Now Available...

Jason,

I just downloaded the Nook version and plan to start it tomorrow. I've been looking forward to this!

Hi Jason

I would love to buy and read your book - however
I won't buy it from Amazon
Two Reasons
A lot of the books I want are "unavailable in your region"
I feel censored!!

I like my Kindle to read on but it is awful to organize and keep my library
Amazon books have DRM so I can't put them in my E-Library with my other books
If I move them I need to go though a song and dance with Amazon before I can read them
What happens when Amazon is no longer there?

I would much prefer you to sell your books on Baen - they have a much better system
And Baen has never told me
"You can't buy that because you are in the wrong region"

I was wondering whether I should just wait for the printed version, but the preview and price convinced me. First ebook purchased!

Hopefully I'll have the patience to be able to read a full book sitting at my computer.

I just received a notice that the print version is delayed to mid-April.

Any info on iTunes/iBooks?

Do you know if the Nook version has DRM? The reason I ask is because most of their books do, and this prevents them from being read on other readers (e.g. Kobo, Sony, etc.) without (illegally) stripping the DRM. Same with Amazon and Apple. All other sellers that I'm aware of use the same format and same DRM and their books are readable on anything except a Kindle.

Unfortunately there's usually no way to tell if B&N or Amazon books have DRM until you actually buy them.

Just got, will start on it tonight...

Due to time constraints I've only been able to read a quarter of the book so far, but...wow. Anyone who regularly reads Jason's blog would expect clear, lucid prose with a side dish of wit--and find it in the book. Similarly, the expected insightfulness is there.

What surprises me so far, though, is how many new things I've learned. After more than ten years of following the evolution/creation controversy--and considering that there's a fundamentalist Christian YEC in my very own family--I thought I'd encountered every argument on both sides. I was wrong. While remaining unshakable in his rationality, Jason provides insight and even compassion into creationist thought that could only have come from his willingness to meet believers repeatedly, personally, and on their own terms. His perspective is fresh and illuminating.

It's a shame the metaphor from Revelation stops at four horsemen; Jason deserves to be galloping right there alongside the rest.

Just downloaded, will start reading immediately. Am really looking forward to this.

Got it for my Nook last night. One bitch: The links from text to footnotes work fine, but the return links from footnotes back to text don't work. So one has to memorize an infrequently used word on the footnoted page, return to the cover, and search for the memorized word (with a stop at every use of it) to get back to one's place in the text from a footnote.

@RBH - use the back function - it should return you to where you were last reading.

Done! I've been looking forward to this. Great price too!

Three-quarters of the way through the book, and happy to report all my original statements still hold true. The only problem is, when the book becomes available in print I'll have to buy it again to stand on the shelf alongside my other favorite titles in the genre.

Ah, well, money well spent.

Just read an excerpt on Amazon...looks terrific and I'm going to place and order for a hardcopy. The stuff I read was both funny and insightful. Basically, you've done an ethnography of the creationism movement. Do you want to join our Soc/Anth department? I'm pretty sure we have better offices.

About 25% through and really enjoying it so far.

A quick question: "There was still a large crowd waiting to ask questions, and I did want to monopolize his time." <- is there a "not" missing from this sentence?

Damn, got cut off by my careless use of the < symbol.

Was meant to ask, is the word "not" missing from that sentence?

I finished the book yesterday, and have nothing to add to my previous posts. So I'll just repeat myself: it's both a pleasure to read (in a scary way) and enlightening, with fresh perspectives on an old problem and new insights into stuff I thought I already knew.

Everybody should buy and read it.

I just finished Among the Creationists.This is probably the best book on creationism that I have read (of a pretty good number). I particularly liked the fact that you actually went out and met them on their own grounds, interacted in a generally amicable way and found out how they actually think about things. The philosophical issues were well discussed. There were a few places where I was somewhat mystified. I'll re-read them and get back to you if I don't understand. Also I'm sympathetic to fact that an atheist can attend seders, since it is something i've done for 20 years at least (and I'm not even Jewish).

Richard Thomas, NevertheTwain --

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the book.

rich lawler --

You make a tempting offer! Roop Hall is one more piece of evidence for my theory that if you want to find the math dept. on any college campus, just look for the ugliest building and that's likely to be it. On the other hand, I'm already anticipating that the philosophers are going to yell at me for discussing philosophy, so maybe I don't want word to reach the sociologists that I'm tredding on their turf too.

I also have finished "Among the Creationists". I like its tone, critical without being nasty, and trying to be understanding. Compared to a lot of creationists' rhetoric, that's awfully close to turning the other cheek.

As to being understanding, I think that you did a lot better job than geneticist Richard Lewontin did in his review of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World": "Billions and Billions of Demons". He seemed to think that creationism is some sort of proletarian revolt against an evolution-believing bourgeoisie. He also complained about how having to believe in a lot of absurdities in the name of science. I expected him to complain about the absurdity of the Earth being shaped like a ball -- wouldn't everything on the other side be upside down?

I found your response to creationist claims interesting. For a while, you wondered if the case for evolution had been overstated. But you quickly saw through creationist mathematical arguments. It's sort of like Carl Sagan and a professor of Semitic literatures evaluating the Solar-System history of Immanuel Velikovsky. Each one thought that what Velikovsky stated in that one's specialty was nonsense, but each one was impressed with what Velikovsky stated in the other one's specialty.

The similarity goes farther. Like Velikovskyism, "creation science" sometimes seems like a valiant effort, but like Velikovskyism, it is doomed to fail.