The Creation Evolution Debate

Few issues besides evolution have so strained Americans' professed tradition of tolerance. Few historians besides Pulitzer Prize winner Edward J. Larson have so perceptively chronicled evolution's divisive presence on the American scene. This slim volume reviews the key aspects, current and historical, of the creation-evolution debate in the United States. Larson discusses such topics as the transatlantic response to Darwinism, the American controversy over teaching evolution in public schools, and the religious views of American scientists. He recalls the theological qualms about evolution held by some leading scientists of Darwin's time. He looks at the 2006 Dover, Pennsylvania, court decision on teaching Intelligent Design and other cases leading back to the landmark 1925 Scopes trial. Drawing on surveys that Larson conducted, he discusses attitudes of American scientists toward the existence of God and the afterlife. By looking at the changing motivations and backgrounds of the stakeholders in the creation-evolution debate--clergy, scientists, lawmakers, educators, and others--Larson promotes a more nuanced view of the question than most of us have. This is no incidental benefit for Larson's readers; it is one of the book's driving purposes. If we cede the debate to those who would frame it simplistically rather than embrace its complexity, warns Larson, we will not advance beyond the naive regard of organized religion as the enemy of intellectual freedom or the equally myopic myth of the scientist as courageous loner willing to die for the truth.

Originally published in 1995, Creation-Evolution Debates is the second volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume comprises eight debates from the early 1920s and 1930s between prominent evolutionists and creationists of the time. The original sources detail debates that took place either orally or in print, as well as active debates between creationists over the true meaning of Genesis I. The essays in this volume feature prominent discussions between the likes of Edwin Grant Conklin, Henry Fairfield Osbourne and William Jennings Bryan, John Roach Francis and Charles Francis Potter, George McCready Price and Joseph McCabe and William Bell Riley versus Charles Smith, amongst many others. The collection will be of especial interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy, and history.

This book is creating a firestorm of academic debate. Fischer proposes that Adam was created under a covenant with God and was inserted into an already populated world. His harmonization of Genesis with history and science puts this issue to rest.

Voted one of Christianity Today's 1997 Books of the Year! Creation versus evolution. The debate is growing louder and hotter--whether in lecture halls or in between the pages of bestselling books. But neither side seems to be winning. Why? In The Battle of Beginnings Del Ratzsch examines the history of the debate and critiques the entrenched positions that he argues merely impede progress toward the truth. Dissatisfied with both creationist fallacies and materialist misconstruals, he seeks to lay the groundwork for more fruitful dialogue. In considerable detail Ratzsch looks at the history and development of Darwin's theory and common creationist misunderstandings of evolution. He then moves on to examine the history and development of creationist theory and pervasive evolutionist misunderstandings of it. He also discusses the nature of science and common creationist and evolutionist abuses as a prelude to showing why both sides have remained critical of theistic evolution. Above all, Ratzsch argues that until philosophical confusion, logical missteps and various other snarls have been untangled, little real progress can be made in sorting out competing theories of life and its origin. With this book he challenges and equips all of us to think more clearly.

In this provocative book, evolutionist and evangelical Christian Denis O. Lamoureux proposes an approach to origins that moves beyond the 'evolution-versus-creation' debate.

Gives a description of evolutionary theory and analyzes the arguments of the creationists.

For Christians, the issues raised by the different views on creation and evolution are challenging. Can a "young earth" be reconciled with a universe that appears to be billions of years old? Does scientific evidence point to a God who designed the universe and life in all its complexity? Three Views on Creation and Evolution deals with these and similar concerns as it looks at three dominant schools of Christian thought. Proponents of young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution each present their different views, tell why the controversy is important, and describe the interplay between their understandings of science and theology. Each view is critiqued by various scholars, and the entire discussion is summarized by Phillip E. Johnson and Richard H. Bube. The Counterpoints series provides a forum for comparison and critique of different views on issues important to Christians. Counterpoints books address two categories: Church Life and Bible and Theology. Complete your library with other books in the Counterpoints series.