Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism

by Robert T. Pennock

Book Overview

In Tower of Babel , philosopher Robert Pennock compares the views of the new creationists with those of the old and reveals the insubstantiality of their arguments. One of Pennock's major innovations... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 026216180X
• ISBN13: 9780262161800
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
• Length: 429 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Tower of Babel: Refuting Creationist Babble

"Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism" is a cogent history of creationism and its sophistic spawn "creation science" - and a devastating refutation of the inane bibliolatrous arguments utilized by anti-Darwinists as the gaps available for polemics become increasingly circumscribed by the explanatory power of science. Pennock refutes creationist babble through a novel discussion of linguistic evolution and pays special attention to Paleyesque fallacies embedded in the "Intelligent Design" movement. Pennock's bestiary classifies all anti-evolution Christians as creationists - kinds include Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, Evolutionary Creationists, Progressive Creationists, and Intelligent Design Creationists - squabbling schisms whose theologically impelled supernaturalism places all variants well outside a scientific mainstream united in support of methodological naturalism. Internecine creationist spats receive a useful historical, theological, and social context treatment, and the preponderance of crank creationist websites is ruefully noted - along with their intellectual and ethical squalor. Pennock debunks the most egregious examples, including the infamous "Lady Hope" hoax (Darwin's fraudulent deathbed conversion and recantation). After lampooning creationist comedy websites (Google AiG for a slick but sick example), Pennock discusses the Genesis myth meme echoed in the title - the Tower of Babel. Scholars realized that languages were shaped by evolutionary processes and common descent before Darwin burst on the scene. Biological and linguistic evolution contradicts special revelation hallucination, and both have been obdurately attacked by bloviating biblical literalists. Like species and higher biological taxa, languages blur at boundaries and form sub-taxon variants known as dialects. Pennock utilizes these facts to illustrate creationist misinformation about evolution, including the spurious missing link objection, and epistemological issues encountered when science deals with past events - particularly the lack of direct observation and the status of evolution as both factual and theoretical. Utilizing language illustrates evolutionary taxonomy (classification) and phylogeny (development) and "descent over time with modification" as spoken languages developed from precursors (e.g. Romance languages from Indo-European and Proto-Indo European). This approach exhibits the same quirks as biological evolution including loss through extinction, incomplete preservation, convergence, and horizontal transfer. Neo-medieval creationists crib from postmodernist rivals by asserting that Darwinism is "a secular religion." Both also deny that human cognitive enterprises can approach the truth. Pennock skewers figures such as Alvin Plantinga, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Philip Johnson who proffer ostensibly 'scientific' lines of reasoning that devolve into theological hand waving a

One of the better books refuting Intelligent Design

I openly wonder if many of the negative reviews come from people who have never read the book but feel it is their Christian duty to defend their creation myths. The sad reality is that people whose search for truth is based upon faith, will struggle with science because the world views are so different. As for the book itself, I thought the author was effective on several levels at explaining the different and contradictory factions within the "Creation Science" community. The thing that distinguishes them is how much of the biblical story they are willing to give up to preserve even the impression that they are scientists. Obviously young earth creationists have the most difficulty and are the easiest to dismiss. However those pushing the Intelligent Design theories can be dismissed with a little more thought and analysis. The author's analogous use of linguistic evolution to organic evolution and the implications to the mythical "Tower of Babel" is certainly effective. A reason why linguists don't get the ire of Christians is that the Tower is not as central to their mythology as the creation is. The Christ of the New Testament came to redeem Adam and his posterity for his fall in the garden. Rejecting the creation story has far reaching implications for Christians and is why Darwinian evolution is so threatening to their belief system. Scientists owe people like Pennock a big thank you. Unfortunately, scientists go on doing science forgetting that society may not care what the evidence leads to. The implications for the United States was appropriately discussed by the author and gives cause for real concern regarding science education in this country. I welcome feedback on this and all reviews at wstrnlibwarrior@yahoo.com

