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Summary: A Good Overview of the Arguments For Creationism
Review: Though an avid reader of the works of the late Carl Sagan, I am a newcomer to the actual debate between evolution and intelligent design. As a newcomer, I have found James Perloff's "Tornado In A Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism" a thorough introduction to creationism and he makes the subject approachable and understandable regardless of what side of the argument the reader stands. Perloff also covers the debate from a number of viewpoints including the impact of Darwinism on history, religion, and political and social philosophy. Admitting that truth should not be judged on its historical impact, Perloff also discusses problems of evolutionary theory in the fields of paleontology, genetics, cellular biochemistry and other scientific disciplines. The book also contains an ample index and almost 670 footnotes from both sides of the aisle making the book a valuable reference tool. Most remarkable is a unique treatment of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" which most people know only through the 1960 film "Inherit the Wind." Perloff documents the many differences between Hollywood's portrayal of the trial and what happened in reality and brings a new perspective to the debate between Darrow and Bryan. My only two complaints are the book could have been better organized concerning subject matter and the reader sometimes gets lost in jumping from subject to subject with little explanation. Finally, whoever edited the book should have recommended to Perloff to drop the attempts at humor, attempts that are at best distracting and at worst, simply annoying. Nonetheless, Perloff has created a very good introduction to creationism and raised important questions guaranteed to stir discussion and debate between the two camps for some time to come.
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Summary: Slant doesn't begin to describe...
Review: This entire book represents a straw-man argument, with facts misrepresented from the start, quotes taken out of context, and any contradictory evidence excluded from his arguments. The most amusing Chapter "Ape Man for all Seasons" presents human hominidic morphology based on the evidence present about 100 years ago. He spends way too much time harping on "Piltdown Man" which was found to be a hoax some 40 years after its discovery and is irrelevant to the argument. He totally neglects Australopithecus, Homo-Habilus, and homo-erectus, which anybody who has visited the Smithsonian or read a National Geographic or two knows to exist. He spends a great deal of time attempting to debunk radiocarbon dating and later claims to know the exact age of the dead sea scrolls. He goes through Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould and other prominent evolutionists materials and finds every quote he can to use out of context and does so shamelessly. He finds every gap in the fossil record and exaggerates it tenfold, as though one would expect to find a complete undecomposed fossil record there ready and able to be viewed. He then sneaks in every little amusing wisecrack he possibly can to "relate" to his audience in a sophomoric fashion.
I'm not even sure what he's trying to argue with his young earth and flood arguments. He also goes to great lenghts to overcomplicate the concept of DNA so the average layman wouldn't even attempt to make a guess as to how it works. After all of this propagandous research he still fails miserably to link our existence to Yahweh(God) or any other monotheistic concept. If the deceit inherent in this book isn't intentional the Perloff must be either gullible or just plain ignorant. The reasearch involved doesn't indicate either. This whole thing smells of fraud. It's great for the gullible, but belongs in the humor section of the bookstore.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: The majority of facts represented in this book are easily proven by little outside research (try the internet) which makes the facts much easier to validate than those of evolution theory books. It is also very easy to read and to understand. The author states simple facts which poke huge holes in Darwinism and modern day evolution theory. I do not suggest that evolutionist's read this book if they don't want their faith in the theory of evolution shaken. Disclaimer: Monkees must wait till human before reading
Rating: 
Summary: Starts out good, but loses credibility toward the end.
Review: In "Tornado in a Junkyard," James Perloff presents a thorough case against the theory of evolution. The book is well-written, and is a very quick read despite its length. But in my opinion, Mr. Perloff tries to prove too much, and ends up losing credibility as a result. Over the first half of the book, Mr. Perloff presents some very convincing scientific evidence that life could have neither appeared nor evolved by random processes, as is claimed by materialistic versions of the theory of evolution. He also includes an excellent chapter on the way that belief in materialistic evolution has had detrimental effects on our culture over the past century or so. These sections of the book are well-argued and quite convincing. But Mr. Perloff goes a bit off the deep end (in my opinion) in chapters 11 through 16. Here the author (apparently) starts with a set of preconceived notions -- for example, that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old, and that dinosaurs did not become extinct until a few hundred years ago. He then presents some evidence to support these ideas, but in my opinion fails to refute the large amount of evidence that goes against them. Thus, I felt that the entire book lost credibility based on the content of these chapters. All in all I was glad that I read this book, because it opened my eyes to the fact that there are many problems with the idea of materialistic evolution, and it encouraged me to find out more about this controversial issue. However, I would be somewhat hesitant to recommend this book as an introduction to this topic, because of the issues I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Perhaps a better book to start with would be "Did Darwin Get It Right?" by George Sim Johnston. This book does not go into as much depth as "Tornado...," but it covers much of the same ground. However, it stays away from the more extraordinary claims which I believe damage the credibility of "Tornado...."
