Rating: 
Summary: a pretty mediocre book
Review: Although it appears that the reviews and "useful votes" posted here are biased in favor of creationism, I'll post my review anyway. I was given this book by a friend, and I thought it will be interesting to know what the point of view of creationism with respect to science/evolution is. The author, who by the way is very well knowledged, throughout the book uses very "scientific" terms in order to dismiss evolution. In order to make his point, he has selected some "hot" topics in science now, such as if the birds descended from the dinosaurs, or not. He also goes to length in describing how whales didn't evolve from land mammals, how humans didn't descend from apes, how the age of the Earth and Universe is more accurate put in ~6000 years, etc. To support these, the author discards radiometric age determination, cites a new cosmology that will allow the light from distant galaxies to travel to Earth in less than 6000 years, and uses gaps in the fossil record to discard evolution. I think it is a pretty mediocre book, since it doesn't bring anything new to discussion, just makes up some ideas, and calls communists and atheists to all the "bad" scientists. And, when the author doesn't have an explanation, he refers to: "The ideas of creation science derive from the conviction that God created the universe - including humans and other living things - all at once in the recent past ". The author forgets that all the advancement of science is a trial and error thing. But the beauty of science is that with a few assumptions everything else fall into place, and we don't have to put everything that we don't understand in the hands of God. I think that if you don't know about science or don't care about it, but you overall believe in creationism, this book was designed just for you. With the tools given here you can "blast" anyone that has no idea how to defend evolution. On the other hand if you are any other type of person, this book is a waste of time and money.
Rating: 
Summary: Evolutionism not Science Education.
Review: Within the short space of 140-odd pages, this book gives a clear, well-documented summary of the major topics of the creation-evolution controversy, e.g. origin and complexity, the design inference, the essential difference between micro- and macro-evolutionary change vis-a-vis the factual evidence (something evolutionist advocates deliberately gloss over), the religious commitment of evolutionists to naturalistic assumptions, etc. The putative evolution of birds, whales, and humans are given a chapter each. The author effectively marshals the scientific evidence to demonstrate that the frequent claim that evolution is proven beyond reasonable doubt, is baseless. Practical and experimental science is religiously neutral, but evolutionary theory is not. Witness the fact that atheistic scientists frequently use evolution to promote an atheistic worldview, while ruthlessly attempting to censor its critics. This pervasive attitude is illustrated by the following words of a leading evolutionist, quoted in the book: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuititive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." Despite its misappropriation of the word "science", the above quote shows why the controversy is so important. This book makes a valuable contribution to that controversy.
Rating:
Summary: Presents ideas that my biology professor cannot refute
Review: The books is an excellent starting point for understanding the creation vs. evolution debate. Not like evolutionists, Refuting Evolution explains the ways in which evolutions present their ideas according to their a priori interpretation. Well backed up with facts. I was constantly amazed at how well and clearly the book present its ideas and their supporting facts. A must read for everyone who takes any course containing evolutionary support. Follow reading this book with Refuting Evolution II.
Check out their website: www.answersingenesis.org
Rating:
Summary: a pretty mediocre book
Review: Although it appears that the reviews and "useful votes" posted here are biased in favor of creationism, I'll post my review anyway. I was given this book by a friend, and I thought it will be interesting to know what the point of view of creationism with respect to science/evolution is. The author, who by the way is very well knowledged, throughout the book uses very "scientific" terms in order to dismiss evolution. In order to make his point, he has selected some "hot" topics in science now, such as if the birds descended from the dinosaurs, or not. He also goes to length in describing how whales didn't evolve from land mammals, how humans didn't descend from apes, how the age of the Earth and Universe is more accurate put in ~6000 years, etc. To support these, the author discards radiometric age determination, cites a new cosmology that will allow the light from distant galaxies to travel to Earth in less than 6000 years, and uses gaps in the fossil record to discard evolution. I think it is a pretty mediocre book, since it doesn't bring anything new to discussion, just makes up some ideas, and calls communists and atheists to all the "bad" scientists. And, when the author doesn't have an explanation, he refers to: "The ideas of creation science derive from the conviction that God created the universe - including humans and other living things - all at once in the recent past ". The author forgets that all the advancement of science is a trial and error thing. But the beauty of science is that with a few assumptions everything else fall into place, and we don't have to put everything that we don't understand in the hands of God. I think that if you don't know about science or don't care about it, but you overall believe in creationism, this book was designed just for you. With the tools given here you can "blast" anyone that has no idea how to defend evolution. On the other hand if you are any other type of person, this book is a waste of time and money.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly Essential -- It Punishes Evolutionism!
