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Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism
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Average Rating:  out of 72 Reviews
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Price: $26.00
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Sale: $17.16
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Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780262661119
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Robert T. Pennock
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Publisher: The MIT Press
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Dewey Decimal Number: 210
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Publication Date: 2000-02-28
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Reading Level: 451
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Description: The face of creationism has been through some major plastic surgery in the past decade or so. The leading proponents of "intelligent design theory" have left the ranting flat-earth types behind and found respected positions in the academic world from which to launch attacks on mainstream science. Philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock has explored all sides of the ongoing debate, which remains (despite the protestations of many creationists) more about biblical inerrancy than scientific evidence. His book Tower of Babel examines the new directions antievolutionists have taken lately, but goes beyond a mere recounting of recent history by proposing a new avenue of counterattack: linguistics. The parallels are striking once we look closely: Genesis proclaims that God created all human languages at one stroke, while modern scientific thought proposes linguistic evolution similar in form to genetics. Best of all for scientists, though, linguistic change is much more rapid than biological change, and we have actually observed what might be called "speciation events" to have occurred historically in languages. While not meant to supplant traditional arguments against creationism, Pennock's ideas certainly supplement them and will be useful to educators and researchers alike. His sense of urgency is compelling; he sees the future of scientific education and freedom at stake and argues strongly for a separation between private beliefs and public knowledge. --Rob Lightner
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: God made them deaf.... |
Date: 2008-03-31 |
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Details: OK I am still early on in my research of this topic, but the more I read the more convinced I am that the babylonians et al were struck deaf due to an explosion at the time causing mass hearing loss among the living. If you read all the descriptions of the event it is clear there were natural phenomenon occurring about the episode. These included high winds and shaking ground, darkness and blindness.
This author assumes that the Bible says that God created new languages when in fact it says the language was confounded.
What does that mean...well language was confused, communication was altered. I think we can agree thats what is said. Language confounded.
Now imagine a large populous losing the ability to hear all at once, in addition to the other catastrophic events that are reported. The end result would be massive loss of ability to communicate with one another.
While I am sure the author did his due diligence at least to me it is clear at least with the Tower of Babel he is confused about what really happened.
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Review Summary: This is one tower that's not coming down. |
Date: 2007-02-13 |
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Details: Very well written and easy to read. |
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Review Summary: A Must Read! |
Date: 2007-01-06 |
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Details: Not as quick and clean as Abusing Science (Philip Kitcher, ISBN 026261037X) but still necessary intellectual self defense against those zealots who prey on ignorance and rely on misinformation. In a world that seems to be slipping into darkness this book is a beacon of intellectual light! The same is true for The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins, ISBN-10: 0393304485).
Required reading for all science teachers! |
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Review Summary: Tower of Babel: Refuting Creationist Babble |
Date: 2006-11-03 |
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Details: "Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism" is a cogent history of creationism and its sophistic spawn "creation science" - and a devastating refutation of the inane bibliolatrous arguments utilized by anti-Darwinists as the gaps available for polemics become increasingly circumscribed by the explanatory power of science. Pennock refutes creationist babble through a novel discussion of linguistic evolution and pays special attention to Paleyesque fallacies embedded in the "Intelligent Design" movement.
Pennock's bestiary classifies all anti-evolution Christians as creationists - kinds include Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, Evolutionary Creationists, Progressive Creationists, and Intelligent Design Creationists - squabbling schisms whose theologically impelled supernaturalism places all variants well outside a scientific mainstream united in support of methodological naturalism.
Internecine creationist spats receive a useful historical, theological, and social context treatment, and the preponderance of crank creationist websites is ruefully noted - along with their intellectual and ethical squalor. Pennock debunks the most egregious examples, including the infamous "Lady Hope" hoax (Darwin's fraudulent deathbed conversion and recantation).
After lampooning creationist comedy websites (Google AiG for a slick but sick example), Pennock discusses the Genesis myth meme echoed in the title - the Tower of Babel. Scholars realized that languages were shaped by evolutionary processes and common descent before Darwin burst on the scene. Biological and linguistic evolution contradicts special revelation hallucination, and both have been obdurately attacked by bloviating biblical literalists. Like species and higher biological taxa, languages blur at boundaries and form sub-taxon variants known as dialects. Pennock utilizes these facts to illustrate creationist misinformation about evolution, including the spurious missing link objection, and epistemological issues encountered when science deals with past events - particularly the lack of direct observation and the status of evolution as both factual and theoretical.
