Responding to the Challenge of Evolution

by Kevin Logan

The idea that the earth may not be millions of years old is not taken seriously by most of the population--until it is taught in school. Kevin Logan has written a readable, intelligent and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0781441846
• ISBN13: 9780781441841
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Victor
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Best "First Book" on Creation/Evolution for Christian

Logan's book was written in response to an educational controversy in England (ignited by a statement by Tony Blair that they should allow teaching creationism), but I highly recommend this book as an excellent discussion of the various Christian perspectives on creation versus evolution. The author is a former reporter, and writes this book using the approach of investigative journalism. This makes it very readable by non-scientists, even-handed, and thorough. One of the things I liked best was the constant interplay between the viewpoints, kind of like a conversation. Another good feature is the charitable tone that allows the reader to concentrate on the truths at stake. Eventually you discover that the book is a bit of a confession. Logan points out where those of the 7-day creationist viewpoint are unfair in their arguments. At first I thought this was because he was taking digs at 7-day creationism, but on page 170 we find out he feels that he was previously too quick to "demonize" those opposed to the 7-day creationist viewpoint. Another thing I liked was how Logan boils down what is essential towards the end of the book. I see three flaws that detract from this valuable book that I believe can be ameliorated by the following comments. First, a key introductory section titled "Battle Lines" does not name the various viewpoints in terms consistent with the rest of the book. The viewpoints are called "Recent" instead of "Young Earth (YE)" and "Remote" instead of "Old Earth (OE)". Furthermore, other books distinguish between "Old Earth - Progressive" (also called "Day-Age" because they believe the "days" of Genesis 1 are "ages") and "Old Earth - Framework". These are discussed in the book, but should have been clearly identified in the introduction. Also Intelligent Design (ID), which. I believe should be considered another viewpoint, is not named in this introduction. ID ignores the issue of the age of the Earth, but focuses on the necessity of a creator to account for the complexity of living things. Another subsection in the "Battle Lines" introduction is titled "Reverent Agnosticism", which is not a viewpoint at all. Of course, many people figure out that the issues are too complex for them to investigate, but they don't advocate that as a position. The final subsection, "Atheism" is correctly named and subsequently used as one of the viewpoints. The second flaw is using "creationism" as only meaning 7-day creationism and focusing a little too much on this particular viewpoint. Per Wikipedia and other writings on this topic, YE, OE, and ID are all "creationist." The third flaw is that the writer doesn't bring up Genesis 1 until chapter 14. This makes the content into a discussion between various "interest groups" (YE, OE, ID, atheist) rather than focusing on what really matters: how to interpret the Bible. At first I argued (to myself) that this was because the approach of the book was that of a reporter. But on further thought I