Science, Evolution, and Creationism | 
 enlarge | Authors: National Academy Of Sciences, Institute Of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 21655
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 88
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 0309105862
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9780309105866
ASIN: 0309105862
Publication Date: January 4, 2008
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Product Description
How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable. In the book, "Science, Evolution, and Creationism", a group of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine explain the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including "intelligent design."The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations. The book also presents the scientific and legal reasons for not teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes. Mindful of school board battles and recent court decisions, "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" shows that science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. For educators, students, teachers, community leaders, legislators, policy makers, and parents who seek to understand the basis of evolutionary science, this publication will be an essential resource.
Book Description
How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable.
In the book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a group of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine explain the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including "intelligent design." The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations. The book also presents the scientific and legal reasons for not teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes.
Mindful of school board battles and recent court decisions, Science, Evolution, and Creationism shows that science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. For educators, students, teachers, community leaders, legislators, policy makers, and parents who seek to understand the basis of evolutionary science, this publication will be an essential resource.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 Misleading statement shows no one really understands molecular evolution November 12, 2008
Today I sent an email to Jay Labov, cc. Francisco Ayala, of the National Academy of Sciences, asking them to correct a misleading statement on molecular evolution.
Dear Jay:
I find it sad that a group of scientists of the NAS caliber simply cannot make a true statement in the field of molecular evolution.
I have written to you in 2005 about a misleading (part truth part lie) statement in the 1999 booklet 'Science and Creationism, A view from the National Academy of Sciences, 1999.' This statement is: "The more closely related two organisms are, the less different their DNA will be." The reality is that vastly different species differ little in DNA and similar species differ vastly in DNA. Hippos should be more related to pigs in morphology, but hippos are more related to whales in DNA/protein than to pigs. Crocodiles are similar to lizards in phenotypes but are more related to birds in DNA/protein. The variation in brain power and gross phenotype between human and chimpanzee is much greater than between the mouse species Mus musculus and Mus spretus, although the sequence difference in the two cases is similar.
I am glad to see that the expert panel has now deleted this misleading statement in the 2008 edition "Science, Evolution, and Creationism, A view from the National Academy of Sciences, 2008". But I am also sad to see that they again made a misleading statement that is part truth part lie. This statement is : "If two species have a relatively recent common ancestor, their DNA sequences will be more similar than the DNA sequences for two species that share a distant common ancestor."
Here are just three examples of the factual contradictions to this statement. Two different mice strains that separated no more than 12 million years ago had more dissimilarity in DNA than human and monkey that shared a common ancestor 20-30 million years ago. (see Xiang et al., Human Molecular Genetics. 17(1):27-37, 2008.) At the DNA sequence level, Apodemus and Mus differ by 18% as estimated from neutral sites of genes. In comparison, genome divergence is 8% between human and the Old World monkeys. Two madaka fish populations that separated 4 million years ago had more dissimilarity in DNA than human and chimpanzees that separated 5-7 million years ago. (see Nature, 447:714-719, 2007, June 7). Two flowering plants (Arabidopsis and apple tree) that shared a common ancestor no more than 125 million years ago have more dissimilarity in DNA than humans and birds that shared a common ancestor 310 million years ago. [...]
Why cannot the experts just make a truthful statement that has no factual contradictions? I have given the question some thoughts. My answer is simple. The experts simply have not understood molecular evolution well enough to be able to teach it.
Please make a quick revision to your booklet, deleting the part on molecular evolution. After repeated tries, the experts have shown that they are incapable of stating truth without also stating lies. The only way out is to say nothing on something you don't really understand.
Yours truly,
Shi Huang
Some new thoughts after sending the email:
After several years of careful study, it has become clear to me that no theory or statement in the molecular evolution field can describe/explain more than half of all data. The best proof of this is the plain fact that the experts simply cannot, after repeated tries, make a statement that has no factual contradictions. The field is a joke by the standard of any other scientific discipline. How can any sane person hold on to any theory or statement that explains only 50% of nature while being contradicted by the remaining 50%?
