Again, I received two identical messages, one to me only and the other to
the Reflector, but with different titles! I have reinserted the original thread title.
On Sun, 08 Mar 1998 17:14:59 -0800, Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>Stephen Jones mentioned:
>
>SJ> "Darwin on Trial", Monarch: Crowborough UK, First Edition, 1991,
CL>A decade earlier, there was a book out titled "Darwin Retried",
>by Norman Macbeth, a non-creationist skeptical of Darwinism.
Yes. I have it. It is a great book.
CL>It seemed unlikely to me that Johnson would not have read it, yet
>unlikelier still that he would have chosen "Darwin on Trial" as his
>title, knowing that "Darwin Retried" was published not long before.
This shows an understandable ignorance of book publishing. Gould who
should know better made this point in his "hatchet job" book review
of Darwin on Trial:
"In a "classic" of antievolutionary literature from the generation just
past, lawyer Norman Macbeth (1971) wrote a much better book from
the same standpoint, entitled Darwin Retried (titles are not subject to
copyright)..." (Gould S.J. "Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge".
Book Review of "Darwin on Trial, by Phillip E. Johnson, Regnery
Gateway: Washington, D.C., 1991, Scientific American, July 1992,
p93)
As a writer, Gould must know that first time authors do not normally
choose the title of their books- that is usually done by publishers. In
the case of Darwin on Trial, I understand that Johnson's original title
was "Darwin Deconstructed", but the publisher changed it-no doubt
to play on Macbeth's title. In the case of "Reason in the Balance",
Johnson's original title was, as I recall, "The Beginning of Reason".
The only book of his that I believe that Johnson has had his chosen
title published was "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds".
BTW as for Gould, if you do a search on Amazon.com you will discover
that there are several books with the title "Full House". That's
presumably why his book of the same name was changed to "Life's
Grandeur" in UK and Australia!
CL>Does anyone have any comment on "Darwin Retried" by Norman Macbeth?
As I said, its a great book. But Johnson's Darwin on Trial will be
IMHO even greater. Johnson who knows how his sales are going, says
on one of his tapes that DoT would actually be on the best-seller lists
if the secular book shops tracked books by Christian publishers
like Intervarsity Press. DoT has been translated into other languages
including Chinese and French. I predict that when Darwinism declines
in the 21st century, historians will regard DoT as the turning point.
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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