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24 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What Is Creation Science? Apparently, it's stupid!, June 3, 2005
"What Is Creation Science?" (1987) by Henry Morris and Gary E. Parker, from the Institute for Creation Research, is intended as an overview of why creation science is more scientific than evolution.
The book is divided into two main parts. In the life sciences section, Parker reviews homologies, vestigial organs, the fossil record, and biochemical similarities from the creationist viewpoint, carefully avoiding any inconvenient data, such as the detailed fossil record of reptile-mammal evolution and the detailed sequence of gradually increasing cranial capacity in hominid fossils.
In the physical sciences section, Morris reviews the geologic column, radiometric dating, thermodynamics, and the Big Bang theory. If Parker's section could be characterized as hopelessly biased and incomplete, Morris' section could be characterized as bizarre. Morris' argument that radiometric dating is invalid because it measures only "apparent age," not actual age, borders on delusional.
Regarding Morris' thermodynamics argument, the simplest response is that two of the greatest thermodynamicists in history, Ludwig Boltzmann (proposed the atomic theory of gases) and Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize for work on dissipative structures), were both enthusiastic evolutionists. I'll take Boltzmann and Prigogine over Morris any day.
Morris' goofy statistical arguments are also fatally flawed, being based on his erroneous belief that evolution is a purely random process. Apparently, Morris is so clueless that he doesn't understand that survival of the fittest is a NON-random process. In any case, here too, the simple fact of the matter is that one of the greatest statisticians in modern history, Sir R.A. Fisher, was also one of the most prominent evolutionists in modern history. I'll take Fisher over Morris any day.
Some specific comments:
1. Even granting that overviews are necessarily superficial, WICS takes the simplifications way too far. Page 1 states there is no scientific evidence that cannot be explained as well by creation, but WICS maintains that argument only by ignoring voluminous, contrary evidence, such as the data related to magnetic reversals, the 20 million varves in the Green River Formation, the data related to plate tectonics, data related to population growth, and the fact that the pyramids in Egypt don't show any water damage, even though the oldest pyramids were built before Noah's Flood is alleged to have occurred. Creation has no explanation at all for any of those data!
2. In addition to glaring omissions, the book also contains numerous inconsistencies. For example, page x states that evolution is based on the atheistic belief that there is no god; but page 17 lists 21 separate religions alleged to be structured around evolution. How can an atheistic theory that denies the existence of god be the basis for 21 separate religions, some of which specifically include a deity? This sort of illogical inconsistency is repeated several times throughout the book. (And why a book supposedly intended to show the "scientific" basis for creation science would spend so many pages on religious issues in the first place is a mystery all by itself.)
3. There are also many, serious, factual errors. On page 16 WICS says that oil deposits are found indiscriminately (i.e., proportionally) in rocks of all ages. Well, according to the people I worked with in the land department at Shell Oil, that's simply not true!
4. Even apart from the repeated religious rants, the book doesn't read like a science book. On the vast majority of issues, instead of discussing specific pieces of evidence, WICS instead presents quotes from this or that scientist, as if quotes were a substitute for evidence. What kind of bizarre science book focuses on quotes instead of evidence???
5. Even worse, it's obvious that some quotes were deliberately chosen for the purpose of misleading readers. Regarding the evolution of flowering plants, WICS quotes a botanist lamenting the lack of fossil evidence. But the quote is from 1961! The explosion of fossil discoveries confirming the predicted evolutionary sequence, didn't occur until the mid-60's. Since WICS was written 20 years after those discoveries, the choice of quotes can only be characterized as dishonest.
6. Ironically, Henry Morris complains bitterly throughout the book about how those mean old evos are always unfairly accusing creationists of using misleading quotes. What a weasel.
7. Finally, many important arguments were supported by citations to what turned out to be nothing more than books or articles published in the popular press, newspaper articles, etc. Apparently Morris and Parker are happy to take their "scientific" support from even the most amateurish sources. One citation, for example, was to Melvin Cook, a creationist bungler who concluded that radiometric dating was unreliable because decay rates were not constant. Cook based that conclusion on his "detailed" comparison of different radioactive isotopes. Unfortunately, in his "detailed" analysis, Cook failed to notice that not all of his samples were actually radioactive!!!
So, What Is Creation Science? Apparently, it's pretty stupid!
WICS was supposed to demonstrate the quality of "scientific" creationism, and indeed I think it does, but not in the manner that Morris and Parker intended.