 Two sides to every story October 25, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
In _Science, Evolution, and Creationism_, the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Health have provided us with a crystal clear and succinct account of the scientific evidence concerning the origins of the universe and the evolution of homo sapiens.
This book is a terrific gift-idea for your evangelical cousins this Christmas, or for anyone else whose life and system of belief discredits the theory that man is a random improvement on the ape.
The authors have done less well, however, in providing an easy-to-understand summary of the Scriptural record. Readers should compare what the scientists believe with the actual Eyewitness version provided in the Holy Bible, and then decide for themselves what to believe. In brief:
Creation Week. Six thousand years ago, in the year 4000 BCE, on what we now would call a "Saturday" evening, just 72 hours before the spring equinox, the universe as we know it began of a sudden when the Son and the holy Ghost said, on the count of three, "Let there be light," and Yahveh granted their wish, and let light happen. Some people now call that event the "the Big Bang," but it didn't just "happen," it happened according to Dad's intelligent design (Genesis 1:1). Here is the exact timeline:
* For all prior eternity until Day 1: Intelligent Planning and Design phase.
* Day 1 (24 hrs.): The Big Bang, the sky, the Earth, day and night (Gen. 1.1-5).
* Day 2 (24 hrs.): The Earth's oceans, rivers, and continents (Gen. 1.6-10).
* Day 3 (24 hrs.): The Earth's plants (Gen. 1.11-13).
* Day 4 (24 hrs.): The sun, moon, and stars (Gen. 1.14-19).
* Day 5 (24 hrs.): The Earth's fish, birds, and all "flying things" (Gen. 1:20-23).
* Day 6 (midnight till noon): Wild animals, beasts, livestock, and "crawly things"; and, after a short break, Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:24-25).
Perhaps I should clear up one small, boring point of confusion before we get started. In Genesis, chapter 1, the order of Creation, days 2 through 6, is follows: (2) Earth and its waters, (3) plants, (4) sun, moon, and stars, (5) birds and flying things, (6) mammals and crawly things, and Adam and Eve. And that is so true! But in Genesis, chapter 2, the holy Ghost writes that days 2 through 6 were actually in the order: (2) Adam, and plants (except trees); (3) rivers and trees, (4) mammals and crawly things, (5) birds and flying things; and (6) Eve.
What often happens is that a first-time reader of the Bible will get as far as chapter two, and then stop short and say, "Huh? Can't this Author keep His story straight, even for the first two pages?" But those people are missing the point, which is that chapter 1 reports the "historical truth" while chapter 2 represents the "spiritual truth" of the Creation. In version two, God juggles cosmic history a bit, in order to remind His readers of two spiritual verities: (a.) Man did not just come first, woman second; no, man came way first; and (b.) Everything was fine with the Universe until the woman came along on Day 6.
God calls this writing strategy "poetic license." If it's Your world, and if You're the one Who's telling the story, and if You're still unhappy with the woman whose disobedience threw a monkey wrench into the whole Intelligent Design, and if You also happen to be omniscient, and all-powerful, and omnipresent, and self-important, and (not to put too fine a point on it) a raving schizophrenic, then You are entitled to improvise in Your autobiography, or even to begin contradicting Yourself in the second chapter: and if the secular humanists and evolutionists and feminists don't like Your poetic license, they can either go screw themselves, or go read the Book of Mormon (a book that was actually composed by my friend Beelzebub just another one of his little pranks - but that's a whole different story).
- L.
Sadly biased September 3, 2008
3 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book has regrettably the stamp of officialdom while on one hand propagating unreservedly one side of a real controversy about science, and on the other hand trying to pacify the wide religious community with a contrived dismissal of any conflict between it and the scientific contentions.
