Evolution and the Myth of Creationism

Evolution and the Myth of Creationism
Author: Tim M. Berra
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 1990
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780804717700

Gives a description of evolutionary theory and analyzes the arguments of the creationists.

Evolutionary Creation

Evolutionary Creation
Author: Denis O. Lamoureux
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2008-06-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725244284

In this provocative book, evolutionist and evangelical Christian Denis O. Lamoureux proposes an approach to origins that moves beyond the "evolution-versus-creation" debate. Arguing for an intimate relationship between the Book of God's Words and the Book of God's Works, he presents evolutionary creation--a position that asserts that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created the universe and life through an ordained and sustained evolutionary process. This view of origins affirms intelligent design and the belief that beauty, complexity, and functionality in nature reflect the mind of God. Lamoureux also challenges the popular Christian assumption that the Holy Spirit revealed scientific and historical facts in the opening chapters of the Bible. He contends that Scripture features an ancient understanding of origins that functions as a vessel to deliver inerrant and infallible messages of faith. Lamoureux shares his personal story and his struggle in coming to terms with evolution and Christianity. Like many, he lost his boyhood faith at university in classes on evolutionary biology. After graduation, he experienced a born-again conversion and then embraced belief in a literal six-day creation. Graduate school training at the doctoral level in both theology and biology led him to the conclusion that God created the world through evolution. Lamoureux closes with the two most important issues in the origins controversy--the pastoral and pedagogical implications. How should churches approach this volatile topic? And what should Christians teach their children about origins?

The Creationists

The Creationists
Author: Ronald L. Numbers
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 636
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674023390

In light of the embattled status of evolutionary theory, particularly as 'intelligent design' makes headway against Darwinism in the schools and in the courts, this account of the roots of creationism assumes new relevance. This edition offers an overview of the arguments and figures at the heart of the debate.

The Evolution-Creation Struggle

The Evolution-Creation Struggle
Author: Michael RUSE
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0674042972

In his latest book, Ruse uncovers surprising similarities between evolutionist and creationist thinking. Exploring the underlying philosophical commitments of evolutionists, he reveals that those most hostile to religion are just as evangelical as their fundamentalist opponents. But more crucially, and reaching beyond the biblical issues at stake, he demonstrates that these two diametrically opposed ideologies have, since the Enlightenment, engaged in a struggle for the privilege of defining human origins, moral values, and the nature of reality.

Creationism USA

Creationism USA
Author: Adam Laats
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-09-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0197516610

Who are America's creationists? What do they want? Do they truly believe Jesus rode around on dinosaurs, as sometimes depicted? Creationism USA reveals how common misconceptions about creationism have led Americans into a century of unnecessary culture-war histrionics about evolution education and creationism. Adam Laats argues that Americans do not have deep, fundamental disagreements about evolution - not about the actual science behind it and not in ways that truly matter to public policy. Laats asserts that Americans do, however, have significant disagreements about creationism. By describing the history of creationism and its many variations, Laats demonstrates that the real conflict about evolution is not between creationists and evolution. The true landscape of American creationism is far more complicated than headlines suggest. Creationism USA digs beyond those headlines to prove two fundamental facts about American creationism. First, almost all Americans can be classified as creationists of one type or another. Second, nearly all Americans (including self-identified creationists) want their children to learn mainstream evolutionary science. Taken together, these truths about American creationism point to a large and productive middle ground, a widely shared public vision of the proper relationship between schools, science, and religion. Creationism USA both explains the current state of America's battles over creationism and offers a nuanced yet straight-forward prescription to solve them.

Evolution Vs. Creationism

Evolution Vs. Creationism
Author: Eugenie C. Scott
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2009-08-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0520261879

Presents the scientific evidence for evolution and reasons why it should be taught in schools, provides various religious points of view, and offers insight to the evolution-creationism controversy.

Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation

Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation
Author: Adam Laats
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 022633144X

No fight over what gets taught in American classrooms is more heated than the battle over humanity’s origins. For more than a century we have argued about evolutionary theory and creationism (and its successor theory, intelligent design), yet we seem no closer to a resolution than we were in Darwin’s day. In this thoughtful examination of how we teach origins, historian Adam Laats and philosopher Harvey Siegel offer crucial new ways to think not just about the evolution debate but how science and religion can make peace in the classroom. Laats and Siegel agree with most scientists: creationism is flawed, as science. But, they argue, students who believe it nevertheless need to be accommodated in public school science classes. Scientific or not, creationism maintains an important role in American history and culture as a point of religious dissent, a sustained form of protest that has weathered a century of broad—and often dramatic—social changes. At the same time, evolutionary theory has become a critical building block of modern knowledge. The key to accommodating both viewpoints, they show, is to disentangle belief from knowledge. A student does not need to believe in evolution in order to understand its tenets and evidence, and in this way can be fully literate in modern scientific thought and still maintain contrary religious or cultural views. Altogether, Laats and Siegel offer the kind of level-headed analysis that is crucial to finding a way out of our culture-war deadlock.

The Triumph of Evolution

The Triumph of Evolution
Author: Niles Eldredge
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2001-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780805071474

After studying the debate for 20 years, a leading expert on evolution counters creationist arguments with a simple overview of the evolutionary process. Instead of pitting science against religion, the author focuses on evolution to address catastrophic species loss on Earth. 2 illus.

Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails)

Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails)
Author: Matt Young
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2009-05-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0813548640

Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) is an impassioned argument in favor of science—primarily the theory of evolution—and against creationism. Why impassioned? Should not scientists be dispassionate in their work? “Perhaps,” write the authors, “but it is impossible to remain neutral when our most successful scientific theories are under attack, for religious and other reasons, by laypeople and even some scientists who willfully distort scientific findings and use them for their own purposes.” Focusing on what other books omit, how science works and how pseudoscience works, Matt Young and Paul K. Strode demonstrate the futility of “scientific” creationism. They debunk the notion of intelligent design and other arguments that show evolution could not have produced life in its present form. Concluding with a frank discussion of science and religion, Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails) argues that science by no means excludes religion, though it ought tocast doubt on certain religious claims that are contrary to known scientific fact.

Defending Evolution in the Classroom

Defending Evolution in the Classroom
Author: Brian J. Alters
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780763711184

A novel handbook that explains why so many secondary and college students reject evolution and are antagonistic toward its teaching.