Good books against evolution?

by bohm 52 Replies latest jw friends

  • Farkel
    Farkel

    :Good books against evolution?

    Oxymoron.

    Farkel

  • Cadellin
    Cadellin

    Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson. He destroys the evolutionists, buries them

    The only problem is, he's a lawyer, not a biologist. Be very wary of books written by outsiders to this complex field. There's plenty of them out there written by physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, etc. Look for the ones written by biologists, and even then, tread carefully. Biologist Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box was written over 20 years ago and much of his claims have since been refuted. Even still, Behe advocates common descent and the veracity of the fossil record. Likewise, Jonathon Wells' Icons of Evolution has been heavily disputed by his fellow biologists, certain of whom claim that he has badly distorted the facts.

    I think this is telling. Evolution as a theory has been around for 150 years and continues to be substantiated by converging lines of diverse evidence. As Theodore Dobzhansky observed a half-century ago, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." And belief in evolution is NOT synomous with athiesm. You might want to check out (biologist and practicing Catholic) Kenneth Miller's book Finding Darwin's God.

  • palmtree67
    palmtree67

    I really liked "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael J. Behe

  • cyberjesus
    cyberjesus

    You dont need books you only need Faith tm thats all. Write in a piece of paper

    "Darwing was crazy, Atheists are empty and lonely and Satan controls them. God created Adam and Eve....God told me to write this"

  • bohm
    bohm

    Farkel: Please explain, are you implying evolution cannot be disputed and therefore is not a scientific theory? do you imply a book that dispute evolution is automatically not good?

    Cadellin: That is why i started this topic. Most anti-evolution arguments i am aware of have huge flaws, and therefore when they are debunked i often feel like i am a non-evolutionist who read a debunking of the piltdown-man or something like that. I was hoping to find a good, scientific book that presented a critical view on evolution without relying on distortions, creative quoting and other crappy AiG-like tactics.

  • Razziel
    Razziel

    What I find interesting is that the order that the creation of life is mentioned in genesis is in general agreement with the order that fossils have shown and evolution predicts. Plants and sea creatures, then birds and land-bound animals, and finally man. The only big discrepancy was that the earth came before the sun which doesn't agree with what we know of the cosmology. Even the "canopy" of water isn't a discrepancy since early in earth's evolution the planet was a lot hotter, which meant a majority of water would be in the form of evaporated moisture. (A global flood on the other hand is another story.)

    But this thread is about books and I'm on a tangent.

  • bohm
    bohm

    cyberjesus: not sure what you want to accomplish with a clear distortion, but it is not on-topic and quite frankly, it piss me off greatly when SOME theist rely on the same tactics.

  • mindmelda
    mindmelda

    Um...Fossils? No book against evolution I've read (and I've read a lot of them) explains them away very easily.

    That's because it's hard to explain away the concrete.

    "The Science of God" is the best one I can recommend, but it doesn't totally debunk evolution, it just inserts God into it.

    That's about as good as it gets, in my humble opinion.

    By the way, you do know that evolution doesn't necessarily address in concrete and undebatable terms the origin of life....just the progress and advancement of it through eons of the planet's history? The origins are still somewhat speculative...although there obviously was an origin point for it, but since there's no fossil evidence of it, life being pretty minute and not possessed of what it takes to leave a fossil then, no...no one is sure of the EXACT mechanism. There's some decent theories out there, though.

    If you still believe that man came wholly formed out of the ground, I can't help you much with finding literal scientific or even logical support for that. If you're into fantasy, I recommend Tolkkien. He's a better writer and there's elves.

    I know the creation of man (and everything else) supposed to be a miracle, but I still can't find a decent definition for a miracle either. It's either stuff that can't happen in this dimension or stuff that I don't understand yet. Not really helpful as it doesn't help you figure out how it happens.

  • bohm
    bohm

    mindmelda: Sounds promising, but from the reviews i could find it seem to be more about interpreting the bible to coincide with certain physical theories and i have a nagging sensation that if physicists dropped inflation tomorrow the author would find a reinterpretation of genesis to accommodate that -- as such it seem more of a theological excersize than a scientific (?). I would much rather see a treatment of Fossils, genetics, the geological collumn, the distribution of animals on earth, etc - a lot of the reason i want to read up on it is that i simply dont know what the non-evolution worldview IS. i dont know what a kind is, i dont know if non-evolutionists believe dog and wolfs are the same kind, how they define 'variation' as opposed to evolution, if they can quote any testable hypothesis and experiments that support them, anything of that kind.

    As an atheist who think the theory of evolution is supported by evidence i would perhaps default to the view that such work does not exist, that there are no explanations, but i hope i am wrong :-).

    ps. I know abiogenesis and evolution (and gravity and rabbits) are different things. I would like to think i would first figure out what a particular scientific theory attempt to explain before i reject or accept it ;-).

  • mindmelda
    mindmelda

    Most of the non-evolution books I've read outside of WTS literature either feature the same kind of creationist ideas featured in the WTS publications.

    The Witnesses changed their views in the 30 years I was associated. It went from young earth creationism and when that wasn't unique enough because nearly all Evangelicals teach that too, they changed it.

    The started allowing for change but not outside of species. Then in the last book they practically took "The Science of God" and other ideas directly from authors with these same views.

    Intelligent design composes the basis for most more scientific sounding non-evolution/ creationist writing. It's almost what Witnesses now embrace, if they understood the last creation oriented book, that is. A lot of them don't.

    There's no one consensus among creationists, in other words. There are various theories and ideas put forth. You'd have to find out which version they embrace to discuss it and then disprove it point by point.

    I agree with you though...the bible creation account is vague enough that it can emcompass a lot of views, including evolution. Evolution and atheism are also not entirely related, I know many Christians of who believe in it (although rarely Evangelicals or Fundamentalists).

    Most of these simply believe God used evolution as a tool of creation. That's the old is there a god or not argument, not really evolution, of course.

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