The Evolution-Creation Struggle - Hardcover

Ruse, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674016874 ISBN 13: 9780674016873

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Creation versus evolution: What seems like a cultural crisis of our day, played out in courtrooms and classrooms across the county, is in fact part of a larger story reaching back through the centuries. The views of both evolutionists and creationists originated as inventions of the Enlightenment - two opposed but closely related responses to a loss of religious faith in the Western world. In his latest book, Michael Ruse, a preeminent authority on Darwinian evolutionary thought and a leading participant in the ongoing debate, uncovers surprising similarities between evolutionist and creationist thinking. Exploring the underlying philosophical commitments of evolutionists, he reveals that those most hostile to religion are just as evangelical as their fundamentalist opponents. But more crucially, and reaching beyond the biblical issues at stake, he demonstrates that these two diametrically opposed ideologies have, since the Enlightenment, engaged in a struggle for the privilege of defining human origins, moral values, and the nature of reality. Highlighting modern-day partisans as divergent as Richard Dawkins and Left Behind authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Ruse's bracing book takes on the assumptions of controversialists of every stripe and belief and offers to all a new and productive way of understanding this unifying, if often bitter, quest.

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Review

A rich, thoughtful overview. -- Jerome Weeks "Dallas Morning News" (09/04/2005)

İAn¨ accessible, skilfully written book. -- Karen Armstrong "New Scientist" (07/30/2005)

İThis is¨ a carefully researched and cogently argued examination of this long-standing controversy by noted philosopher of science Michael Ruse. An observer of and participant in the debate on the topic for the past three decades, Ruse offers his readers historical and philosophical insight into the issues and ideas involved. -- George E. Webb "American Scientist" (11/01/2005)

[An] accessible, skilfully written book.

motivate criticism. Ruse has done his best to reveal both.

irreconcilable as most of their adherents (and many others) seem to believe?

(and, some say, the death of his 10-year-old daughter) eventually drove him to agnosticism.

three decades, Ruse offers his readers historical and philosophical insight into the issues and ideas involved.

examine their own convictions, "The Evolution-Creation Struggle" offers a new perspective on an important contemporary debate.

a surprisingly sympathetic view of the anti-Darwin crowd. They may be wrong, but they're not quite as crazy as we smugly imagine.

About the Author

Michael Ruse is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University. He is the author of many books, including Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology and Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction? both from Harvard.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0674016874
• ISBN 13: 9780674016873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320