" have left the ranting flat-earth types behind and found respected positions in the academic world from which to launch attacks on mainstream science. Philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock has explored all sides of the ongoing debate, which remains (despite the protestations of many creationists) more about biblical inerrancy than scientific evidence. His book Tower of Babel examines the new directions antievolutionists have taken lately, but goes beyond a mere recounting of recent history by proposing a new avenue of counterattack: linguistics.

The parallels are striking once we look closely: Genesis proclaims that God created all human languages at one stroke, while modern scientific thought proposes linguistic evolution similar in form to genetics. Best of all for scientists, though, linguistic change is much more rapid than biological change, and we have actually observed what might be called "speciation events" to have occurred historically in languages. While not meant to supplant traditional arguments against creationism, Pennock's ideas certainly supplement them and will be useful to educators and researchers alike. His sense of urgency is compelling; he sees the future of scientific education and freedom at stake and argues strongly for a separation between private beliefs and public knowledge. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly
According to University of Texas philosopher Pennock, creationism has been evolving, changing from an unsophisticated attack on biological evolution to a more refined and polished assault on the nature of science itself. Rather than offering sophomoric arguments and forged archeological displays, he contends, the new creationists are attempting to promulgate a philosophical construct, theistic science, that is both more subtle and more insidious. With great insight and good humor, Pennock catalogues the wide range of creationist beliefs, dissects their main arguments and highlights what he sees as their internal inconsistencies. He focuses most of his attention on explicating the alleged weakness of the premises of theistic science and its reliance on an "intelligent designer," contending that its incorporation of miracles into its explanatory sphere undermines all aspects of science. In clear, direct prose, Pennock uses the basics of linguistic evolution to go after the foundation of the new creationism while employing sound philosophical arguments to demonstrate that an evolutionary worldview is neither immoral nor the first step toward the acceptance of atheism. With the new creationists claiming that an evolutionary perspective is responsible for virtually all of the world's ills and their desire to make amends by restructuring public education and the legal system, the stakes are huge. Pennock's response, thoughtful, thorough and respectful, deserves to be widely read.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (March 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026216180X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262161800
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,255,500 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tower of Babel: Refuting Creationist Babble, November 2, 2006

By	Carl Flygare (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (Paperback)

"Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism" is a cogent history of creationism and its sophistic spawn "creation science" - and a devastating refutation of the inane bibliolatrous arguments utilized by anti-Darwinists as the gaps available for polemics become increasingly circumscribed by the explanatory power of science. Pennock refutes creationist babble through a novel discussion of linguistic evolution and pays special attention to Paleyesque fallacies embedded in the "Intelligent Design" movement.

Pennock's bestiary classifies all anti-evolution Christians as creationists - kinds include Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, Evolutionary Creationists, Progressive Creationists, and Intelligent Design Creationists - squabbling schisms whose theologically impelled supernaturalism places all variants well outside a scientific mainstream united in support of methodological naturalism.

Internecine creationist spats receive a useful historical, theological, and social context treatment, and the preponderance of crank creationist websites is ruefully noted - along with their intellectual and ethical squalor. Pennock debunks the most egregious examples, including the infamous "Lady Hope" hoax (Darwin's fraudulent deathbed conversion and recantation).

After lampooning creationist comedy websites (Google AiG for a slick but sick example), Pennock discusses the Genesis myth meme echoed in the title - the Tower of Babel. Scholars realized that languages were shaped by evolutionary processes and common descent before Darwin burst on the scene. Biological and linguistic evolution contradicts special revelation hallucination, and both have been obdurately attacked by bloviating biblical literalists. Like species and higher biological taxa, languages blur at boundaries and form sub-taxon variants known as dialects. Pennock utilizes these facts to illustrate creationist misinformation about evolution, including the spurious missing link objection, and epistemological issues encountered when science deals with past events - particularly the lack of direct observation and the status of evolution as both factual and theoretical.

Utilizing language illustrates evolutionary taxonomy (classification) and phylogeny (development) and "descent over time with modification" as spoken languages developed from precursors (e.g. Romance languages from Indo-European and Proto-Indo European). This approach exhibits the same quirks as biological evolution including loss through extinction, incomplete preservation, convergence, and horizontal transfer.

