The Myth of Natural Origins: How Science Points to Divine Creation

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing read
Review: Camp doesn't prove anything in this book. He doesn't prove that his beliefs are correct, nor does he prove that evolution is just a wild hypothesis. Nothing can be proven in science, it can only be supported.

What Camp shows is that evolution is not supported as strongly as many would like to believe. We all remember being told by our high school biology teachers that "Nothing makes sense, except in light of evolution." The truth is that evolution is not necessarily necessary in order to explain the origin of life. Divine Creation could be invovled.

The argument that Camp only quotes creationists in this book is completely fallacious. To the contrary, the majority of his sources are secular, and noteworthy at that. In fact, Camp is at his best when he quotes evolutionary scientists expressing their own doubts about Darwin's widely accepted theory. Those who have studied naturalistic evolution closely enough realize that there are holes that must be accounted for.

I personally found this book to be very informative. With the knowledge I've garnered from it I have been able to intelligently discuss such matters as evolution and creationism with others, backing my words with credible sources.

Another thing - this is a short book. I think I read it in two days. And it was definitely worth my time.

Rating:
Summary: Want to know how sure Science is about Evolution?
Review: In the press, science presents evolution as a fact. Richard Dawkins even states that someone who denies evolution is "ignorant, stupid, or insane". Is evolution such a certain fact?

Ashby Camp presents evidence from many sources that illustrate how many unproven assumptions lie behind the evolutionary view of origins.

For many scientists, evolution MUST be true because of their prior committment to naturalism and materialism. Astronomer Carl Sagan, in the first episode of his COSMOS television series, stated the philosophy like this: "The Cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be." If one begins with that assumption, then of course there can be no place for a God and evolution MUST in some way be true.

The problem with this is that just because one has already ruled out an alternative explanation does not mean that the remaining explanation is true!

Ashby Camp points out the assumptions that underlie a naturalistic view of origins all along the way. From the origin of the first life, to the lack of any transitional fossil progenitors for the fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to mammal transitions, to the lack of any real evidence for the human descent that is so popularized.

Paleontologist Niles Eldridge said: "We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not."

Has Science really flushed out the past of evolution from the fossils? David Raup of University of Chicago, ironically writing in a book titled "Scientists Confront Creationism", said: "Darwin predicted that the fossil record should show a reasonably smooth continuum of ancestor-descendant pairs with a satisfactory number of intermediates between major groups. Darwin even went so far as to say that if this were not found in the fossil record, his general theory of evolution would be in serious jeopardy. Such smooth transitions were not found in Darwin's time...We are now more than 100 years after Darwin's time and the situation is little changed. We actually may have fewer examples of smooth transitions than we had in Darwin's time, because some of the old examples turned out to be invalid when studied in more detail."

Facts do not support evolution. Dogma supports evolution because many scientists "cannot allow a Divine foot in the door". Harvard Genetics Professor Richard Lewontin wrote: "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 counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated."

Does that sound like proven fact that is unquestionably true? Have an open mind - this is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Creationists quoting creationists
Review: Some people refuse to accpet valid theories based on degrees of certainty. With certainty this book pretends to do science in the name of God, through faith. The burden of proof, of course, is still with the thiest and this book only holds them back by trying to explain the unexplainble through reason and logic using faith.