Review: Current! Dr. Sarfati provides many of the references out of mainstream science journal articles published in the 1990's. A concise book like Refuting Evolution couldn't cover everything. However, the author gave a wealth of reference at the bottom of the page, therefore, it is not the author's fault if a reviewer (such as the reviewer, Wolf Roder of the Dept. of Geography, UC and member of a local atheist/non-theists group that opposes Creation Science) who is too intellectually lazy to follow up leads. Furthermore, the design explanation holds strong, even if we don't know how precisely the designer worked. We can tell that a Boeing 747Jumbo jet is designed even if we had no idea exactly how it was made. A must for everyone who wants to educate themselves on the topic of origins! Learn what has been withheld from the public for years by the evolutionists that fear the empirical science and valid information this book contains that 'punishes' evolutionism.
Rating: 
Summary: A good starting point in understanding creationism
Review: This is an easy to read and fairly easy to understand primer on the evolution/creationism debate. It is highly weighted towards creationism and the credentials of the author are impressive. He provides some compelling reasons to support the view that the earth is young (~6,000 years old) and expounds upon problems within the evolution model of the origins of the species. While reading the book, I became angry at the evolution community. The scientific community, by definition, should be open to alternative interpretations of scientific data yet they will not even acknowledge the possibility that the creation model better fits the data. This is a debate on a subject that cannot be scientifically verified in a repeatable manner, but instead relies upon assumptions and interpretations. In spite of this, the scientific community treats evolution as a fact. The main argument that the author focuses on is that God created all plants, animals, and humans. The initial creation contained all the genetic information we currently see. The fewer "kinds" or original animals have diversified into species that have lost genetic information. Evolution requires the gaining of genetic information which is major difficulty of evolution. I have read some of the other reviews criticizing certain arguments in the book that I have not investigated as to their validity. Even if the criticisms are valid, they have not even touched the breadth of subject matter contained within the book. I consider myself an intellectual Christian. Yes, there are some issues that I admit that I don't understand and I do stand on faith (i.e. trinity, etc.). But for the most part my spiritual journey is to try to understand God as best I can through scripture and the modern world. Before reading this book, I felt discouraged from the constant refrain of the media and scientific community that this creature is so many "millions" of years old and the earth is so many "billions" of years old. After reading the book, I felt so encouraged spiritually and intellectually. I felt that it wasn't me who was intellectually closed-minded, but the evolution community. A good question is why would they strive so hard to destroy Christianity and religion in general. The author has recently come out with a newer book that is 3 to 4 times as large. I am currently reading it though it focuses not only on the creationism/evolution debate but also the war within Christianity between progressive evolution and creationism. Probably a more important debate to the Christian. About half the book is devoted to both issues since they are related.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional Outbursts and Name-calling make you wonder
Review: The reviewers giving this book a low mark enticed me to buy it.
Seems like a debate column..... I saw name-calling and long winded reviews that could only be explained by someone feeling they are losing an argument. This book, while not explaining everything to my liking, did make me question the brainwashing I received in public schools.
Rating: 
Summary: Histrionics and Propaganda
Review: Sarfati's 'book' - small pages, large font and all - seems to be a collection of half-truths, bizarre extrapolations, aspersion casting, and nonsense. Does anyone really wonder why the only people that give it the time of day are lay creationists? The laughable naiveté displayed by Sarfati in his description of molecular phylogenetics
indicates that he has at best a cursory understanding of it. Considering that Sarfati may have had Batten look
over this section for him - a creationist that has made many of the same errors in his own writing that Sarfati does in his book - there is little reason to wonder how such nonsense made it
into print. Sarfati's 'common designer' alternative is a case in point. He mentions
only similarities - if he had an understanding of how such analyses are
done, he would - or should - have known that it is not mere similarity that
indicates descent. If this 'common designer' schtick of Sarafti's and other creationists made any sense, should not
the DNA of a whale be more 'similar' to that of a shark, given their
morphological similarity? Sarfati even alludes to this when he mentions the
relationships of crocodiles to chickens rather than reptiles (which
actually, contrary to Sarfati's ignorant implication, makes perfect sense). Furthermore, Sarfati makes a blatant false claim on p. 83: "Similarities between human and ape DNA are often exaggerated. This
figure was not derived from a direct comparison of sequences. Rather
the original paper inferred 97% similarity between human and chimp DNA
from a rather crude technique called DNA hybridization." In reality, the % 'similarity' figures had been batted about for a few
years - it was the Sibley paper that got quite a bit of attention
because 1. DNA-DNA hybridization compares the entire single copy genome
2. Sibley and Ahlquist were accused of fraud because they did not
explain the techniques they used in deriving their figures and when
others replicated their work, they came up with slightly different
numbers. The original numbers were gleaned form direct DNA sequence comparisons,
and, sadly for Sarfati's readers (and Sarfati himself), the numbers have been borne out by ever more
studies using many more loci. Studies pre-dating the S&A paper cited in Sarfati's book: Chimpanzee Fetal G-gamma and A-gamma Globin Gene Nucleotide Sequences
Provide Further Evidence of Gene Conversions in Hominine Evolution.
