The Creation Vs. Evolution Handbook

by Thomas F. Heinze

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801040027
• ISBN13: 9780801040023
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group (MI)
• Length: 114 Pages
• Weight: 0.13 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A look at some myths about scientists

One of the most common ideas that people have is that creation science is somehow more biased, more 'one-eyed' than 'real science'. After all, creationists begin with the Bible, so how can they be objective, like other scientists are? Many creationist writings have already pointed out the impossibility of dealing with the past directly, without having some sort of beginning bias. This review will not repeat any of that, nor will it again point out the essentially religious nature of evolution. Instead, it will deal directly with the powerful myth that scientists are somehow neutral and super-objective in their approach to evidence. In doing this, one is not being anti-science or anti-scientist; the findings apply to all scientists, including those of creationist persuasion. We are just facing up to the fact that scientists are as human as anyone else. A 1980 sociological research paper surveyed scientists on their attitude to the most common traditional beliefs about themselves and their profession.[1] Some of the interesting results: (1) Belief: Science is organized scepticism. This means that '. . . no scientist's contribution to knowledge can be accepted without careful scrutiny, and that the scientist must doubt his own findings as well as those of others.'[2] About three-quarters of the scientists surveyed disagreed with this, and said that in fact it was not abnormal to accept what fits your own conception on a subject, and doubt that which does not. We read that the history of science demonstrates'. . . that scientists often operate in a subjective way and that experimental verification is of secondary importance compared to philosophical arguments, at least in some of the major conceptual changes that have occurred in science.'[3](2) Belief: Emotional Neutrality. This means that a scientist should not have an emotional commitment to particular ideas or theories. This was very strongly rejected by a great majority of the scientists surveyed. Referring to another study,[4] the author states that 'the myth of science being a passionless enterprise, carried out by objective detached men, does not hold.' And further, that 'the image of the objective emotionally disinterested scientist is taken seriously only by the layman or by young science students.' The interesting thing about this and similar surveys is not only that the popular image is wrong, but that the professionals know it to be so, and accept this as normal. It seems that the classical view of the scientific endeavor may not even be regarded as an ideal to strive for, since the respondents did not even try 'to live up to the idealized image of the objective, critical, disinterested truth seeker who shares his discoveries and information with his colleagues.' All this is, of course, only what one would expect from what Stephen J. Gould calls a 'quintessentially human activity' (referring to science). And as humans, the vast majority remain deeply emotionally committed to a view of o

Who's more biased? Is evolution fact or faith?

We all know that creationists have a starting bias with which they use to interpret scientific data, but many people mistakenly seem to think that evolutionists are somehow more objective in their approach to science. This is a common picture presented to the general public by evolutionists, but is it true? As a previous reviewer documented, the idea of "objective" science exists only in the mind of young (naive and inexperienced) scientists and laymen.But don't simply take my word for it. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is a renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and certainly one of the world's leaders in evolutionary biology. He recently wrote this very revealing comment. It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation - regardless of whether or not the facts support it. "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." -*Richard Lewontin, "Billions and billions of demons", The New York Review, January 9, 1997, page 31.So here we have one of the world's leading evolutionists admitting what the general public was never told - that evolutionists have universally accepted a materialistic interpretation scheme as truth. All evidence stands or falls based upon it's fit with the dogma of evolution. Any data that does not fit within this hypothetical framework is discarded or explained away.But let's not stop with Lewontin. Let's see what other prominent evolutionists have actually admitted. Is evolution truly fact, or faith?"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone . . exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion."-*Louis Trenchard More, quoted in "Science and the Two-tailed Dinosaur", p. 33. "Our theory of evolution has become . . one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it . . No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas with or without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepte

Evolution and the fossil record

Regarding the complete lack of transitional forms in the fossil record, Darwin said in the 1850's:"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." ---Charles Darwin, "On the imperfection of the geological record", Chapter X, "The Origin of Species", J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1971, pp. 292-293.But 120 years later!"Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information -what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which 'does' show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. Also the major extinctions such as those of the dinosaurs and trilobites are still very puzzling." ---Dr. David M. Raup (Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), "Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology". "Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin", vol. 50 (1), January 1979, p. 25.Are there any transitional forms at all?"... I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line-there is not one such f

is it all true?

At school everybody is told: we know everything abot evolution and you shold belive us. Faith in God and creation is out and primitive. But nobody can proof evolution! This is what Heinze shows in his book. He takes all the stuff you heard st school and shows, that it doesn't proof evolution. Evolution is just a possible explanation, but creation isn't pooved wrong by science. This is not going to happen, but you won't see that until you read a book like this!!