I for one haven't read the book, never heard of it. Thanks for mentioning it.
Picking up tidbits such as this is one of the reasons I joined this group and
though occassionally some of the old timers bemoan the rehash of what is to them
old stuff, it isn't old stuff to all of us.
Darryl
AJ Crowl wrote:
> Hi ASA,
>
> Has anyone read David Young's "The Discovery of Evolution"? I imagine so, as
> it came out in 1992. If you haven't then it's recommended reading. David
> Young covers the whole rise in our knowledge of species, geology, biology
> and biogeography since the beginning of the Scientific Era [c.1600] right up
> to the emergence of the Modern Synthesis and the general agreement between
> evolutionists in the late 1940s. It's history and apologetic rolled into
> one, defending evolution and clarifying just what the various players
> throughout have thought about life's history. The sections covering the
> early geologists/biostratigraphers [e.g. Hutton, Werner, Cuvier ] and
> evolutionists [e.g. Lamarck, Saint Hilaire, Chambers] was especially helpful
> for me in understanding just what Michael Denton was talking about in
> "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" w.r.t Cuvier's ideas and the evolutionists
> he opposed. If he had lived to Darwin's day I suspect Cuvier would not be
> the bastion of anti-evolutionism Denton dressed him up as.
>
> What's really interesting is c.1800 - c.1860 a time when a perception that
> evolution had occurred seized the minds of scientists all over the West. The
> puzzle was "how had it happened?" rather than had it happened by the end of
> that period. After that 1860 - 1880 saw the general rise of Darwinism, while
> opposition from other [!] evolutionists grew from 1880 - 1930, until modern
> genetics began making sense of the data in the late '20s and the '30s.
> Fascinating accounts of early studies are all through Young's book and he
> succeeded in supporting Darwinism in my mind.
>
> Since then we've had the molecular revolution of the period 1955 - 1975, a
> renaissance in human evolutionary studies since 1975, and the current rise
> of computational systematics and simulation, coupled with the deeper
> insights into development and ethology. All this is hardly the result of
> some sort of delusion, and hardly a "Tower of Babel" scenario. It makes
> sense of the world, in my view, better than any YEC model can because it's
> committed to what is really there in Nature, not what some short passages in
> a book tell us.
>
> Metaphysical deductions from evolution aren't valid, but atheist
> evolutionists will still make them based on what they see in Nature. Should
> that make us close our eyes to the evidence in the world around us? No.
> Wilfully ignorant triumphalist Creationism is what has turned me away from
> giving any Creationist time of day [apologies to Allen, Bill and Art, who
> don't fit that category. Plus whoever else I missed - no one on this list is
> wilfully ignorant, I've noticed.] When I open "Creation ex nihilo" and get
> the populist garbage that is peddled as "Scientific Creationism" I get
> angry, and I get even more angry with people who prattle off a litany of
> supposed "proofs for a young world" in any and all fora of the Web that even
> peripherally discusses Origin issues. Personally I'd like to see some
> argument that isn't over 20 years old! And one that's not long since refuted
> by data or argument! No moon-dust, shrinking suns, short period comets or
> ion levels in the sea arguments please!
>
> Any thoughts all you YECs who haunt this place? I'm not trying to pick a
> fight, I just want honest reasons for why you believe what you believe. I've
> heard all the Biblical arguments too, so please don't repeat them as thought
> they are all sufficient. The fact that other Bible believers still believe
> in an Old World is surely a sign that Bible texts are open to
> interpretation.
>
> yours in expectation,
>
> Adam