Slightom et al., 1985
Mol Biol Evol 2(5):370-389.
This paper found a 1.4-2.25% nucleotide difference, depending on
which sets of alleles are compared.(1.8 kilobases). That is
97.75-98.6% identity. Primate Eta-Globin DNA and Man's Place Among the Great Apes. Koop et
al., 1986.
Nature 319:234-238. This paper found a 1.7% distance measured by direct comparison of
aligned nucleotide sequences (2.2 kilobases in a pseudogene). That is
98.3%. Just one paper of many post-dating it that come to similar conclusions: A Molecular View of Primate Supraordinal Relationships from the
Analysis of Both Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences. Stanhope et
al., 1993. In Primates and Their Relatives in Phylogenetic
Perspective. MacPhee, ed. This book chapter discusses Epsilon globin gene, (~4 kilobases), 1.1%.
That is 98.9% identity When one knows a little bit of science, creationist claims can seem to
have merit. When one knows quite a bit of science, one can see how shallow and nonsensical creationist claims can be. On the next page, Sarfati refers to electrical engineer ReMine's
self-promotion book and his application of "Haldane's dilemma." Which
it would seem Sarfati does not appear to understand any better than ReMine does. Sarfati writes: "Population genetics calculations shows that animals with human -like
generation times of about 20 years could substitute no more than about
1700 mutations in that time." Where to start? What is the evidence that the ancestor of both humans and apes had a 20
year generation time? Sarfati presents none. ReMine didn't either. Sarfati does not mention that the calculation applies only to fixed,
beneficial mutations, and not all mutations (most of which are neutral
with regard to fitness and so can accrue much faster in a population). Why is that? Was it to make the total estimated difference between
humans and chimps seem that much more unbridgeable? Or was it because
Sarfati, like his Answers in Genesis colleague, Batten, doesn't understand (or care about) the difference? Did Sarfati present any evidence that even if that number is correct, that
human evolution cannot be accounted for? No. Just assertions and emotional rhetoric.
Most other topics were dealt with in a similar fashion. Of course, as is clear from the many positive reviews, the average reader will not know - or care about - the disinformation, the errors of omission, the empty rhetoric, etc. Again, when one knows a little bit of science, creationist claims can seem to
have merit. When one knows quite a bit of science, one can see how shallow and nonsensical creationist claims can be.
Rating:
Summary: Sarfati's Book Fails to Refute Anything
Review: Sarfati's book contains countless errors and numerous misused references. For example, when arguing for a "young" Universe, Sarfati(p. 113) claims that no stage 3 supernova remnants exist in our or neighboring galaxies. However, 166.2+2.5, 180.0-1.7, 189.1+3.0, 279.0+1.1, and 290.1-0.8 are just five undisputed examples of these "nonexistent" remnants. Sarfati(p. 113) also claims that a lack of helium escape from the atmosphere supports its "youth." However, recent NASA images show helium being SWEPT from the Earth's atmosphere into deep space. One event occurred on September 24-25, 1998 after a solar coronal mass emission. Considering these readily seen escape mechanisms and the effects of modern helium pollution, the helium content of the Earth's atmosphere in NO WAY conflicts with the ancient age of the Earth. So, why don't creationists use heavier gases(e.g.,argon) that won't readily escape into space for "dating"? Perhaps, it's because the atmospheric 40argon/36argon is consistent with an ancient Earth. Sarfati(p. 114) further argues that salt accumulation in seawater indicates that oceans are "young." However, this argument fails because creationists have refused to properly consider the removal of sodium from seawater by erupting basalts (albitization). Albitization is real and EASILY identified in the glass rims of pillow basalts. All of Sarfati's attacks on radiometric dating are also erroneous. As one example, Safati(p. 110) claims that with radiometric dating, potassium and uranium are "easily dissolved" in water. However, solubility and weatherability depend on mineralogy and oxidation state. Uranium(IV) is generally insoluble, whereas UO2 +2 is highly soluble. Potassium chloride is soluble, but potassium muscovite is not and it's low on Goldich's weathering series. Clearly, Sarfati does not understand simple chemistry.
