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Evolution, Creationism: A Critical Inquiry
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Average Rating:  out of 13 Reviews
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Price: $18.95
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Sale: $3.59
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Manufacturer: Fulcrum Publishing
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EAN (European Article Number): 9781555914585
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Jr., Vine Deloria
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Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
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Dewey Decimal Number: 101
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Publication Date: 2004-06-04
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Reading Level: 320
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Description: "I offer no comfort to religious fundamentalists or evolutionists," writes Vine Deloria in his introduction to Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths. "Both are passé and represent only a quarrel within the western belief system, not an accurate rendering of Earth history." With this salvo, Deloria, named by Time magazine as one of the eleven greatest religious thinkers of the twentieth century, launches a witty and erudite assault on the current state of evolutionary theory, science, and religion. When Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published in 1859, a philosophical upheaval on par with the Copernican revolution of the sixteenth century occurred. Darwin was roundly criticized for promulgating ideas inconsistent with the Bible, and many hailed the death of God and religion. For more than a century, the schism between scientists, espousing progressive theories about evolution and the Earth’s beginnings, and religious fundamentalists, focusing on the inconsistencies between these theories and western religious dogma, has grown. Using the tension between evolutionists and creationists in Kansas in the late 1990s as a focal point, Deloria takes Western science and religion to task, providing a critical assessment of the flaws and anomalies in each side’s arguments. Incorporating non-Western and Native American ideas, as well as the concept of "Intelligent Design," Deloria provides us with a framework to better understand our beginnings.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Truthiness applied to evolutionary theory |
Date: 2008-08-21 |
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Details: There is a good reason why so many used copies of this book are available from Amazon.com for as little as $5. I would gladly give away my copy. This "scholar" has done a great dis-service to those readers who are not sufficiently educated in evolutionary theory to recognize his profound misunderstanding of that subject. Worse, I suspect that Deloria is not merely ignorant but is actually being intentionally misleading in his argument against evolutionary theory and science in general. Scan the bibliography and you will find only references that support the author's argument, rather than any text books or other serious treatments of the science of evolution. Deloria quotes "giants" in the field of evolutionary biology as dismissing evolution as mere "minor changes in body size," but I have never heard of these "giants" during my many years of study toward a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology. I really don't care whether the author believes in Intelligent Design and the Anthropic Principle, both of which are fine examples of tautology (since life exists in the universe, the physical laws governing the universe must be those essential to the emergence of life). But I am very disturbed by the tone of his ridicule and rebuttal of science that gives the reader the impression that he is very well-versed in the subject when, in fact, he is merely quoting the opinions of many non-scientists as if they are findings based on rigorous scientific inquiry. The contemporary term applied to this brand of propaganda is "truthiness," that which has the ring of truth but is in fact false. There is enough popular misunderstanding of what evolutionary theory is and is not, and as a previous reviewer noted, evolution is not the same as cosmology. The focus of evolutionary biology is the change in the genetic makeup of populations of organisms over time, which is not the same thing as explaining the origins of the universe. This book is nothing more than an ideological argument masquerading as a serious thesis on a very important topic. |
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Review Summary: Science Apart From Faith! |
Date: 2007-08-05 |
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Details: Mr. Deloria's scholarship is sound. I've looked at many of his references and it appears that he's been thorough and fair--his critics and reviewers here have not been!
Sadly many of the other critics are apparently either died-in-the-wool evolutionists or else religious folks. Deloria is truly neither, and that is his charm and the source of his brilliance. He is a native American spiritist which is less than ideal. Optimally I'd prefer an agnostic Supreme Court Cheif Justice or a world renowned mathemetician or even the world chess champion.
In short, Deloria clearly demonstrates that creationism, evolutionism and every other theory or myth of our origins is not and cannot truly be rigorous science. He argues convicingly that the only reason we place any emphasis on evolution in science is because scientists feel compelled to take issue with the almost ubiquitous belief in some sort of creator.
As an honest scientist I feel that everyone should give this book and its central concepts a fair reading. We all accept that a disproof of existence is effectively impossible. Why, then, should we all invest so much in a theory that gives us so little. While categorization and adaptation are valuable in themselves, there is nothing of predictive or constructive value to Darwin's theory that we should invest so much of our time and resources trying to support it.