The actual controversy is mainly about part of Darwinian evolution, though the book paints opponents with the broad brush of creationist antievolution. It does make distinctions among opponents, but all are depicted as religion-based anti-scientists.
The concerned part of evolution is its mechanism. The book unquestioningly accepts it to be undirected: "the biological changes that provide the raw material for evolution are not directed toward predetermined, specific goals" (p.50). They are not? This is the fundamental mistake of Darwinian evolution, the allegation that the adaptation of organisms results from changes in them not directed toward any goals. The exact opposite is true. The activities in organisms are glaringly known to persistently be directed toward specific goals, namely self-preservation and corresponding adaptation.
Despite its shortness, the book abounds in other faulty platitudes heard from Darwinists, and I shall endeavor to list some.
The book purports to give "the reasons why only scientifically based explanations should be included in public school science courses" (p.xi) and "why nonscientific alternatives to evolution such as creationism (including intelligent design creationism) should not be part of the science curriculum" (p.xii). "Creationism" connotes various beliefs in a creator of the universe, but irrespective of these beliefs the issue is science. "Intelligent design (creationism)" in particular lays claim to science, and in view of the above major error of replacing goal-directedness with its opposite, the question is how good a science is Darwinism.
"Intelligent design" proponents are said to (p.40) "argue that certain biological structures are so complex that they could not have evolved through the process of undirected mutation and natural selection". Omitted is that it is the biological functions of those structures that are claimed to require the complexity. By the above, again, the undirected process is false already, with no other argument needed. The book nonetheless continues that biologists have shown how the systems "could have arisen through natural processes" and illustrates (p.41) how, e.g., the human eye could have evolved from those of other species. The argument is that evolution requires gradual mutation, with each stage serving some function. "Intelligent design" missed, however, another counterargument. It isn't enough to show that such as the eye could without a needed component have a function in another species. The whole organism must in that absence of the component be taken into account, since assumed to otherwise remain whole. And it is evident without further searches that the organism then fails to function as required.
Another issue concerning science is its method. The book lumps together all scientific findings as "theories". For instance, it likens Darwinian evolution to "the theory of gravitation" (p.11). Newton's remark that he feigns no hypotheses suggests the difference between the two methods. His conclusion of universal gravitation and its inverse-square law was not a hypothesis but a generalization based on repeated observations, in a long-recognized inference from the particular to the general, contrasted with inference from the general to the particular in logic. Instead, elevated recently is the method of hypothesizing (hence "theory") an explanation for observed occurrences, and if the hypothesis appears to lead to those occurrences, it is to some measure accepted. A rough comparison of the two methods is: in the first is repeatedly observed that A leads to B, and in the second is found that a hypothesized A leads to B.
The second is of course exemplified by Darwinian evolution, where its hypothesized random mutation and natural selection appear to lead to adaptation, and the hypothesis is accepted correspondingly. I should note again the inconclusiveness due to a fallacy. If A leads to B, it doesn't follow that B leads to A. The fallacy is absent in the generalization, where A is observed rather than hypothesized.
 Nothing New Here...Same Ambiguous Language Renamed as Evidence! September 1, 2008
4 out of 17 found this review helpful
It is very unfortunate that the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies are even mentioned on this book as if the explanations contents of this book had been conclusive or validated scientifically. What an embarrassment to the science community of the United States. This book offers nothing new nor does it offer anything but the use of rehashed ambiguous language creatively to give the illusion of substance while void of a plausible process. As it is within a totalitarian system of government, no competing system of thought is debated or even considered because they fear the freedom that allows people to make up their own minds after being confronted with the hard scientific evidence. Save your money on this one.
Looking to explain the fundamentals of evolution as well as the arguments of creationism August 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
How did life come to be on this planet? This question is discussed at length by "Science, Evolution, and Creationism". Looking to explain the fundamentals of evolution as well as the arguments of creationism, "Science, Evolution and Creationism" is a wide reaching look at all perspectives on the subject. Highly recommended for community library religion and science collections.
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