Cheap SCIENCE ON TRIAL (Book) (DOUGLAS FUTUYMA) Price

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Customer Reviews of SCIENCE ON TRIAL

Science on Trial is one of the top books to read that responds to "the other side" i.e. Creationism. Futuyma is a Biology Professor that has authored one of the most influential textbooks in his field: _Evolutionary Biology_. He cuts through Creationist arguments with ease and brings to light the amount of overwhelming evidence for biological evolution.

I would definitely prescribe this book to anyone who may think that Creationism is founded on Science. Futuyma exposes the creationists and lays their straw-man arguments to rest. As I mentioned at the beginning, it is important to survey the literature of the opposing camp as well, however after reading this book and others like it (_Scientists Confront Creationism_, _Abusing Science_, _Science and Creationism_ and _The Blind Watchmaker_), the reader will definitely think twice before proclaiming the "truth" of Creationism.

Is DJF Going Bald?
Dr. Futuyma certainly does enough figurative hair pulling and garment rending in this book whenever the thought of creationists comes to his mind. A SUNY professor, and author of a well-known textbook on Evolutionary Biology, DJF writes this most interesting book for the layman interested in learning more about the case for evolution. While there are numerous books of this type in print today, Futuyma emphasizes topics not stressed in some of the others. He discusses the history of evolution from early times up to the neo-Darwinism of today. Interesting chapters follow on the fossil record - including a good section on the evolution of the horse -, natural selection, chance and mutation, and the basic concepts of scientific knowledge.

The author presents many of the creationist arguments, and spends time refuting them. As I mentioned above, he really gets irate when he considers their criticisms of evolutionary theory. "Abysmally ignorant", "nonsense", and "absurd" are some of the modifiers he uses when discussing them. His main points are that creationists perform no original research of their own, but instead try to discredit evolution by such means as: quoting scientists out of context; using disagreements between scientists as evidence that evolution is in trouble; conveniently disregarding evidence that they cannot explain; and promoting arguments inappropriately such as the second law of thermodynamics.

There are other excellent books to read on this subject. My favorites are The Blind Watchmaker by R. Dawkins, and Abusing Science by Philip Kitcher. This one deservedly belongs on the same bookshelf, unless of course, you are a creationist.

Typical atheistic biased ignorance
You don't need to look any further than the sample excerpts on page 4 to see the bias and ignorance of the author's ability. It is no wonder that evolutionary science has been so blind to its flaws. In page 4 Futuyma makes the claim that the Genesis account in the Bible was based on Babylonian and Chaldean myths and written by four authors. He knows this because "Biblical scholarship and archaeological research have establish" it to be true. The fact to the matter is that there is no such scholarship or archaeological evidence. In fact, it has been the contrary. Since the beginning of these higher criticism and these so called scholarships was based. Archaeology has proven the basis from which they stem from is false. These so called scholars from the likes of Julius Wellhausen in 1895 to the Jesus Seminar are no more scholars than Duane Gish or Henry Morris are scholars to the evolutionists. Their arguments are based on their own fantasy of the ancient world and not on evidences. They assume things like there was no writings in Moses's day or the Hittites did not exist during Abraham's day. From these assumptions they conjured up their own myths as to how the Bible came about. Archaeology has proven their assumptions to be false with the discovery of the "black stele" and evidence of 1200 years of Hittite civilization. However, people like the Jesus Seminar and Futuyma are still propagating their Biblical myths when their underlying assumptions have already been proven false. There are many more evidences against these myths that the evolutionists are propagating, if only they are willing to look at the evidences with an open mind.

Also in that same paragraph on page 4 Futuyma claims that the erroneous perceptions of our universe in the Middle Ages are rooted in Scripture. The fact again is that the Bible never promulgated any such ideas. However that doesn't mean that their aren't Christian who misinterprets the Bible and make claims that aren't there.

Bottomline is that if this is the best of Futuyma's ability to analyze facts from fiction. I would doubt his ability to objectively analyze any scientific claims.