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Title: The Creationists by Ronald L. Numbers ISBN: 0-520-08393-8 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Objective History of Scientific Creationism
Comment: This is an astonishingly evenhanded, objective history of the scientific creationist movement. As Numbers points out, this is one of those areas where it seems very difficult to carry on a rational discussion.
Despite how many fundamentalist creationists and humanists view the controversies over creation and evolution, the issue is not either a simple religion vs. humanism or religion vs. science struggle. As the author points out,
"Rather than finding clerics arrayed in simple opposition to scientists, we discover conflicts of a different sort: psychological, as creationists struggled to reconcile the apparently conflicting claims of science and Scripture; and social, as they quarreled with one another over competing scientific and biblical interpretations or contested the boundaries of science and religion with evolutionists in courthouses, legislative halls, and school-board rooms." (p. 10)
And, despite the ad hominem arguments employed by some earlier customer reviews, that is what Numbers deals with in an objective, historical fashion. He seldom betrays his own sympathies, and has received compliments from eminent creationists as well as historians and scientists.
It is eminently clear that the creationists have never been able to agree on their interpretations of the first creation story in Genesis. These disagreements between the young earth and old earth creationists are delineated in great detail. From my point of view, I should also point out that they do not agree with competent biblical scholars, either, who will place Genesis in the cultural context of the ancient Middle East. The first creation story in Genesis is fairly obviously a religious counterstatement to other ancient myths, not a scientific treatise. Besides the second creation story in Genesis, there are at least three other major ones, and a host of other creations texts generally ignored, which have quite different concepts of creation.
One of the main difficulties the creationists have faced is the lack of credible scientific support for their views. In the Arkansas trial, for example, the defendants could produce no peer reviewed articles in scientific journals which supported them; moreover, they had not even written any which they had tried to have published in such journals.
Of course, the scientists opposing creationishm in the schools also had their own political agenda, to compete for scarce resources to fund research. As I said, Numbers is quite even handed.
For anyone interested in the origins and development of old and young earth creationism, the creationist societies and their internal conflicts, and the attempts to introduce so-called creation science into the public school classrooms, this gives a detailed overview.
Creationists may find this book a useful resource to examine the background of their beliefs. For others, it will enable them to see better what the various varieties of creationists believe and why. For myself, I have engaged creationists in the letters to the local newspaper, taking issue with them with some sucess on mainly religious grounds, this book has enabled me to better understand where my antagonists are coming from. And as you can see from other reviews, some of them certainly are antagonistic.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best historical overview of creationism available today
Comment: The point that many reviewers seem to miss is that this is the work of an historian, not someone that wishes to engage actively in the debate (such as it is). Hence the emphasis on the politics and personalities that shaped scientific creationism. Numbers succeeds admirably in decribing the many disagreements within the several creationist movements, and its problematic relation with mainstream science. Having edited an important source publication on the subject, hardly anyone is more qualified to pass judgment on the creationist movement than Numbers, but he remains careful not to get entangled, which is not always easy. If you think the book is too much anti- this or pro- that, let that be your loss, because you will never appreciate the fascinating history of one of the more enigmatic popular culture movements of recent time.
Rating: 4
Summary: A better way to kill creationism
Comment: Ronald L. Numbers has done a great service to those of us who long to see the death of young-earth creationism. By tracing the history of the movement, he has shown that young-earth creationism arose out of the 7th Day Adventist church, not out of orthodox Christianity. (The fact that YEC leader Henry Morris endorsed this book should silence any canard from YECs that Augustine, Luther, or Calvin endorsed their views.) YEC is not accepted by any major evangelical college or institution. This fact alone should end the mis-association of young earthism with "evangelical Christianity" that is promoted by the media and anti-Christian writers.
Young-earthism can't be defeated by science, since its adherents reject science out of hand. It must be slain by the Bible and sound theology. The best way to start YEC's demise is to broadcast as broadly as possible the TRUE history of YEC - that is a 7th Day Adventist invention that fobbed off on orthodox Christian churches during a time of cultural confusion and decline, and that it displaced the orthodox Christian belief in a "day-age" interpretation of Genesis. Another point is that YEC is akin to "open theism" in its interpretation of the Bible, proving the sheer ludicrousness of an ultra-literal hermenuetic. While commentators fume about the continued resilience of creationism, the truth is that Intelligent Design and a resurgent Old Earthism have drastically weakened YEC's support in its own base. I think that we are nearing the time when a direct, theologically-informed assault on the ICR and other creationist bodies by Bible-believing Christians will break the back of young-earth creationism and restore Old Earthism to its proper standing. Numbers has given us a good place to start.
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Title: Darwinism Comes to America by Ronald L. Numbers ISBN: 0674193121 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson ISBN: 0674854292 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism by Philip Kitcher ISBN: 026261037X Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 23 June, 1983 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences by National Academy Of Sciences ISBN: 0309064066 Publisher: National Academy Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism by Robert T. Pennock ISBN: 0262661659 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 28 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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