In fact, working to support (rather than to refute) a theory is, by definition, bad science.
Vine Deloria is finally asking the right questions. His is not a political book, but a very sound and very important criticism of what science is and what is is becoming. We can't afford to abandon the enlightenment in order to devote our inquiries soley to supporting pet affections!
Required reading! |
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Review Summary: Not worth reading. |
Date: 2007-04-17 |
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Details: I was hoping to find an intelligent critique of evolution and fundamentalist Christianity in here, but was sadly disappointed.
It's not so bad that Deloria does not understand either the scientific method, nor the theory of evolution. His complete misunderstanding of the aims and tactics of "intelligent design" proponents, and of the reasons various courts dismissed their claims to intellectual integrity is not the most serious flaw in the book.
He invokes strawmen to stand in for both creationists and evolutionary biologists to cover his lack of understanding of both Biblical literalism and scientific orthodoxy could just reflect his inadequacy as a scholar. The real problem is his smug dismissal of these two viewpoints as though he were an expert on them.
The book is a sustained argument from authority in which the author himself claims to be the authority to whom we should all defer.
I confess I quit after three chapters. Deloria has nothing of import to say in this book. I suppose this book will engage people who like to criticize things that threaten their preconceptions. People who are interested in theology or science should look elsewhere.
He is supposed to be an expert on native American spirituality, but the slipshod attempt at scholarship I found in this volume incline me to be deeply suspicious of any assertions from the pen of Mr. Deloria.
Pure nonsense! |
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Review Summary: Trumps Both Creationism and Evolution/Scientism |
Date: 2006-11-22 |
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Details: I very much enjoyed the vehement imbicility of the various negative/derogative reviews that have been belched forth so vitrolicly against Deloria's superb work: Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths: A Critical Inquiry. O how the indoctrinated do howl when their sacred cows are set upon by wolves of the mind like Deloria!
The basic issue in relation to Deloria's ideas, and the very same concept that Deloria's mudlarkian detractors so benightedly fail to grasp is simply that both Scientism and Creationism are world views wrought almost invisibly deep in the minds of those who are informed by them. In other words, people view the world, frame their experiences, and validate their conclusions based on their degree and brand-name of indoctrination. Scholars and academians bark as they are trained to bark, attack whom they percieve as a threat to the well-being of their beloved paradigm (base territorialism), and roll over and play dead when instructed to by their paymasters.
Take two zygotic twins. Raise one a Christian and place that one in a Bible college. Take the other and raise it as a scientific atheist, send it to get a degree in science. The result? Two victims of brainwashing who both hold their views as catagorical.
Remember, to someone who knows, no proof is necessary. To someone who refuses to know, no proof will suffice. Deloria simply shows the truth as it really is - as a matter of relationship; and that "validity" is as much or more an issue of cultural psycho-programming as it is of the "facts" and "laws" of physical reality. The information you digest is heavily filtered by the browser you were installed with.
What's your memetic OS? SciSoft Atheistic v15.0? Or is it CyberJesusWare v44? Maybe your platform is written by RedMan Pantheistic Systems? Currently, Western academic scientism is locked into Big-Whitey-Makes-RighteySoft v2007. Get your anti-BSware and anti-memebot software while you can, ladies and gents, otherwise your system might clog up with who knows what.
A thousand repetitions equals one truth. Remember that when you wake up.
Purchase this book and read it. |
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Review Summary: Excellent! Cuts across the grain of popular myths! |
Date: 2005-10-21 |
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Details: As one reviewer said, "The author, in what seems to be an attempt to make the two groups equivalent, states that both creationists and scientists require us to take things on faith."
That's right, and he does so beautifully. Science and creationism are both faith based and if you carefully read Deloria, you will see his arguments are sound, that is, unless you let your paradigms get in the way like some of the reviews in here. OPEN your mind!
The nice thing about this book, even if you disagree with Deloria, it will still give you food for thought, something intellectual to ponder. GET IT .... READ IT .... check your library, that's where I found it. Great read! |
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