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30 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Scientific Mush, June 9, 2002
Reading this creationist book will turn your brain into mush. Just read the previous creationist review for evidence of that.The previous creationist review criticized my previous review for allegedly employing an 'ad hominem' logical fallacy. Huh??? Ad hominem attacks are attempts to undermine arguments by appealing to irrelevant, usually emotional arguments. For example, If Steve Jobs said, "Bill Gates is a pedophile, therefore Microsoft computers are no good; buy an Apple computer instead," that would be an ad hominem argument. Pedophilia has nothing to do with computers, therefore the attack is an illogical ad hominem fallacy. The alleged ad hominem attack in my review, however, did not involve an irrelevant characteristic at all, but rather commented on Henry Morris' well-established reputation for DISHONESTY. I think most sensible people would agree that honesty is highly relevant in writing textbooks! Interestingly, the creationist then went on to contemptuously dismiss Raelianism as a "cult." Hello??? Since when are cults simply presumed to be wrong? Isn't that an ad hominem argument? Finally on this point, the creationist writer failed to address the fact that Henry Morris himself relies very heavily on ad hominem arguments. If ad hominem arguments are objectionable, then why doesn't the creationist reviewer object to Henry Morris' reliance on them? The creationist reviewer criticized me for saying that Pope John Paul II's endorsement of evolution disproved Henry Morris' claim that evolution is an inherently atheistic philosophy. The creationist reviewer's response that the Pope is not infallible is completely irrelevant. I did not claim the Pope was infallible, but merely that he was an evolutionist. Since the Pope and millions of other Christians are in fact both evolutionists AND Christians, it's pretty clear that Henry Morris is simply wrong. Evolution is NOT inherently atheistic. (By the way, Henry Morris' harping on the atheism argument is a good example of the kind of ad hominem arguments Morris uses throughout his book. I wonder why the creationist reviewer failed to pick up on that?) Regarding the evolution of worms, the creationist reviewer stated "The formation of different breeds of worms is NOT macroevolution, it is microevolution." This argument misses the point. First of all the issue is species, not breeds. Secondly, the real problem is that Henry Morris insists that not a single new SPECIES has evolved from any other species, but Duane Gish, one of the contributors to the book, has stated just as emphatically that the approximately 25,000 species of modern worms must have evolved from the couple saved on the Ark. Wow! 25,000 new species! That's quite a few! Henry Morris is clearly wrong, even according to his own co-writers. Furthermore, those 25,000 species of worms are found in two different phyla. I don't know how the creationist writer distinguishes between "macro" and "micro" evolution, but anything that produces two completely different phyla is pretty significant! (BREEDS??? Unbelievable.) Finally, on the issue of "fossil graveyards," I had pointed out that Morris' version of the fossil record would have required hundreds of billions of animals to be buried and fossilized IN THE SAME PLACE. Not only did Morris refer to the hundreds of billions of soft-bodied invertebrates required to form the world's oil deposits, which are found in very specific geographic areas, but there are also hundreds of billions of land vertebrates fossilized in geographically restricted fossil graveyards too, such as the Karoo Formation. Given that context, the creationist's argument that 6 billion people live on the entire planet today is simply goofy. "Six billion" is not equivalent to "hundreds of billions;" and a species dispersed over the entire planet (and STILL numbering only 6 billion) cannot be compared to hundreds of billions of animals squeezed in like sardines in restricted geographic areas. The tightly restricted geography of a fossil graveyard is one of its most important aspects, and the creationist reviewer simply ignored it. Furthermore, the restricted area of the fossil graveyards and also the very clear HOMOGENEITY of the fossils involved, with land animals found in one place and marine animals found in another place, is highly inconsistent with the creationist hypothesis, especially in light of the same writer's amazing contention that the modern day continents were carved originally from a single, huge continent, and then blasted into their current locations by the force of Noah's flood. Apparently this creationist thinks that massive continents could be blasted thousands of miles away from their original location, clear to the other side of the planet, but at the same time, puny animals weighing only a few pounds, would remain undisturbed in their original ecological niches, i.e., with marine animals being buried with other marine animals, and land animals being buried with other land animals in homogenous fossil graveyards! In a cataclysmic flood powerful enough to destroy old continents and create new ones, there won't be any mixing of land and marine animals??? Are you kidding?!? Simply amazing. If this kind of young-Earth insanity appeals to you, then by all means, buy Henry Morris' book, but don't complain when American school children do worse on comparative tests than Europeans, Asians, and Australians! Intelligent design creationists (like William Dembski and Michael Behe) usually think young-Earthers like Henry Morris are idiots. Read Henry Morris' book, and you'll find out why!
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by Ken Ham
by Henry Morris
by Duane T. Gish
See all 100 books this book cites
