Darwin on Trial

Book Description

Phillip E. Johnson offers a reasoned and scientifically sound evaluation of the support for Darwinism--from fossil records to molecular biology.

Customer Reviews:

Naturalistic Evolution - a fundamentalist religion - natural select breakdown - fossil problem.......2007-09-28

The case against evolution examines the logical errors in the theory. Evidence does not create law. There are man made laws and there are divine laws. Divine laws can only be discovered and not created. 1 Cor 15:38-39 38. "But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body". 39. "All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds". All life has a spiritual pattern. Each life form operates within a sphere of glory and intelligence. A flower does not evolve into an elephant. Breeders can produce specific traits in offspring. However, no new species have been breed that can survive outside their original sphere. The resurrection is proof that evolution is false. Christ was the first fruits to overcome death and receive a glorified and exalted body of glory. It is impossible for a lesser sphere to evolve into a greater sphere of glory. D&C 130:22-23. 22. The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." 23. "A man may receive the Holy Ghost, and it may descend upon him and not tarry with him." Life came from older sphere and was brought to earth during the creation. Life did not evolve. The earth was organized from existing matter. Scientist claim the cosmos may be 12 billion years old and the elements the product of super nova stars. The elements are eternal and the elements can neither be created nor destroyed. Jesus Christ was the creator of many worlds. D&C 76:24. "That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters of God." A spiritual transformation must be in place affecting life forms before Christ's second coming to withstand his glory. Evolution can't and will not address what would happen in the presence of a being of glory. Evolution must maintain a narrow scope for its explanations. Evolutionary explanations must be incremental and malleable enough to predict small naturalistic changes resulting over millions of years. Any cataclysmic change can't be predicted or explained and should be avoid. Naturalistic evolution is a political, economic, and social tool. Evolution destroys morality and does not acknowledge Christ's resurrection and atonement. Evolution does not answer the question, "What is the purpose of life?" Evolution doctrines can't be falsified until a substitute theory is in place as a working solution. Evolution can't explore the non- verifiable data nor can it explore all the possibilities. Evolution can't prove entropy. Evolution is improvable because it is incomplete. D&C 101:24 "And every corruptible thing, both of man, or of the beast of the field, or the fowls of the heavens, or of the fish of the sea, that dwells upon the all the face of the earth, shall be consumed." Adam was the first man on the earth. All major civilizations start after the flood. Prehistoric man has limited about of physical evidence and could fit all on one table. Evolutionist have created a fantastic fantasy about the origins of man, yet are unable to demonstrate the common ancestor from which man came. Adam was created in the image of God and not ape. "Evolution in the Darwinist usage implies a completely naturalistic metaphysical system, in which matter evolved to its present state of organized complexity without any participation by a creator." Darwin conclusion that "mutability" provided the mechanism for all life is parasitic. Evolution can't create higher life forms. Mechanized evolution has not demonstrated life. Evolution accommodates to make the theory fit fossil evidences.

Evolution is a hypothesis a not a fact. "Scientist were believed to formulate theories in order to explain pre-existing experimental data, and to verify their theories by accumulating additional supporting evidence. " "In scientific practice the theory normally precedes the experiment or fact finding process rather than the other way around." A problem or question must be posed for discovery and explanation." Evolution insists on Logic positivism demanding verifiability. Evolution scientists are fanatics, desperate not to be wrong, and look for the breakthrough fact that will vindicate them. Popper believed that science began with an imaginative or even mythological conjecture about the world. Evolution is a fundamentalist religion. "Whenever science is enlisted in some other cause - religious, political, or racialistic - the result is always that the scientist themselves become fanatics."

The fossil problem is that the fossil records do not prove gradual change. The history of fossils suggests 1. "Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless." 2. "Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." Therefore, one can conclude the theory of natural selection is not a fact, as an explanation of species origination and morphological directions.

Engaging read!.......2007-09-27

This is a great book and should be required reading for those studying Darwinism in school.

Christian Biologist says Oversimplified.......2007-06-19

This book is preaching to the choir... and oh, by the way, I'm in the choir, as a Christian... but the biologist in me found this much too simplistic. Of course, I've studied evolution at the graduate level and Mr. Johnson's background is in law. Johnson makes some good points, but doesn't have a full-orbed understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of evolution. This book doesn't really help or hurt the case for God.

3 1/2 stars - Mostly Uninspiring........2007-05-24

To begin with, as other readers have said, this book does show it's age. Having read many interesting books discussing both sides of evolution recently, this fell a bit flat for me for one reason.

In the first few pages of the book, the author takes the time to inform the reader of his personal beliefs and religious background. He goes on to say that he is not arguing in favor of Intelligent Design but merely examining and questioning the various aspects of "Darwinism". The problem arises when the author builds a case for his point, a case that is well executed and insightful, and then leans on the crutch of a "Creator". To me, that smacks of ID and refutes one of the few positive things I might have taken from a book of this nature.