Perceptive, penetrating and persuasive

Pennock's book denounces the attempts to incorporate religious dogma into public education. It is the finest of several analogous efforts published over two decades. With penetrating insight, he presents the full range of Christian creationist ideologies, many self contradictory. He examines how slandering Darwin's concept of natural selection ["evolution"] goes beyond biology. The real issue, he assures us, is the curtailing of the liberalisation of American society. In well-crafted prose, the author maintains your interest in a subject at once hilarious and terrifying. He declares that the issue is greater than religion versus science. It is one striking at the very root of American ideals. The book provides a general history of 20th Century "creationism", its programme and its proponents. The later "Intelligent Design" movement, which declares itself a "science" instead of a religious concept, Pennock declares a sham. Its influence is far too great, yet built from shoddy materials. Tracing the ideas and publications of such figures as Henry Morris and his followers, Pennock describes the propaganda techniques of the Institute for Creation Research and the recent wave material camouflaged under "scientific" or "legal" disguises. Pennock pores over their material, pinpointing their fallacies and exposing their tactics. He shows how evidence is ignored or twisted, explaining how ideology governs speeches, publications and strategy. Through it all, he shows how the Christians are as much at war with each other as they are with "materialism", the label they apply to Darwinian scholars. Pennock adopts the unique method of showing how the evolution of languages repeats the biological pattern. From an original, lost language, modern tongues evolved in different environments. It continues to evolve today. It's a fitting analogy, one which teachers should note and apply in the classroom. It's appropriate that a scholar of Pennock's stature should thus ally science with the humanities. As he points out, much of the assault on biological evolution could easily be applied to farming, home life and law. The author examines some of the renowned figures of the IDC cabal with a penetrating gaze. Pennock charitably skims over Michael Behe's ignorance of evolutionary process to focus on lawyer Phil Johnson. Johnson's legal training prompts him to address all questions in absolutes and to create straw men as easily demolished targets. Pennock simply dissects Johnson's writings to demonstrate not only false assumptions, but contradictions so severe as to inspire the reader to wonder how he maintains his academic position. According to Pennock, Johnson's works betray a messianic mentality from which he institutes a project to redeem American society. It's to Pennock's credit that the term "demagogue" doesn't appear in the text. One can only admire his forbearance. Pennock's patience must have been stretched in undertaking the research

Quite an achievement

The audience of such a confrontational book will usually fall in three categories: (1) creationists who want to refute the arguments presented, (2) people who don't know much about biology but were told there was a debate between "creationists" and "evolutionists", and (3) biologists who look for simple ways to explain things to a lay public. I hasten to point out that no, evolution itself is not a controversial scientific subject and hasn't been for a century. However, the public's perception of it clearly still is in certain parts, and that's why such books can be very helpful.Pennock's book is very well researched, well developed, and most importantly given its target audience, a lot of fun to read! I would recommend it to anyone, put especially to high school biology teachers who want simple material devoid of jargon to explain the principle of evolution to children.Five stars, and well deserved.

A Great Introduction to Problems with Creationism

Having just completed a survey of contemporary creationist literature, I was struck by how little serious scientific response there is to Intelligent Design Creationism, the latest incarnation of Biblical creationism. I guess this is because scientists generally don't take it seriously and they have better things to do. This is unfortunate, since creationism is very widely believed in this country and a number of recent books by creationists have been big sellers. This book should remedy that situation, at least in part. Pennock methodically shows the problems with the creationist positions. He concentrates on logical errors in their arguments and inconsistencies in their positions. He makes a very good case against creationism. Sadly, responses to specific pieces of negative evidence (the complexity of hemoglobin, for example) are beyond the scope of this book and the curious reader will have to go elsewhere to supplement that portion of the argument. The book is careful and neutral in style, lacking the bombast of a number of the popular writers on both side of this issue. Highly recommended.