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Summary: Very scholarly debunking of the Darwinian myth
Review: Perloff does great job of piecing together the powerful case against Darwinism for the lay person that sadly is rarley heard in mainstream media. Time and time again we hear about the fact of evolution when in reality the evidence is flimsy and usually misrepresented to make it look better than it really is. For example we often hear about the 'evolution' of bacteria gaining resistance and the 'evolution' of finches beaks and Darwinists tell the world how these examples prove we are all just pond scum. Evolutionists fail to understand these cases never result in a gain of information but are a loss of information. Without new information, new body parts or body plans cannot arise so these examples may prove natural selection but offer no evidence that we are all descendant from some bacteria billions of years ago. He points out often in the book how evolution is really religon disguised as science. The history of evolution proves this with frauds like Piltown man and Haeckal embryos that were used as proof of evolution for decades. Fictional drawings of non-existant fossils like Pithecanthros and pro-avis often showed up in biology books of the past. Evidence that was very fragmented was often extrapolated way beyond the bonds of objectivity like claims of Nebraska man as the missing link and claims the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated life can arise in the lab. Evolution is really just an attack on the Judeo/Christian world religons. Since the vast majority of supporters of evolution are atheistic and usually anti-Christian they will never give up on the theory no matter what the evidence for design is. Since design by definition is ruled evolution wins uncontested. The anti-Christian nature of evolution is no more beautifully illustrated than in the movie Inherit the Wind where Darwinists do to the court transcripts what they do to the evidence for evolution, misrepresent it to support their agenda. I recommend this book highly to the layperson. This book will really get them started on what the evidence for evolution really is and how creationists respond. It also has some good arguments for a young world and he demonstrates that age of the Earth being old as a fact is really based on unprovable assumptions and there is much contradictive evidence that uniformitarians have huge problems explaining. This makes a great supplement to the Answer's Book for those getting started in creation apologetics.
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Summary: Evolution--Theory not Fact
Review: The author states that there is no fossil evidence for any period of transition from one creature to a higher form of life. He also points out the fact that evolution as a result of mutations would be highly unlikely. The book is filled with many quotations of both creation and evolutionist scientists in support of some of his arguments. Darwin presented his findings as a theory of evolution in 1859. Today it is often presented as fact. This book certainly casts doubt on the validity of the arguments in support of the theory of evolution The author felt it was important to note his own history as an atheist in years prior to writing Tornado in a Junkyard.
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Summary: Tornado in a Junkyard
Review: This is an excellent review for those who don't want to get bogged down in the intricacies of scientific words, while remaining true to the scientific concepts. This is despite what some other reviewers have said (who interestingly remain nameless). Perloff uses the latest advances in science to show that there has to be another answer to the question of "how did we get here?" than Darwin's. This book is heavily footnoted for those who wish to look further , or to check out Perloff to see if he is using quotes out of context. The sections revealing outright fraud in the "research" believers of Darwins theory have published over the years is very revealing. A particular section I liked showed that part of the embryology I was taught in medical school was a fraud perpetuated by Ernst Haeckel. Unfortunately this is still being taught today in high school biology. This is an excellent resource for parents who wish to question their school's approach to the matter, and teach their kids to think rather than just regurgitating "scientific propaganda". It also allows parents to show their kids more scientific evidence that the Bible is not just "fairy tales", and that secular scientists just might be wrong.
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Summary: Great overview
Review: This is great book of the creation/evolution debate. Perloff covers all sorts of various subjects and does it in an enjoyable way. Perloff's view on the Scopes trial is intresting and educational. His outlook on genetic variation and the limitation of change in species is invaluble. This book is worth checking out at the library. I find it funny how many of those who gave this book one star don't bother leaving their name. What's the matter, can't stand behind what you say? It is obvious that some didn't read this book. Those who knock the author and say this book isn't worth the paper it is written on need to take a look at the junk their spewing out. Talk about not worth the paper it is written on!!
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Summary: have an open mind and learn
Review: If you're someone who believes in evolution as FACT, I encourage you to read this book. Thanks to scientific advances there's LESS "evidence" today supporting the evolution theory, than there was when Darwin wrote his book. That's right... theory, that's what Darwin called it. He himself had his doubts. So if you're open minded and want to know the truth give this book a chance. I promise you will not be disappointed. Good Luck!
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Summary: Well-documented resource on Creation/Evolution issues
Review: Tornado in a Junkyard now ranks as my first recommendation to anyone interested in investigating the Creation/Evolution controversy. Perloff thoroughly lays out the creationist argument in an approchable manner, while thoroughly documenting his resources. I have read nearly 2 dozen books on the topic of creation and evolution, including books by evolutionists, and Tornado is the most comprehensive and interesting to read from a non-technical standpoint. For someone looking for a rigorously scientific/technical treatment on the origin of life, I'd recommend "Mysteries of Life's Origin" by Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen. However, for an overview of the main issues I can't think of a better and more interesting book. I found the chapters about the play "Inherit the Wind" particularly informative, and am now much more aware of the distortions and stereotypes it perpetuated. He also carefully clarifies important misconceptions that evolutionists have about creationists. For example, creationists do not believe in complete fixity of species as is commonly assumed. God established a wide range of genetic variability in the "created kinds" enabling variation and adaption. This describes horizontal evolution or microevolution, which is observable and accepted by creationists. However, the monophyletic descent (from one ancestral proto-cell to all life today) of all organisms, is macroevolution and unproven and unobserved. Ask any evolutionist today why you don't see apes evolving into humans and fish crawling around on land, and they'll almost always give the same general answers. For example: Either you can't observe it because it happens too slow (meaning they've moved it out of the range of testable and observable science) or they'll give an example of a speciation event, such as the standard Darwin finches (which is just microevolution, and completely acceptable to a creationist). Bottom line is, if you are close-minded and unwilling to consider the evidence, don't bother with this book. Since the atheist has NO CHOICE but to believe in the naturalistic origin of life and the universe, he will doggedly cling to evolution. Ultimately, the study of origins can not be divided from religion, since the a priori assumptions of any person will shape their interpretations of the evidence. Both atheism and theism are religions, and evolution and creation are worldviews flowing from those presumptions. If you do want to at least weigh the evidence for creation/evolution, and become better informed, I highly recommend Tornado in a Junkyard.
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