NOT A RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALIST ... JUST ASKING.......2007-05-10

I admit it - I've always thought some aspects of the whole evolution idea didn't seem to hang together. Phillip E. Johnson questions all of it in this book, which obviously has been controversial. But why not look at all the claims of evolution and ask for the proof? Does everyone who questions whether one species can really turn into another, or who doesn't believe life began by chance in some primordial slime have to be labeled a "creation science" religious nut?

Johnson says the fossil record does not support the "transitional" species that should have been found by now. Others say the fossil record does provide examples of these. Hard for us non-scientists to sort that one out. Johnson raises the issue of macro-evolution vs. micro-evolution. Can a new species appear sudenly, or are changes made very slowly over the centuries, in line with the uniformitarianism thinking of Darwin's day? Johnson does not think tiny changes over time can really account for the changes in the animals on earth going back to the beginning, as demonstrated through the fossil record.

I was disappointed that Johnson says nothing at all about the most controversial species change - that of human beings. In the infamous Scopes "monkey trial," the main bone of contention was the idea that man and monkey were relatives who both descended from a common ancestor. How and when did human become human and not simian? When I was a kid, we used to make jokes about "the missing link." No one talks about the missing link anymore, but if I'm not mistaken, no transitional creature between human and our common ancestor with other primates has been found.

I think the strongest part of this book is Johnson's contention that science has become a religion for many who buy into the total evolution theory. Science is supposed to be about testable hypotheses, but evolution is argued mainly from logic. We cannot travel back millions of years to see if chemicals coming together in some swamp became alive. We cannot watch the process of a dinosaur turning into a bird, even though the fictional Paleontologist in Jurassic Park believed the one species was the ancestor of the other.

It is obvious that some scientists are so wedded to their atheism that they start with the concept that all life is accidental, without purpose, the result of natural selection. Clearly, the concept of natural selection works within one species (animals that change color to match their environment and conceal themselves form predators, for instance), but Johnson rightly asks how one species becomes another. It's not ok to ask a dedicated evolutionist: What if you are wrong? But it is ok for them to ridicule any suggestion that there is a purpose behind the universe, that life is more than a chemical reaction, and humans are more than relatives of apes. Strict evolutionists cannot prove their claims, yet maintain that it's all true. Evolution does make some sense, and does have some evidence to support it, but absolute proof is not obtainable. Evolution is a theory, not a religion.

And speaking of religion, fundamentalists are entitled to have their say, but should not promote "creation science" (which is no science at all). I DO want to see children learn about Darwin and his ideas about evolution, which have been so influential, but I also want to have future generations that ask questions, think for themselves, and ask for proof about anything they are told they must believe. Johnson may be wrong in much of his criticism, but I applaud him for making a rational case against insistence that evolution, like any religious belief that is without proof, is a fact.

40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania

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A Declaration of War
Fascinating Trial; Mediocre Account
21St CENTURY SCOPES TRIAL: DARWIN: 40 INTELLIGENT DESIGN: 0 (ID STRIKES OUT)
Don't Judge This Book By Its Cover
Like a box of chocolates: tasty, and with lots of nuts

40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania
Matthew Chapman
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0061179450
Release Date: 2007-04-10

Book Description

In this fascinating story of evolution, religion, politics, and personalities, Matthew Chapman captures the story behind the headlines in the debate over God and science in America

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education, decided in late 2005, a Republican judge rendered a surprising verdict in a case that pitted the teaching of intelligent design (sometimes known as "creationism in a lab coat") against the teaching of evolution. Taking place in a small Pennsylvania school district, the case had national repercussions, all the way up to President Bush, who said he believed intelligent design should be taught as "an alternative theory" to evolution.

Matthew Chapman, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, spent several months covering the trial from beginning to end. Through his in-depth encounters with the participants—creationists, preachers, teachers, scientists on both sides of the issue, lawyers, theologians, the judge, and the eleven parents who resisted the fundamentalist proponents of intelligent design—Chapman tells a sometimes terrifying, often hilarious, and above all moving story of ordinary people doing battle in America over the place of religion and science in modern life.

Written with a filmaker's eye for character and detail, and including insights only a descendent of Darwin could bring forth, Chapman paints an entertaining, yet disturbing picture of America today.

Customer Reviews:

A Declaration of War.......2007-08-28

I like to think of Forty Days and Forty Nights as the first salvo of a battle to take our country back from the evangelicals who have intimidated our elected officials into ritualistic declarations of faith and foolish legislation. Matthew Chapman tells how ordinary people in a small Pennsylvania town stood up courageously to the faithbound who tried to insert their brand of religious creationism into public education. These ordinary citizens risked their reputations and in some cases their livelihoods to preserve the constitutional wall between Church and State. By following the citizens' litigation opposing the local school board's purchase for use in classroom biology of a textbook espousing "intelligent design" as an alternative to the teaching of evolution, Chapman uses the recorded testimony of the combatants to expose the "inanity" (the judge's final word) of the school board's case. The lesson is clear: only such fearless opposition can break the hold which the evangelicals have gained in our country over public policy.