Neo-medieval creationists crib from postmodernist rivals by asserting that Darwinism is "a secular religion." Both also deny that human cognitive enterprises can approach the truth. Pennock skewers figures such as Alvin Plantinga, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Philip Johnson who proffer ostensibly 'scientific' lines of reasoning that devolve into theological hand waving and philosophical special pleading upon close examination. Johnson's implicit conflation of ontological naturalism (materialism) with methodological naturalism is artfully deconstructed and Pennock shows that if science were to embrace miracles it would become useless as a way of knowing; an omnipotent and capricious deity would pull seemingly empirical strings. Pennock's characterization of Intelligent Design as a 'science of the gaps' that hamstrings what science could in principle explain is devastating - and portends rampant intellectual sloth "God said/did it, that settles it" - along with endemic theological or political meddling.

Pennock utilizes one of Behe's own examples to shred 'irreducibly complex' systems. Behe lays out the probability that a groundhog could mate across an eight-lane freeway to rebut speciation and adaptation. Pennock's version substitutes a population of groundhogs with survivors who make it to the center divider and reproduce before tackling the next lane, succinctly illustrating Darwinian processes. Behe's claims are then related to Dembski's opaque notion of 'complex specified information' (CSI) an arcane reimagining of Aquinas's argument from design and a mathematically absurd attempt to turn information theory against Darwin. Pennock lucidly explains what is wrong with CSI without overwhelming the reader with mathematical equations or technical terms - unlike Dembski who deliberately uses both to camouflage vacuous arguments.

Creationism and politics go together in America like bibles and thumping. The tortuous maneuvers creationists use to cross-dress theologically motivated political and educational agendas as science are exposed in detail. Creationists incessantly beaver away at court rulings prohibiting state funded public schools from promoting a religious viewpoint with bunko biblical hermeneutics and revelation repackaged as research. Pennock's defense of reason and science in the face of rampant superstition and magical thinking is passionate and compelling - and should be read into the minutes of every local school board or curriculum standards committee meeting.

Highly recommended on all counts - this is an erudite and necessary book.

86 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perceptive, penetrating and persuasive, December 21, 2003

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (Paperback)

Pennock's book denounces the attempts to incorporate religious dogma into public education. It is the finest of several analogous efforts published over two decades. With penetrating insight, he presents the full range of Christian creationist ideologies, many self contradictory. He examines how slandering Darwin's concept of natural selection ["evolution"] goes beyond biology. The real issue, he assures us, is the curtailing of the liberalisation of American society. In well-crafted prose, the author maintains your interest in a subject at once hilarious and terrifying. He declares that the issue is greater than religion versus science. It is one striking at the very root of American ideals.

The book provides a general history of 20th Century "creationism", its programme and its proponents. The later "Intelligent Design" movement, which declares itself a "science" instead of a religious concept, Pennock declares a sham. Its influence is far too great, yet built from shoddy materials. Tracing the ideas and publications of such figures as Henry Morris and his followers, Pennock describes the propaganda techniques of the Institute for Creation Research and the recent wave material camouflaged under "scientific" or "legal" disguises. Pennock pores over their material, pinpointing their fallacies and exposing their tactics. He shows how evidence is ignored or twisted, explaining how ideology governs speeches, publications and strategy. Through it all, he shows how the Christians are as much at war with each other as they are with "materialism", the label they apply to Darwinian scholars.

Pennock adopts the unique method of showing how the evolution of languages repeats the biological pattern. From an original, lost language, modern tongues evolved in different environments. It continues to evolve today. It's a fitting analogy, one which teachers should note and apply in the classroom. It's appropriate that a scholar of Pennock's stature should thus ally science with the humanities. As he points out, much of the assault on biological evolution could easily be applied to farming, home life and law.

The author examines some of the renowned figures of the IDC cabal with a penetrating gaze. Pennock charitably skims over Michael Behe's ignorance of evolutionary process to focus on lawyer Phil Johnson. Johnson's legal training prompts him to address all questions in absolutes and to create straw men as easily demolished targets. Pennock simply dissects Johnson's writings to demonstrate not only false assumptions, but contradictions so severe as to inspire the reader to wonder how he maintains his academic position. According to Pennock, Johnson's works betray a messianic mentality from which he institutes a project to redeem American society. It's to Pennock's credit that the term "demagogue" doesn't appear in the text. One can only admire his forbearance.