Utilizing language illustrates evolutionary taxonomy (classification) and phylogeny (development) and "descent over time with modification" as spoken languages developed from precursors (e.g. Romance languages from Indo-European and Proto-Indo European). This approach exhibits the same quirks as biological evolution including loss through extinction, incomplete preservation, convergence, and horizontal transfer.
Neo-medieval creationists crib from postmodernist rivals by asserting that Darwinism is "a secular religion." Both also deny that human cognitive enterprises can approach the truth. Pennock skewers figures such as Alvin Plantinga, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Philip Johnson who proffer ostensibly 'scientific' lines of reasoning that devolve into theological hand waving and philosophical special pleading upon close examination. Johnson's implicit conflation of ontological naturalism (materialism) with methodological naturalism is artfully deconstructed and Pennock shows that if science were to embrace miracles it would become useless as a way of knowing; an omnipotent and capricious deity would pull seemingly empirical strings. Pennock's characterization of Intelligent Design as a 'science of the gaps' that hamstrings what science could in principle explain is devastating - and portends rampant intellectual sloth "God said/did it, that settles it" - along with endemic theological or political meddling.
Pennock utilizes one of Behe's own examples to shred 'irreducibly complex' systems. Behe lays out the probability that a groundhog could mate across an eight-lane freeway to rebut speciation and adaptation. Pennock's version substitutes a population of groundhogs with survivors who make it to the center divider and reproduce before tackling the next lane, succinctly illustrating Darwinian processes. Behe's claims are then related to Dembski's opaque notion of 'complex specified information' (CSI) an arcane reimagining of Aquinas's argument from design and a mathematically absurd attempt to turn information theory against Darwin. Pennock lucidly explains what is wrong with CSI without overwhelming the reader with mathematical equations or technical terms - unlike Dembski who deliberately uses both to camouflage vacuous arguments.
Creationism and politics go together in America like bibles and thumping. The tortuous maneuvers creationists use to cross-dress theologically motivated political and educational agendas as science are exposed in detail. Creationists incessantly beaver away at court rulings prohibiting state funded public schools from promoting a religious viewpoint with bunko biblical hermeneutics and revelation repackaged as research. Pennock's defense of reason and science in the face of rampant superstition and magical thinking is passionate and compelling - and should be read into the minutes of every local school board or curriculum standards committee meeting.
Highly recommended on all counts - this is an erudite and necessary book. |
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Review Summary: The Evolution of Creationism |
Date: 2006-11-02 |
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Details: This is a rich and textured work. Pennock weaves together evolution, intelligent design, and literal creationism into an unexpectedly coherent tapestry.
I think some descriptions of this book do it a disservice, claiming that the point of the book is comparing language evolution with biological evolution. It is true, Pennock has that rather novel idea, which helps the reader better grasp the certainty of evolution. A literal reading of the Bible indicates that God directly creates both animals and languages- yet the scientific evidence indicates a process for both. But the changes in languages happen at a much more rapid and visible rate, making it more difficult for the Literal Creationist to deny them. And if one developmental process is accepted, the other is not too remote in logic. Yet this is not really the main point of the book, but rather a very helpful recurring analogy.
Pennock's brilliance is in another area. He very clearly stating what evolution is, and is not, for the lay reader. And for stating what the many brands of creationism are, including Theistic Evolution, Young Earth and Old Earth Literal Creationism, and Intelligent Design. He discusses with great frankness and equanimity the various groups, being fair yet not withholding all of the positive evidence for evolution. He doesn't deny where he stands, but tries to point out the myriad of different stances others hold. Through this he shows his true brilliance- describing the evolution of creationism. Applying (by analogy) principles of natural selection and biological evolution to languages, he extends that to the development of various creationist doctrines, thereby pointing out the danger in attempting to teach creationism in schools- for there are thousands of forms of this belief.
Like Pennock, I was once a Literal Creationist, and like Pennock, discovered the Light as a Quaker. I can relate to much of what he shares. Pennock helps the die-hard evolutionist understand better where creationists are coming from, and what ideas are important to them. He shows how clearly those in Intelligent Design are rejecting the foundations of Christianity in order to embrace Post-Modernist philosophies. He shows how clearly the evidence for evolution stands, and after everything, still stands. And dare I say it? As a former Literal Creationist, I'd say he comes quite close to being convincing to the open-minded Literal Creationist that evolution just might, after all, have some truth to it. And that's a hard path to create. |
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