Fascinating Trial; Mediocre Account.......2007-08-06

Chapman's account of the issues and personalities that shaped the famed Kitzmiller v. Dover case in Pennsylvania is a truly entertaining read. There's so much great material here that one can't help but be fascinated by the trial transcripts, interviews, and examples of Intelligent Design (ID) "literature" that Chapman includes here.

In particular, Chapman does a fine job of illustrating the contrasting personalities that made up the school board which introduced ID to Dover-area public schools. Without editorializing too much, Chapman shows how the board did the public a disservice by letting their religious views blind their commitment to the education of an increasingly lethargic student body. It's sad to hear how Dover-area kids were let down by a cohort of fundamentalists who, as the trial proceedings demonstrate, actually had very little to no knowledge of what constitutes evolution and what constitutes ID (much less what the scientific method is all about). So as the board was busy legislating religion in Dover, students were tuning out amidst a crumbling school infrastructure and an uninspiring curriculum. That's the most unfortunate aspect of this tale.

For me, the problem with this book is simple: there's so much great material to work with here, but Chapman is a mediocre storyteller at best. There are long sections of the book where he quotes from transcripts or interviews without any narrative insight. He describes at least six or seven of the trial participants as "good-looking." His tone alternates between flippant and cavalier -- rarely sensitive to detail and nuance. His account of the trial's finale is reduced to saying, "You've heard this before, so I'll only quote this part of X's closing statement..." And the conclusion to his narrative, "Revelation," puts forth a bizarre rant that attempts to link the rise of religious fundamentalism in America with the demise of the so-called Protestant work ethic.

I wish Chapman had engaged the trial -- the issues and the personalities -- with more tact and intelligence. This is a fun read, but it's too much "wink wink, nudge nudge" and not enough well-rounded description and analysis. For a far better account of this trial, see Margaret Talbot's article in The New Yorker, which appeared just after the trial's completion.

21St CENTURY SCOPES TRIAL: DARWIN: 40 INTELLIGENT DESIGN: 0 (ID STRIKES OUT) .......2007-07-31

Not since early Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe have I had as much fun reading a witty, provocative piece of journalistic writing as I've had in screenwriter Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, GOD, OxyContin AND OTHER Oddities ON TRIAL IN Pennsylvania". It's an enthralling, often humorous tome, that owes more to the mordant humor of Frank McCourt, in his bestselling memoirs "Angela's Ashes" and "Teacher Man", than it does to the rather dry, but never dull, prose of Chapman's great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin, in his scientific classic, "Origin of Species". In the fall of 2005, Chapman attended the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District Trial, as an accredited journalist and filmmaker, intent on making a documentary film on the trial, the town and its people. However, this would soon become a personal trek of self-reflection and discovery, in which he would make a most remarkable conclusion on the teaching of creationism in science classrooms. A trek which took him back to Dover, PA often, holding substantive conversations with the key players on both sides of the issue. And while Chapman truly strives for a cinematic narrative, fading in and out between brief discussions of the 20th Century Scopes Trial, the Discovery Institute, and his illustrious ancestor's revolutionary scientific research, the book's emphasis remains focused upon himself and his conversations with the people of Dover. So those in search of an extensive, truly profound, overview of the trial's origins and history might be best served elsewhere, most notably by reading Edward Humes' definitive, well-written account of the trial in his book "Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul", but they would miss much of the personal drama that Chapman has vividly recorded, using his prose as though it was his video camera lens, exquisitely recording all of the detail present.

Chapman's narrative is more linear in focus than Humes' comprehensive account, and adheres more closely to a chronological perspective. One that starts with the Dover Area School District board's decision in the fall of 2004 to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution, unexpectedly starting a civil war within the town itself, led by the ardent Fundamentalist Christians on the board, against those in the Dover community who were appalled by the board's decision. Among the most sympathetic figures is unexpectedly the board's firebrand, Bill Buckingham, who ruefully admits to Chapman that he's addicted to the painkiller OxyContin, and blames it, not himself, for some of his most outlandish comments, at the board's meetings, that were reported accurately by the local press. Chapman's truly moving, poignant portrayal of him strongly hints that he is, indeed, a lost soul afflicted by drug addiction. It is through moving portraits like those of Buckingham, and his arch-nemesis, former board member Barrie Callahan, that we get a strong sense of the political and religious strife which embroiled the people of Dover for more than a year, beginning in the summer of 2004, when the board left the Dover High School science teachers twisting in the wind, simply because Buckingham had objected to the teaching of "Darwinism" - and that mentioned only briefly - in the newest edition of a popular high school textbook co-authored by Brown University cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller, who, himself, is the subject of a sympathetic portrayal by Chapman in which he explains the rationale for science's faithful adherence against "dealing with issues of meaning or purpose" during his court testimony.