Geologists know that sediments may be deposited slowly or rapidly by mudslides, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and other NATURAL catastrophes. Yet, Sarfati's(p. 105) discussions of a rapid depositional event at Mt. St. Helens are presented as news. Besides Pompeii, there have been numerous studies over the years that support rapid NATURAL deposition, including the 1973 studies at Laacher See, Germany. Sarfati(p. 106) also mentions creationist Berhault's lab work on rapid sediment layering as if it's news. However, Berhault's results are similar to layering in catastrophic turbidites, which geologist Bouma described in 1962. Sarfati(p. 105-107) is also mistakenly believes that local natural catastrophes can just be scaled up to produce Noah's flood. As geologists discovered by 1840, nature refutes creationism (e.g., blueschists, varve cycles that correspond beautifully with the Earth's 100,000-year eccentricity, thick non-hydrothermal salt deposits, extinct short-lived radionuclides, radiation movement from the Sun's core, fossil soils, metastable aragonite and obsidian, in place coral reefs and their growth rings, silica cement, fossil desert ventifacts, and even polonium haloes according to a 1989 article by Odom and Rink). Polystrate trees may form from modern mudslides and hurricanes. However, sometimes, their formation is much slower than Sarfati(p. 107) realizes. For example, in 1700 AD, an earthquake caused some coastline trees in Washington State to sink to a few meters below sea level. They're still standing today and are slowly being buried to form polystrate trees. Other modern polystrate trees occur in Texas and at Mt. St. Helens, all without Noah's Flood.
Sarfati(p. 110) mentions how creationist Austin obtained "anomalously old" radiometric dates from Mt. St. Helens. Austin's photographs CLEARLY show zoned feldspar and other broken xenocrysts in the volcanics, which indicate a long history. Considering the enormous number of microscopic xenocrysts in the photographs, it's ignorant to claim that anyone could effectively remove them before the samples were dated. No wonder Austin got old dates. Interestingly, Austin's dates of the impure mineral fractions are consistent with Bowen's reaction series and indicate a LONG history for the volcanics.
Sarfati(p. 18) is correct that science only favors natural explanations. Natural explanations are superior to the wild, untestable supernatural speculations that originate from the boundless imaginations of creationists. If creationists believe that it's suitable to invoke supernatural explanations in biology, why don't they advocate their use in courtrooms, forensic labs, sanitariums, and hospitals? Obviously, even creationists realize that bacteria better explain diseases than demons. Furthermore, any defense attorney would be disbarred if he/she argued that a demon and not the suspect committed the crime. Whether we're dealing with a murder victim, thick salt deposits, or diseases, viable explanations don't involve gods, demons, Noah's Flood or Jack Frost. While creationists object to the lack of eyewitnesses and repeatability in paleontology, how many of them will object to the sole use of forensics with its lack of repeatability and eyewitnesses in criminal trials? Murderers are often solely convicted on forensic evidence without any eyewitness testimony. Indeed, DNA evidence is superior to eyewitness testimonies, which often conflict. At the same time, forensic scientists may have less evidence for the death of a victim than paleontologists have for the death of a dinosaur. How many creationists will demand subjective eyewitness testimony before suspects may be convicted and executed?
Sarfati(p. 15) claims that creationists rely on science, but they really rely on "god-of-the-gaps." Whenever science finds natural explanations and the gap closes, creationists simply remold their plastic Bible interpretations to claim that the Bible had the answers all along (e.g.,Sarfati,p.97-98) or that the obviously ridiculous verses are just non-literal "poetry" (e.g.,Sarfati,p.100-101). Sarfati repeatedly attacks contemporary Christians that support an old Earth in ways that are far more childish than ANYTHING I've ever seen among evolutionists. At the same time, Sarfarti(p. 26) has double standards for famous unorthodox Christians of the past. For example, while denouncing Ross and other contemporary old-Earthers, Sarfarti praises Buckland, Cuvier, Agassiz and Kelvin. Kelvin, for example, believed that the Earth was older than 20 million years. Sarfati(p. 26) also admires Newton, but ignores his Unitarianism. Sarfati (p. 29) even praises Wernher von Braun, but overlooks von Braun's nazism. Galileo, Copernicus and Steno were creationists as Sarfati(p. 26) states, but considering the lethal intolerance of Catholics and Protestants back then, few (DaVinci, Buffon) were brave enough to criticize creationism. Because of the numerous errors in "Refuting Evolution," this book fails to refute anything.
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly Pulverizes Propaganda
Review: Dr. Sarfati's Refuting Evolution presents well-researched documentation, debunking the "just-so stories" that evolutionists would rather educators -- and the rest of the world -- swallow whole. This book is a valuable resource that I highly recommend, a stepping-stone toward decimating the lies we have been spoon-fed for so long.
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