At this moment there are more anti-creationism books available than I care to count. While they can be exciting for neophytes to dig into many repackage the same information and arguments over and over again, and they can quickly grow boring for those who have been following the creationism controversy closely. That is why I was excited to see that the new book For the Rock Record: Geologists on Intelligent Design was going to allow geologists and paleontologists to respond to creationist claims.
The primary difficulty with the volume, however, is that intelligent design does not have much to say about geology. Intelligent design is more like natural theology in that it emphasizes the beauty, complexity, and intricate nature of organisms (often at the microscopic level) over the more traditional bugbears of creationists like the age of the earth and fossils. If ID advocates can convince someone (contrary to the evidence) that the flagellum of a bacteria could not have evolved, for instance, then they feel the door to evolution on the grand scale is closed. Thus modern creationists of the ID stripe care little for geology and paleontology, and what they do say they have cribbed from young earth creationists (i.e. there are no transitional forms).
Given that leading ID advocates often rehash young earth creationist arguments the authors of For the Rock Record seem unsure as how to best attack ID. Should ID be treated as just one type of creationism in general or are there specific arguments ID advocates make that can be addressed by geologists? For much of the volume it seems like the authors took the latter route, and this leads to a lot of repetition. Material that has been amply covered elsewhere, be it in other volumes or even within For the Rock Record itself, is repeated.
I had originally hoped that the volume would be full of illustrations from geology and paleontology that contradict creationist arguments. They are primarily found in the first section called "Rocks and Bones," starting off with Jill Schneiderman's essay on complexity in geology. It is followed by several more entries, including two on transitional fossils by Don Prothero and Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian. Unfortunately, however, I do not think the essays really live up to their full potential. There are few illustrations and each entry is relatively short in length. This section really could have been expanded to be an entire book, and I was disappointed that there was no section on fossil humans. The controversy over creationism is, at its heart, about our relationship to nature and we can't afford to keep ignoring human evolution.
(It is a minor point, but I was also puzzled by the linkage of whales to mesonychids by Prothero: "by now the amazing transformation from land mesonychid to whale is one of the best examples of evolutionary transition." This runs counter to our present understanding that whales are highly derived artiodactyls that are most closely related to raoellids like Indohyus.)
The second section of For the Rock Record deals with "Education, Politics, and Philosophy." To an extent these essays do not draw clear distinctions between intelligent design and young earth creationism, and while the two are not mutually exclusive they are somewhat muddled together in this portion of the book. While this section may be helpful for people who are unfamiliar with claims of creationists, it does not present much that is new for those already familiar with the debate.
The last section may be the most controversial for many readers. It is called "On Religion" and overall it strikes a conciliatory tone. How this section will be read will depend on the preexisting opinion of the reader, but it does contain perhaps the best essay in the book. In "'The God Spectrum' and the Uneven Search for a Consistent View of the Natural World" Warren Allmon looks at different ways in which science and theology interact. While it is a simplification, a person's acceptance of religious doctrine and scientifically-gained information can be plotted along a 'God Spectrum', illustrating the different ways in which people combine scientific and religious ideas.
Allmon's goal appears to be the identification of a theological viewpoint that coincides with our present understanding of evolution works. This is not easy, and Allmon ponders whether those who accept science but also maintain their faith are holding onto different parts of contradictory ideas (particularly in terms of whether our species was destined to be or not). It would seem that in at least some cases those who can be broadly termed theistic evolutionists do push aside genuine conflicts between science and religion, but Allmon does not concede that an effective way to reconcile science and Christian theology is impossible.
In the closing of his essay Allmon considers a deity that does not interfere with the world as we know it but may communicate or act through channels undetectable by science. (A god who may speak to people and expect them to act rather than perform miracles, for instance.) He stresses that this concept might be laughed off as unnecessary, silly, or as a god that no one would want to believe in, but I think it is a valuable discussion for people who accept science and want to maintain their faith. As Allmon states in his conclusion individual readers will react differently (some will think he is too harsh on the faithful while others will think he is too soft on religion), but regardless of individual reactions it is an essay well-worth reading.
Overall For the Rock Record is a book struggling to find its place in the already overstuffed annals of anti-creationism literature. This lack of coherence may be because intelligent design does not directly address aspects of geology and paleontology the way "scientific creationism" or young-earth creationism in have during past public controversies. While I applaud the editors of the volume, Jill Schneiderman and Warren Allmon, for bringing the contributors of the book together to address ID from the perspective of geological sciences I feel that the opportunity was not fully utilized. If you are new to the creationism controversy For the Rock Record may provide a good starting point to get your bearings, but otherwise it does not add much to the conversation that has not been covered before.
- Log in to post comments
"...it does not add much to the conversation that has not been covered before."
Fair enough. This book (at least to me) is meant to compile essays/thoughts on the issue from practicing geologists/paleontologists. Your point that their thoughts on ID aren't 'novel' enough for well-versed students of the debate are well-taken, but the preface correctly points out how most of what we read/hear right now is from the biology/genetics side of things. That the arguments aren't entirely different or novel is perhaps a good thing. A solid alignment among scientists of different disciplines w/in the context of discussing ID has value.
As a geologist, I welcomed such a compilation and learned quite a bit (this might be because I simply haven't read enough books about the subject, I don't know). I enjoyed hearing the varied perspectives from practicing geologists/paleontologists - those 'in the trenches' doing research and/or educating students, rather than from essayists or writers.
That said, I do not think all the essays are that outstanding ... some are good, some not as good. Perhaps that is a function of being a compilation, perhaps some of the essayists are not good writers, I don't know.
I have a post in draft stage, hopefully I can find some time to finish it soon.
Brian; I guess what I meant was that I was hope that there would be more actual geology and paleontology involved in the book. The first section had some potential, but I felt that the second two were more generic. I was glad to see geologists write about the issues, but a lot of the essays did not seem very different from what I had seen written by biologists. I guess I was hoping that there would be more geology in it and that it would not just be written by geologists. I wasn't expecting this book to be 100% new, but I think more could have been done with the premise.
I read this book and was slightly disappointed too, for the reasons mentioned above. Another thing that irritated me was the frequent attacks on 'new atheism' which were not well-backed. Even the Allmon essay (which I loved, otherwise) took it for granted that new atheism is 'wrong' because it's not irrational to share religious beliefs and science...just because...well....it's popular. I would be exaggerating if I said the book should be subtitled 'Geologists on New Atheism' but not by much. Mind you, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be free to disagree with the 'new atheists' (I apologize, but I really hate that term) but if it's going to be attacked in damn near every essay there should be some reasoning behind the attacks rather than dismissing them as wrong and harmful out-of-hand. That said, I wouldn't be harping on this so much if it wasn't for the fact that no one else had mentioned it and I do think it had some significance.
The essay with the section from Paley's work was quite insightful, however, and I think it took a good (if, perhaps, well-worn) approach to the subject in showing how intelligent design, at the core of it, advocates for ignorance in the sense that it gives us a reason to say 'If we can use it without knowing how it works, who cares?'
You know, I think Prothero mentioned mesonychids in his "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters" book, too, in discussing whales.