However, it isn't Kenneth R. Miller who emerges as the hero of Chapman's vividly told tale. Instead, the honors rest upon the attorneys for the plaintiffs, most notably, lead attorney Eric Rothschild, and, quite unexpectedly, philosopher of science Barbara Forrest. Rothschild is depicted as a most congenial, yet still quite, astute, legal warrior in the courtroom, who is able to pry gently from leading Intelligent Design advocate - and star defense witness - Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe a surprising admission that astrology could be viewed as scientific, based on Behe's own broad definition of what science is, one that includes the potential study of supernatural phenomena; a definition which runs counter to the one subscribed to by the National Academy of Sciences and mainstream science: a rational enterprise that is completely divorced from the supernatural realm (During this memorable "duel" of a cross-examination between Rothschild and Behe, Chapman observes Behe "smiling defiantly" as Rothschild reads the infamous disclaimer posted on the website of Lehigh University biological sciences department acknowledging evolution's scientific validity, but noting too Behe's academic freedom to pursue "research" on Intelligent Design. He draws the conclusion that Behe feels intense pain from this rejection by his own departmental colleagues.). Chapman demonstrates why philosopher Barbara Forrest may have been the plaintiffs' most effective witness. Led on by attorney Rothschild, she begins her testimony with an elegant overview of the history of the creationism, especially during the last two decades of the 20th Century, emphasizing the origins and early history of the "Intelligent Design" movement. And then she reveals the pivotal "smoking gun" in an accurate, yet dramatic fashion, documenting the text changes made in the early drafts of the Intelligent Design textbook "Of Pandas and People", noting the ample instances in which "creation" was substituted with "design", not scores of times, but at least more than one hundred different instances in the text itself. Later, she ends her testimony in a memorably tedious cross-examination by lead defense attorney Richard Thompson that drags on for nearly a day and a half.

Chapman concludes "40 Days and 40 Nights" on a most idiosyncratic, personal note, and one that he has alluded to ever since the very first page of his memoir. He contends that we should allow creationism into the science classroom, so that it can be "dissected", in much the same fashion as it was during the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial, by allowing teachers to "explore the limitations of faith through the revelatory methods of science", and resulting in "verdicts" identical to Republican Federal Judge Jones' conclusion that Intelligent Design wasn't scientific. Emotionally, it is a sentiment that I found myself quite unexpectedly, at first, to be in complete agreement. However, on second thought, I concur with Ken Miller's observation that introducing Intelligent Design into science classrooms would be a "science stopper". It would conflate most students' understanding of what exactly is the difference between religious faith and science, though I suppose that some truly gifted students, like those attending prominent American high schools such as Alexandria, Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and New York City's Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School, might readily understand and appreciate these distinctions. And yet I am inclined to agree more with the harsh view articulated by distinguished British paleontologist Richard Fortey in his essay published in the January 30, 2007 issue of the British newspaper Telegraph, contending that it is an absolute waste of time arguing with Intelligent Design advocates, and that they ought to be dismissed as "IDiots"; by extension, so would be the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside evolution in a science classroom. I would rather see talented students from Thomas Jefferson, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant engage themselves fruitfully in genuine scientific research of the highest caliber, than in trying to understand the metaphysical, religious nonsense known as Intelligent Design and other flavors of creationism. I think, in hindsight, so would Charles Darwin.

Don't Judge This Book By Its Cover.......2007-07-26

Alas, Darwin's great-grandson has not been well served by his publisher. Athough Chapman's description of the dramatis personae of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial is both engaging and illuminating, the book's presentation suffers from a lack of attention by its publisher and/or editor.

The cover itself seems to advertize a work of pulp fiction, not an entertaining account of a trial with historic implications. It's reference to " . . . Oxycontin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania" is not only false, but unnecessary; the actual content of the book would be its best advertisement.

Another reviewer has commented on the hilariously unflattering photo of the author, which implies that the publisher does not take this book seriously. And a firmer editorial hand might have spared us such phrases as the Center for Thought and Ethics having provided certain documents "thoughtfully and ethically," and a book with a panda on the cover being referred to as "unbearable."

Apart from the general cutesiness of the author's attempts at puns, the account of the trial and its aftermath make for entertaining and informative reading.

But the final chapter, in which Chapman argues that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools so that its falsity can be demonstrated is tedious. Worse, Chapman apparently fails to appreciate the irony: he is, in essence, arguing FOR the first step of the "wedge strategy" advocated by the Discovery Institute, that is, to "Teach the Controversy," thus elevating "Intelligent Design" to a level apparently competitive with evolution. Given Chapman's obvious viewpoint expressed in the book, his failure to appreciate the implications of his final disquisition is disappointing. Not to mention that demonstrating the falsity of Intelligent Design in athe classroom might well run afoul of the Establishment clause of the Constitution.

40 Days and 40 Nights has the appearance of having been rushed into print with little attention to serious editing. The publisher should be embarrassed.

Like a box of chocolates: tasty, and with lots of nuts.......2007-07-05

This book is about the famous Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board case.

The school board, controlled by science-illiterate, religious fanatics and following the advice of other, science-illiterate, religious fanatics at the Thomas More Law Center, overruled Dover High's own science faculty and forced through a policy mandating that the freshman biology course include a statement that misrepresented and criticized evolutionary theory and provided information about an untested creationist alternative called "intelligent design." (Intelligent design is a "scientific" theory whose primary advocates are yet another bunch of religious kooks at the Discovery Institute.)

