What Is Creation Science

Rating:
Summary: Being taught from a different point of view.
Review: Coming from both private and public school systems, I've been fortunate enough to have been taught from both directions, and concluded to pick the most logical choice. To have ocurred, needs God. From nothing comes nothing, but evolution needs God to create the chemicals present at the "Big Bang". This book is a wonderful display into the arguments against evolution. Many who have written poorly researched reports do not further their explanations on why evolution is true, but rather condemn creationism without any evidence against it. The only evidence is against evolution (which is shown in this book). People in the public school systems are taught the theory of evolution as the only possible way, but are not informed of the many flaws involved, and they go on with their lives. But the few that go into the scientific field find out one of two things, 1. Evolution is impossible. The universe cannot come into existence from nothing. or 2.They are too stubborn to disregard evolution, and still have no answers. I think people should consider a different way, and not be so close minded about the subject. I have had to listen to the evolutionist theory and still have not seen any solid proof, but rather, a vast amount against it.

Rating:
Summary: Read This Book With An Open Mind
Review: I received this book as a gift a few years ago. At the time I had no idea what Creation Science was or how it stacked up with Evolution on a scientific basis. I had spent my entire life learning about evolution in public schools. Learning isn't an accurate statement. I memorized what they told me, got the A, and moved on without thinking about it. Dr. Morris and Dr. Parker did a great job of showing me the scientific fallacy behind evolution. After reading this book and thinking about the evidence behind both sides, I found the assumptions behind Evolution to be preposterous. In fact, Evolution is such a stretch, it should not be taught in our public schools. Unfortunately, you can't prove, by scientific definitions, either case. Creation Science, however, is a much more comprehensive, methodical, and logical approach. Oh, by the way, I'm a Mechanical Engineer and fully grasp scientific theory and reasoning, formation and testing of hypotheses, and rational and object analysis. But don't take my word for it, read it yourself.

Rating:
Summary: A good book on the "lower-tier" creationist position.
Review: Near the close of the twentieth century we have seen a noticeable split between creationist (and I use the term broadly) movements. One, like Dembski and others (confer "Mere Creation"), use more significantly sophisticated and legitimately scientific (even if it is flawed) work to support their case. The other one, stemming from the "scientific creationist" movement of the 1970s and 80s, can be seen in books and writings like those of Henry Morris. Gary Parker, who possesses a Ph.D. in biology, is a notable exception and might be considered a borderline case. I regard this ICR ("Institute of Creation Research") book as one of the three major creationist books (the other two are "The Genesis Flood" and "Scientific Creationism," which will be referred to as SC for sake of abbreviation). For sake of abbreviation, I will refer to "What is Creation Science?" as WICS. The book could be considered a sort of sequel to the earlier ICR book, SC.

People, even many well-intention scientists, often misconstrue creation science as the idea of a Supreme Being creating the universe as literally described in the book of Genesis. Yet creation science (as presented by the authors of WICS) neither mentions Scripture nor theology. Creation science on the biological scale is the theory that life was created artificially (p. 34). This is also called "intelligent design theory" by other authors and scientists. Creation science as applied to cosmology is the theory that the universe is not a completely isolated system (pp. x, 9, 190). Thus the theory suggests that the universe was an open system for it to be created.

In part because of how "creation science" is defined, one of the improvements made is that WICS has a much less religious appearance. Scripture seemed to be more of an inspiration and a motivation behind SC. WICS made almost no inept religious intervention (unless one believes the theories defined to be inherently religious). Parker especially did an excellent job of not referring to religious principles when describing and making the case for creation science.

Part II, written by Parker, was called "The Life Sciences," and contains the most legitimate science in the book. By far the largest improvement has been in biology when one contrasts WICS to SC. There are several reasons for this. First of all, Parker has a Ph.D. in biology and has taught evolutionary biology at the university level (pp. vii, 31-32). The Ed.D. has clearly made him well qualified to speak on the subject. Second, he was once a former evolutionist (p. 32) and he was an evolutionist because he thought the scientific evidence favored that theory (p. 182). He displays the most rational approach I have seen for a creationist biologist who is affiliated with ICR. Even if his arguments are not considered good enough (and that, of course, is debatable), they clearly exhibit a higher level of scientific sophistication than what one sees in some other creationist works.

Regardless of its scientific merit, there still some relatively minor flaws, which I hope will be fixed in a later edition. On page one, "evolution" is misspelled as "evoluion." One mistake by Parker is that the story of the peppered moths is given the award of being THE showcase for evolution (p. 81), and then later the exact same award is given to the bird-like Archaeopteryx specimen (p.135).

In sum, WICS is a fairly good book on the contemporary lower-tier creationist position. Although I do not believe it has reached the embodiment of pure science, these two authors present a case for creation science that deserves consideration by the open-minded individual interested in this controversy. It seems doubtful, as Parker suggests, that the evidence is all one-sided in favor of either theory.