monkenstick

while searching for michael dentons latest book (he accepts common descent in it doesn't he?) I came across this link

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/13Y0L5DI0647H/qid%3D1030839927/sr%3D5-3/ref%3Dsr_5_3/103-5365455-9895040" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/</a>

its a reviewers list of recommended books - notice how many stars these books are getting, then look at the reviews and see the numbers of people who find the reviews "helpful" - its scary

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: pz ]</p>

Blinn

Speaking of books, has anyone read this one yet?

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0878936599/qid=1034819127/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-8875891-1908936?v=glance&n=507846" target="_blank">Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science</a>

I just went to a lecture on the life of Charles Darwin, and the lecturer praised it. I'm not too keen on spending $63 for it though, and it's not in the online catalog of the local library system.

Albion

In his essay in "Darwinism Defeated?" (the Johnson-Lamoureux book), Denton sounded as if he accepts all sorts of things about evolution just as long as God's a prominent part of it.

Like Science magazine said in its piece last week about the name change at the Discovery Institute, ID is the thinking man's creationism. I assume that means thinking-man wannabees as well as genuine thinkers.

theyeti

Yeah, Denton is pretty much evolutionist now; he just argues for some sort of fine-tuning or whatnot. If you ever see a creationist citing Theory in Crisis, make sure to call him on it. (Of course, don't forget to point out how horrible those arguments were anyway.) Compare the following reviews:

<a href="http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho18.htm" target="_blank">Evolution: a theory in crisis?</a>

<a href="http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm" target="_blank">Nature's Destiny.</a>

From the last one:

The review also points out the obvious incongruity between fine-tuning arguments and anti-evolutionary IDism. If the universe is such that evolution couldn't have happened, it really wasn't fine-tuned to begin with, was it?

Sure it's the thinking man's creationism. It's creationism with absolutely every positive claim stripped out of it, so that there's nothing left for the thinking man to balk at. Except vacuity.

theyeti

Dr.GH

I was just going to post the same links as theyeti. Gert Korthof is a scientist but more importantly, he is a very clear thinking man widely read on the evolution/creationism debates.

Albion

Well, I almost didn't believe it when I read this summing-up paragraph from his piece in the Johnson-Lamoureux book. He's come a long way.

"In his advocacy of special creationism I believe Johnson is merely the latest in a succession of vigorous creationist advocates who have been very influential within conservative Christian circles, particularly in the United States, during the twentieth century. None of these advocates, however, has had any lasting influence among academic biologists. This is not because science is biased in favour of philosophical naturalism but because the special creationist model is not supported by the facts and is incapable of providing a more plausible explanation for the pattern of life's diversity in time and space than its evolutionary competitor. The reason why no current member of the US National Academy of Science is a special creationist is because of the facts, the same facts that in the nineteenth century convinced Darwin and Wallace and all the leading Christian biologists, including Joseph Hooker, Asa Gray, and Charles Lyell, of the reality of descent with modification."

I mean, it was worth the price of the book to see Micael Denton, of all people, call Phillip Johnson a special creationist!