After the school board passed that policy, several parents sued, alleging that the policy violated the First Amendment's provision regarding separation of church and state. After a full trial, the court eventually ruled that, duh, ID was a religious theory and had no place in science class.

The book has three main ingredients. The trial itself serves as the unifying theme for the book, so the first ingredient, of course, is a description of the courtroom action, including very brief summaries of some of the testimony of the experts for both plaintiffs and defendants on the main points of the trial. Chapman does comment on some of the technical aspects of the trial, but only occasionally and very briefly. In general there is very little analysis of the merits of the scientific, legal, or philosophical arguments that both sides presented, so if you're looking for detailed information about those issues, you may want to look elsewhere.

The second ingredient is a brief summary chapter in which Chapman argues in favor of teaching creationism/ID in science classes.

The book's third and most important ingredient is the "human interest" or background stories about many of the characters on both sides of the tragicomedy of the trial; and it is this ingredient that makes the book such a tasty read. The anecdotes and revealing glimpses into the personalities, backgrounds, and motivations of the main actors are generally presented with warmth, sensitivity, and, frequently, with a great deal of humor. Many of the anecdotes were downright hilarious. Unfortunately, several anecdotes were of a more disturbing nature.

The anecdotes revealing the dishonesty of the board members and the hypocrisy of the Thomas More Law Center will probably not be surprising to anyone who has followed the evo/crevo dispute in any detail, but the reports about the school board's arrogant, religious bigotry may be shocking simply for how open and public it was. The cowardice of the Discovery Institute's William Dembski and Stephen Meyer in failing to testify was also interesting, and Dick Carpenter's unexplained disappearance was simply mystifying. (Carpenter is associated with Focus on the Family, another group of religious cranks.) Other anecdotes report on the school board members' appalling lack of intellectual curiosity about the changes they were making to the science curriculum. That will probably not surprise anyone who has followed the dispute in any detail either, since many of the pro-ID statements from school officials in Kansas a couple of years ago were just as appallingly ignorant. The vicious hate mail and personal attacks that the plaintiffs and their school-age children endured show once again that freedom isn't free. In sharp contrast to Dembski's and Meyer's cowardice, the plaintiffs showed a lot of courage in standing up to the religious bullies on the school board and in the local pulpits. If the Christian God is indeed a God of love, then some of those clergymen are going to have to answer some day for their hateful actions and comments.

Again, if you're looking for detailed, technical analyses of any part of the evo/crevo debate or a formal, historical treatment of the trial, this book is probably not going to satisfy you, but the human interest stories in this book are truly a feast.

P.S. Even if you don't buy the book, at least take a look at the inside jacket cover. The picture of Chapman is hilarious.

In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series)

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In the Beginning: Fundamentalism, the Scopes Trial, and the Making of the Antievolution Movement (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series)
Michael Lienesch
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0807830968

Book Description

The current controversy over teaching evolution in the public schools has grabbed front-page headlines and topped news broadcasts all across the United States. In the Beginning investigates the movement that has ignited debate in state legislatures and at school board meetings. Reaching back to the origins of antievolutionism in the 1920s, and continuing to the promotion of intelligent design today, Michael Lienesch analyzes one of the most formidable political movements of the twentieth century.

When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, and American Intellectuals (American Intellectual Culture)

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6 essays on how darwin changed american religion
A well-balanced, intellectual and thoughtful discourse

When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, and American Intellectuals (American Intellectual Culture)
Paul K. Conkin
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0847690644

Book Description

When All the Gods Trembled narrates the drama of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, and describes the varied attempts by early 20th century Americans to accommodate Darwinism into their religious traditions. Conkin's sweeping narrative about this complex relationship is destined to change the way all Americans think about Darwin, the Scopes trial, and American religious and intellectual thought.

Customer Reviews:

6 essays on how darwin changed american religion.......2003-07-26

Even if you disagree with every word he writes, you can't put the book down. it is that good. I have a hard time pointing out exactly what it is that makes this such a good book: partly he is an extraordinarily interesting writer, partly the book is chock full of absolute gems, i highlighted something on nearly every page. Partly the attentiveness to what lies underneath the surface, what isn't obvious about the topic in his hands becomes insight, the ah-ha experience that has you saying "why didn't i see that before?" But mostly, he is an addictive writer, drawing you into his comprehensive research, sharing his love of the ideas he presents, pulling you into his intellectual world more like a good novelist than the historian he is.

He spells out the topic on the first page of the preface:
"What follows are six essays. They involve large, often cosmic issues. They involve a challengeable assumption--that the most foundational beliefs of Americans, almost all of which derive from the Judeo-Christian tradition, faced such an array of intellectual challenges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as to amount to a major crisis of faith. This crisis first climaxed in the mid-1920's, but the issues have remained at the very center of cultural conflict. The crisis involved the credentials of age-old beliefs in the existence of a god, in a world that exhibits some extrinsic or intrinsic purpose, in the divine origin and special destiny of humans, and in moral values that have some transhuman sanction."