Pennock's patience must have been stretched in undertaking the research to produce this book. He has debated Darwin's defamers, suffered through the morass of creationist publications and endured the assault on evidence unashamedly displayed at the creationists' museum. It can hardly be beaten as an exercise in mental self-flagellation. Yet, this book results in a mine of information, reasoned analysis and fine exposition. Every science or humanities teacher in North America would do well to consider keeping a copy close at hand. It's an invaluable resource. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding the Creationists' God, September 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (Paperback)

In "Finding Darwin's God" (see my Amazon.com review of 8 April 2000 "God Is a Creator, Not a Creationist") Kenneth Miller finds common ground between God and evolution. Mainstream science and most major religions found that long ago, of course, but Miller also criticizes the "mutually contradictory" creationist positions that persist in trying to discredit evolution as an atheistic worldview (with the ironic help of some outspoken atheist scientists). While Miller notes primarily the differences in the creationist approaches, in "Tower of Babel" Robert Pennock traces their "common ancestry," and concentrates on how the new "intelligent design" creationism (IDC) evolved.

Although it is tempting to think that IDC was "designed" to get around the Supreme Court decision that banned the teaching of creationism because it is a religious view, the approach was in fact "pre-adapted," as evidenced by such books as Michael Denton's "Evolution - A Theory In Crisis." Unlike classic creationism, IDC generally avoids stating its own alternative hypotheses and origins models, and does not identify the designer. Rather, IDC recycles long-refuted arguments against evolution, and builds upon them with some original ideas, none of which, however, qualify as science.

Pennock's novel approach uses linguistics, both as an analogy for biological evolution, and as an example of how anti-evolutionists of all stripes try to hide their internal disagreements, such as on the origin of human language diversity. Focusing on Phillip Johnson, but also discussing other prominent Discovery Institute fellows such as Michael Behe and William Dembski, Pennock exposes IDC as a "postmodern" approach that cleverly avoids the pitfalls of classic young-earth and old-earth creationism (YEC, OEC), whose models and hypotheses have been thoroughly discredited. Like Miller, Pennock does not give enough emphasis to the fact that America's poor science literacy is a chief reason that creationists can get away with their misrepresentations of evolution and science in general. But he does note that the general public has been sold on a false dichotomy of design vs. evolution. The logical disconnect between the "arguments for design" and "arguments against evolution" is lost on most audiences.

Pennock also downplays two other features of IDC. First, given his interest in linguistics, I expected more coverage of how the IDC strategy is mainly a semantic one. IDC's chief tactics are to quote scientists out-of-context and to define terms, especially "Darwinism," to suit its bait-and-switch arguments. Second, although he hints at it in places, he stops short of the claim made by Ronald Bailey in his insightful article "Origin of the Specious" (Reason magazine, July, 1997) - that many creationists privately accept evolution, despite their vocal arguments against it. While this may not be true of all creationists - indeed many IDCs may be closet YECs - I am fairly convinced that it applies to most professional IDCs. Their extreme political and philosophical views, however, prevent them from admitting it to a general public that they fear cannot handle the truth. But other than misrepresenting evolution, IDCs avoid bearing false witness by letting the audience do the dirty work of inferring whatever alternative they prefer. The more educated audiences usually infer OEC, sometimes including the common descent that Behe and others have admitted, while general audiences prefer YEC, America's favorite origins myth. But the fact that most audiences do not notice, and if they do, mostly ignore, the mutual contradictions among their alternative positions, is evidence that IDC is much "fitter" than its more slowly evolving creationism cousins. IDC is not "Creationism Lite," it is "Pseudoscience Xtreme."

After detailing their strategy, Pennock tries to "calm the creationists' fears." But surely he knows that Johnson et al have heard his philosophical arguments before and have well-rehearsed rebuttals. Though not often obvious, Pennock's arguments here are for the benefit of third parties who find the ID sound bites convincing, but have not given them much thought. Whether he privately agrees with Pennock or not, Johnson is, in the words of one reviewer, "past praying for." Pennock concludes by defending the counterintuitive claim that teaching only evolution is the fairest option.

Although "Finding Darwin's God" appealed to me more as a scientist, "Tower of Babel" is an excellent reference on the evolution of the anti-evolution strategies, and the parallel evolution of the creationists' "god" (the gap-dwelling designer that they promote, if not the God in which they believe) into a caricature that is unfit for both science and religion.