Re: Terrible history or just terrible lizards?

From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 08:11:02 EDT

  • Next message: bivalve: "Re: Terrible history or just terrible lizards?"

    No, terrible history! Basically it is warfare model plus exagerration and
    confusion over the way dinosaurs were idscovered.

    Cadbury is desperate to prove there was real conflict so often selects
    extreme views like those of Fairholm and Bugg to pitch as a foil agianst
    Buckland and simply fails to mention the many who supported and agreed with
    Buckland.

    Considewr the nonsense on p284-5 where Cadbury writes that Buckland had
    striven to bridge the ever widening gulf between religion and geology. She
    then tries to show that this caused Buckland's mental illness but provides
    no evidence. No one else has found any.

    p191 ff is as bad and then she only mentions the Buggs of this world who
    are like the Morrises of our world except they went extinct more quickly.

    p191 reproduces the wonderful cartooon by Tom Sopwith (whoose great-great
    grandson lived near where I was before) which is simply a case of Sopwith
    acting the buffoon , or rather imitating Buckland. Sopwith's diary of the
    Welsh trip of Oct 1841 is booth descriptive and hilarious.

    On the review, I am not sure what you are saying. In the 1820s most involved
    in geololgy were old earth and accepted Extinction though most rejected
    evolution. In England this was the era of Sedgwick, Henslow, Conybeare as
    well as Buckland. A few still rejected old earth like George Young and
    amateurs like Bugg Penn etc had a go but were outgunned. Sadly that is not
    the case today

    All in all a book full of coprolite and it seems that Cadbury like Buckland
    has produced specimens of her own, except Buckland's was the real thing!
    (Buckland once gave a lecture and showed various examples of Coprolite and
    then held up a container and said it was his own!)

    This book highlishts the double problem we face . The first is YEC and the
    second is how many writers pop scientists like Dawkins and Steve Jones and
    pop science historians ie Winchester and Cadbury misrepresent Christianity
    and science past and present to further their own agendas.

    If you ever read anything which says that the church AS A WHOLE a whole
    rejected geological time in the period 1800-1850 then chuck it in the bin.
    There was a noisy minority of Christians who objected to geollogy and the
    only information on them is at present Mortenson's inaccurate and biassed
    stuff on the AIG site.

    Michael

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "bivalve" <bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com>
    To: <asa@calvin.edu>
    Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 10:39 PM
    Subject: Terrible history or just terrible lizards?

    > Skimming a bit of Terrible Lizards, by Deborah Cadbury, suggests that the
    history is not entirely based on a warfare model. On the other hand, the
    review I located online seemed to minimise the existing ideas on an
    old-earth, extinction, and evolution in 1820 or so. This could reflect
    incompetent reviewing. However, the abundance of rather flawed popular
    books on the subject makes me wonder whether this one is accurate. Does
    anyone have further information?
    >
    > It traces the history of early dinosaur hunters like Mantell and Owens.
    >
    > Dr. David Campbell
    > Old Seashells
    > University of Alabama
    > Biodiversity & Systematics
    > Dept. Biological Sciences
    > Box 870345
    > Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    > bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
    >
    > That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
    Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at
    Droitgate Spa
    >
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jun 10 2003 - 08:16:14 EDT