One feature of the book that is admirable is the accuracy he presents the beliefs of people he disagrees with. For instance, his portrait of J.Gresham Machen is one of the best i've ever read, even though the author is not a discipline of Machen's tradition. This desire to be a good responsible historian makes the book at places where a lesser author would distort the record. You instinctive trust the history presented because you know the places he could have fudged, he didn't/

One of his big conclusions, is i believe, the BIG issue in the current Creation-Evolution-Design debate. In his own words, pg 141--"For many, the important issue was not which one of several competing gods fit reality, but whether a belief in either a supernatural or an immmanent god any longer made sense. Could anyone, in a post-Darwinian world, justify such a belief? Theism was now at stake. And those who felt themselves most attuned to the full implications of a Darwinian understanding of nature joined Darwin himself in rejecting any transcendent god (any god outside or beyond nature) and any purposeful divine mind or force within nature (and thus any cosmic teleology)."

I deeply appreciated the book, it interested me enough in the short sketches of several thinkers that i will pursue studies of them. While at the same time it put several pieces into place for me because of the unique and systematic way the author built his case. I hope you find it as fruitful an afternoon with the book as did i.

thanks for reading this short review.

A well-balanced, intellectual and thoughtful discourse.......2002-03-17

When All The Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, And American Intellectuals by Paul Conkin (Distinguished Professor of History, Vanderbilt University) is a collection of superbly reasoned and presented historical essays about the overwhelming impact science has had upon American religious thought, especially during the 1920s when "all the gods trembled" before the evolutionary theories of Darwinism. A well-balanced, intellectual and thoughtful discourse on the very serious and perplexing questions that science poses to faith When All The Gods Trembled is highly recommended reading for both students and general readers with an interest in the impact of 19th and 20th sciences on religious belief systems in the United States.

Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir

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read this!
Monkey Man Tells All
Not quite what I expected, but engaging and educational
enjoyable recounting of a life and history
A Fortunate "Accident"

Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir
Matthew Chapman
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312300786

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It seems like the perfect premise--Charles Darwin's great-grandson travels by bus from New York City to Dayton, Tennessee, to witness a reenactment of the infamous 1925 Scopes trial and see how--or if--attitudes toward evolution have changed. Call it "The Voyage of the Greyhound," if you will. But it didn't work out that way.

Matthew Chapman set out to write such a book, but ended up penning this "accidental memoir." Trials of the Monkey is remarkably compelling, given that the narrative wanders back and forth in time, across continents, and all over the place thematically. Descriptions of Chapman's youthful desires, his mother's alcoholism, and the world of Hollywood screenwriting are interspersed with tales of riding along with a Dayton cop on a Friday night, spelunking with Christian students, even sipping moonshine from a jam jar in a restroom stall ("To my surprise, it's excellent").

Those seeking a detailed account of the trial may be disappointed, though Chapman does offer up evocative glimpses, such as prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan--renowned as an orator--quietly telling attorney for the defense Dudley Malone, "Dudley, that was the greatest speech I ever heard." The book is at its best, however, when Chapman reveals his own feelings, such as his realization that though he came in part to "poke fun at [the] hillbillies," everyone had been "just as nice as all get out" to him. The intervening 75 years since the trial may not have changed Dayton very much, but they have seen a widening of the division between creationists and evolutionists. "If something like the Scopes trial was staged now," Chapman notes, "people would be afraid for their lives." --Sunny Delaney

Book Description

"When Darwin called his second book The Descent of Man instead of The Ascent of Man he was thinking of his progeny."So declares Darwin's great-great grandson Matthew Chapman as he leaves behind his stressful career as a Hollywood screenwriter and travels to Dayton, Tennessee, where in 1925, creationist opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools was played out in a famous legal drama, the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial.The purpose of his journey is to see if opinions have changed in the intervening 75 years. A defiant atheist, Chapman records his encounters in the South, where he is confronted not only by fundamentalists still trying to banish the theory of evolution but also, ironically, by his own spiritual malaise. The outward journey becomes an inward quest in this tragicomic accidental memoir.AUTHORBIO: Matthew Chapman was born in Cambridge, England and now lives in New York City. A Hollywood screenwriter, he has also directed five films.

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Charles Darwin's great-great grandson, a highly successful Hollywood screenwriter, travels to Dayton, Tennessee. In 1925 this is where The Scopes Trial, the most famous trial of its day, put the teaching of evolution in schools in the dock, and each year there is re-enactment. Wondering how much has changed in people's attitudes in the last seventy years, and what it might be like to have a religious faith, Chapman has written a funny, sometimes dark and utterly compelling accidental memoir. Dave Eggers for the forty-somethings.

Customer Reviews:

read this!.......2007-06-12

Not your typical atheist's perspective of religion, Matthew Chapman writes with poigniancy and wit about life, love and faith.