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34 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Painful, October 22, 2000
Reading "What is Creation Science?" was an extremely painful experience. Many people who sincerely believe in creationism will state that I did not read this book with an open mind. I like to use a quote from scientist James Oberg in this case, "I like to keep an open mind but not so open that my brains fall out." The entire argument that Morris and Parker use to advance creation science is a negative thrust at evolution. Each time they believe they're shown a minor error in evolution, they believe they've scored a victory for creation. However, this is not a case where there are only two mutually exclusive points of view (as the authors claim): creation and evolution. Creation cannot be proven by giving evolution tiny pinpricks and saying its deficiencies support creation. Creation "scientists" must advance some scientific ideas of their own that do not amount to "It is this way because of design." More specifically, Morris and Parker make a number of errors on the evidence. Anyone interested in an in-depth discussion of them should read Philip Kitcher's "Abusing Science." However, in brief: 1) As a physics student, Morris's discussion of thermodynamics and his dismissal of the open vs. closed system explanation was particularly painful 2)Parker's calculation about how unlikely mutations are to produce evolutionary changes assumes that all the successful mutations must occur at once and that beneficial mutations cannot become fixed in a population 3) The idea that the fossils of simpler organisms are found in lower rock strata because they lived at lower elevations is laughable 4) The complete dismissal of radiometric dating methods based on objections stating that radioactive decay constants might not be constant is peculiar (and the general objection to uniformitarianism is strange because Parker uses a uniform population growth of 2% when he tries to show that the earth is relatively young based on the number of people inhabiting it. I realize that few people who believe strongly in creation science will listen to what I have to say, and that is as it should be. Those who believe in a theory (though here I wouldn't exactly call creation science a scientfic theory at all) or idea should never abandon it at the first sign of trouble. Every person should read this book and "Abusing Science" by Kitcher and make up their own mind.
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13 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good book on the "lower-tier" creationist position., May 8, 2003
Near the close of the twentieth century we have seen a noticeable split between creationist (and I use the term broadly) movements. One, like Dembski and others (confer "Mere Creation"), use more significantly sophisticated and legitimately scientific (even if it is flawed) work to support their case. The other one, stemming from the "scientific creationist" movement of the 1970s and 80s, can be seen in books and writings like those of Henry Morris. Gary Parker, who possesses a Ph.D. in biology, is a notable exception and might be considered a borderline case. I regard this ICR ("Institute of Creation Research") book as one of the three major creationist books (the other two are "The Genesis Flood" and "Scientific Creationism," which will be referred to as SC for sake of abbreviation). For sake of abbreviation, I will refer to "What is Creation Science?" as WICS. The book could be considered a sort of sequel to the earlier ICR book, SC.People, even many well-intention scientists, often misconstrue creation science as the idea of a Supreme Being creating the universe as literally described in the book of Genesis. Yet creation science (as presented by the authors of WICS) neither mentions Scripture nor theology. Creation science on the biological scale is the theory that life was created artificially (p. 34). This is also called "intelligent design theory" by other authors and scientists. Creation science as applied to cosmology is the theory that the universe is not a completely isolated system (pp. x, 9, 190). Thus the theory suggests that the universe was an open system for it to be created. In part because of how "creation science" is defined, one of the improvements made is that WICS has a much less religious appearance. Scripture seemed to be more of an inspiration and a motivation behind SC. WICS made almost no inept religious intervention (unless one believes the theories defined to be inherently religious). Parker especially did an excellent job of not referring to religious principles when describing and making the case for creation science. Part II, written by Parker, was called "The Life Sciences," and contains the most legitimate science in the book. By far the largest improvement has been in biology when one contrasts WICS to SC. There are several reasons for this. First of all, Parker has a Ph.D. in biology and has taught evolutionary biology at the university level (pp. vii, 31-32). The Ed.D. has clearly made him well qualified to speak on the subject. Second, he was once a former evolutionist (p. 32) and he was an evolutionist because he thought the scientific evidence favored that theory (p. 182). He displays the most rational approach I have seen for a creationist biologist who is affiliated with ICR. Even if his arguments are not considered good enough (and that, of course, is debatable), they clearly exhibit a higher level of scientific sophistication than what one sees in some other creationist works. Regardless of its scientific merit, there still some relatively minor flaws, which I hope will be fixed in a later edition. On page one, "evolution" is misspelled as "evoluion." One mistake by Parker is that the story of the peppered moths is given the award of being THE showcase for evolution (p. 81), and then later the exact same award is given to the bird-like Archaeopteryx specimen (p.135). In sum, WICS is a fairly good book on the contemporary lower-tier creationist position. Although I do not believe it has reached the embodiment of pure science, these two authors present a case for creation science that deserves consideration by the open-minded individual interested in this controversy. It seems doubtful, as Parker suggests, that the evidence is all one-sided in favor of either theory.
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