Monkey Man Tells All.......2005-08-14

Matthew Chapman is a great talent. He is a naturally gifted and funny writer. That being said, for most of his life he was convinced he was the center of the universe. Now he is not so sure. Matthew Chapman is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin, and that is a lot to live up too. In this autobiography, Chapman's first book we discover he is the worst possible combination of human beings. He is a committed Darwinist, an atheist, a Hollywood liberal, and on top of all that, Eurotrash.

I have been doing some reading on Evolution and the Creation/Evolution conflict and came across Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir. It was a quick and enjoyable read, and for most of the book, I really wanted to hate this, Chapman's first book. But, I could not put it down. As a human being, for most of his life he was a poor excuse for a man, but by the end of the book I came to like him. The book is about Chapman's adventures in Dayton, TN home of the infamous "Monkey Trial." In between writing about going to Dayton, visiting Dayton, and leaving Dayton we learn about the life of Matthew Chapman, his parents, especially his mother, and his siblings.

While Chapman certainly has no place for organzied religion, he does admit that "faith" has a place in humanity. He also came to respect those fundamentalist Christians he interacted with in Dayton. I could say more, but would give away too much.

Are there better books about Evolution, Creationism, and The Scope's Trial, yes. That being said Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir is an enjoyable and amusing read.

Not quite what I expected, but engaging and educational.......2004-12-08

I was interested in reading this book because I knew a person who went with a group to see the Scopes Trial reenactment in the mid-1990s, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Matthew Chapman mention them with a one sentence acknowledgement in his book (yes, a group of atheists from Atlanta, it has to be them!). I really enjoyed reading this account of a British person's perspective on the South and the Bible Belt. He's a self-admitted atheist who struggles with religion because of all the inconsistencies (which any honest person will admit that religion has a lot of), but the surprise is that he also admits to having a certain kind of admiration towards people of faith, because of the effect it has on believers that he never got. He's quite honest about his own past and unfortunately goes into too much detail about his sexual discoveries as a teenager, which I didn't think fit well with the main premise behind this book.

This book is kind of two books in one, and while I bought it for information on the Scopes Trial (which I did learn quite a bit more than the little I knew about it--since he goes into fascinating detail about the trial itself), I didn't expect it to be his biography/memoir also. He alternates every few chapters between these two story lines and I thought it was too much focused on his own back history, which wasn't really fascinating to me (sorry guy, but your sexual exploits aren't worth bragging about!). A lot of it was focused on his troubled relations with his alcoholic mother, with one long, drawn out chapter about her death and funeral. I didn't see what that had to do with the Scopes Monkey Trial, and my guess is that he figured that he was only going to get one published book and it would be his only opportunity to tell his life story, now that he captured our attention with the premise of the Scopes Trial. That's the reason why I subtract a star. If he had slimmed down his life story/memoir and focused more on the Scopes Trial, I would have enjoyed this book a lot more and given it five stars. As it is, it is interesting, and I suppose you can skip the chapters on his life story and still enjoy it tremendously. I absolutely agree with his main tenets of a personal religion/faith he feels a need to develop: 1) responsibility to self; 2) responsibility to family and friends; and 3) responsibility to the world at large. His critiques of religion and materialism are right on, but he seemed to hint at his own life being driven by society's ratrace (his daughter goes to a private school in NYC, he drives an SUV, and he claims that even though he makes over a million dollars a year writing screenplays, he's having financial difficulties...sounds like he's living beyond his means, if you ask me and anyone who makes that much money and still has debt problems isn't going to get my sympathy). By the way, I bought this book marked down in price at a discount bookstore, so I hope I'm not contributing to his "affluent lifestyle". Stay on the spiritual path, Chapman! And listen to your wife more. She sounds really cool.

enjoyable recounting of a life and history.......2004-11-24

I had this book for several years, given to me as a birthday present by my wife along with Will Self's Great Apes (which I've also reviewed on Amazon.com), before finally getting around to reading it. I should have picked it up earlier. What starts out as a story of Matthew Chapman, great great grandson of Charles Darwin, traveling to Dayton, Tennessee to observe the annual re-enactment of the Scopes Trial becomes something more, the "accidental memoir" of the title. Chapman recounts some highlights and lowlights from his life, including "f-ing" himself out of an education and falling into a career as a Hollywood director and screenwriter, his relationship with his alcoholic mother. In the present, he interacts with a variety of interesting people in Dayton, Tennessee, who bend and in some instances break his stereotypes of backwoods fundamentalist Christians. An example of the latter is his "favorite creationist," Bryan College creationist Kurt Wise, to whom Chapman devotes an entire chapter and part of another.

Several chapters give a vivid account of the Scopes Trial itself, and Chapman gives references at the end for more comprehensive details. While the book does center around Dayton and the Scopes trial, the re-enactment doesn't become the planned centerpiece of the book when Chapman arrives too late to see it. He ends up speaking with the director of the play, and meeting some young Christians who are further examples of stereotype breaking, as he finds them to be quite cosmopolitan.

In the end, Chapman doesn't end up too far from where he started from, but he indicates that he's willing to give up the term "atheist" for himself in favor of "agnostic," and that his experiences in Dayton gave him a better appreciation for the multiple spiritual views endorsed by his Brazilian wife, Denise Texeiria.

I found the book a quite enjoyable read, especially with my familiarity of creationism and the Scopes Trial. I recommend it.

A Fortunate "Accident".......2003-05-07

I bought this book on vacation. I'm a person that frequently judges books by their covers and this one looked interesting. If it weren't good, it would be cute on my bookselves later. I read it in about 5 large chunks spread out over 3 days. Got a little preoccupied by it to be quite honest. It drew me right in.

I've reccommended it since to friends who have all thanked me. It has a lot going for it: history, personality, humor, honesty, insight. Memoirs are hit or miss, but Matthew Chapman is a genuinely intruiging person. What is different about this memoir is that it wasn't intended to be one. The author realized ultimately though, that his own story is the one that should be told. He wrote it with a sense of humor, candidness, perspective, and without being self-indulgent. It's a great, well-written story.

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A hate crime against one family

Classic

EVIL ANGELS (Cry in the Dark Movie Title)
John Bryson
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Movie Tie-Ins | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
True Crime | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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A Cry in the Dark

ASIN: 0553272071
Release Date: 1988-05-01

Customer Reviews:

A hate crime against one family.......2007-05-11

I was a young child in Primary School when baby Azaria got taken by the Dingo, but even now 25 years on, I still remember the debates on whether Lindy Chamberlain was innocent or guilty.
Comments such as "she looks too emotionally cold for a woman who has just lost her baby" and the speculation that because Azaria had a black dress in her wardrobe, her parents must have been invoved in sacrificial rituals, because who would dress a baby in black?
What occurred at the time was a media sensation that used peoples fear of the uncommon (ie. a little known religion "the seventh day adventists) and used it to sell their magazines, newspapers or boost their television ratings. The media have a lot to answer for, as do the Northern Territory Police whose shoddy investigative methods and conclusions led to a Nation wide hate crime against a family who were going through one of the most difficult experiences a family can face, the loss of a child.
Evil Angels is a factual and non-biased account (despite my afore mentioned feeling on the matter) about the events leading up to the dissapearance of Azaria Chamberlain and the investigation, media frenzy and court trial that occurred afterwards.
It is a long book, but very interesting and tragic.
I highly recommend this book.

Classic.......2000-03-21

This is a classic in not only telling the story of the Chamberlains, particularly Lindy, the mother whose baby was taken by a dingo 20 years ago, but also about how people can be caught up in a maelstrom of media scrutiny.

I remember the events so well, and, like the rest of Australia, watched them unfold year by year.

The Northern territory government and the media have a lot to answer for. The NT remains a backwater of injustice to this day - most often directed towards Aborigines, but also, as demonstrated here, with invective directed towards another group outside the conventional mainstream.

The media reported in the most outrageously biased and one-sided fashion, and actually whipped up the populous into a frenzy of finger-pointing, gossiping hatred toward Mrs Chamberlain.

I am not at all religious, but to my mind Seventh Day Adventism doesn't even sit far outside the mainstream Christian tradition, yet we were encouraged to believe it was some sort of devil-worshipping Jim Jones type sect.

Eventually the government was forced to recognise the veracity of the Chamberlain's story. ironically, another person died on The Rock for the essential clue to be discovered - a tourist fell off and his body was found near the baby's matinee jacket. It is almost beyond belief the lengths the authorities went to to balme the parents, when most of the people closest to the event on that night verified or supported the Chamberlain's case. Yet those voices were drowned out for years.

Book Description

From the beginning, Darwin's dangerous idea has been a snake in the garden, denounced from pulpits then and now as incompatible with the central tenets of Christian faith. Recovered here is the less well-known but equally long history of thoughtful engagement and compromise on the part of liberal theologians. Peter J. Bowler doesn't minimize the hostility of many of the faithful toward evolution, but he reveals the existence of a long tradition within the churches that sought to reconcile Christian beliefs with evolution by finding reflections of the divine in scientific explanations for the origin of life. By tracing the historical forerunners of these rival Christian responses, Bowler provides a valuable alternative to accounts that stress only the escalating confrontation.

Our polarized society, Bowler says, has all too often projected its rivalries onto the past, concealing the efforts by both scientists and theologians to find common ground. Our perception of past confrontations has been shaped by an oversimplified model of a "war" between science and religion. By uncovering the complexity of the debates sparked by Darwin's theory, we might discover ways to depolarize our own debates about where we came from and why we are here.

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Darwin on Trial
Phillip E. Johnson
Manufacturer: Monarch Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Evil angels (The Notable Trials Library)

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Evil angels (The Notable Trials Library)
John Bryson
Manufacturer: The Notable Trials Library, Division of Gryphon Edition
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006OWKEE

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Innocence Regained
Norman Young
Manufacturer: Australia in Print
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1862870187

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