From fish to Gish: The exciting drama of a decade of creation-evolution debates

The book summarizes several debates in which Duane Gish, Assistant Director of the Institute for Creation Research, confronted Evolutionists. The book is easy to read and contains very little scientific terminology. The chapters are short, giving the reader frequent opportunities to pat himself on the back. If I didn't have other obligations, I would have read this book straight through in only a few days. As one would expect from a book written by a Creationist and published by Creationists, there is a danger of bias. There are many very strong Evolutionist arguments which the book does not address. Did all of Gish's opponents fail to use any of these arguments, or did the author conveniently omit them? According to the author, the opponents suffered a humiliating defeat in each of these debates. This brings up two questions: Number one: Is this really unbiased reporting? Number two: Did the author select only the debates in which Gish was the most victorious? For the other side of the Gish-Evolutionist story, the reader may consult transcripts of other debates with Gish. Some are available on-line; some are available from the National Center for Scientific Education. I especially recommend the debate with Kenneth S. Saladin of Georgia College. I also recommend "Tales of the Rational" by Massimo Pigliucci (1887392114). The author devotes an entire chapter to Gish. In that chapter, he catches several ploys which most of Gish's other opponents seem to have missed. In many of the commentaries, the author injects his own comments. The reader is left to wonder whether or not the author's opinions are shared by Gish. This was somewhat disappointing, because I bought this book specifically for research about Gish's opinions. Furthermore, this leads one to suspect that the author is using Gish's fame to advance his own opinions. This suspicion is confirmed in Chapter 31, which recounts a debate in which the author and Gish both appeared. The author devotes more space to his own contributions (pp. 195-197) than to those of Gish (pp. 193-194). Now let me turn right around and inject one of my OWN opinions into this review. I believe that we are endowed with a fighting instinct which was necessary for our survival in prehistoric times. In intellectual disagreements such as that between the C's and the E's, the fighting instinct surfaces and we confuse our opponents for enemies. Dipolomacy would help our chances for success, but we abuse our opponents anyway. Aniamls of other species also confuse the modern for the ancient. We see such confusion when birds perch on telephone wires as if they were tree branches. Religions may try to suppress such hostility with teachings such as "a soft answer turneth away wrath," but it does little good. Adherents of these religions go right on kindling wrath with harsh answers. It is ironic that the author preaches Creationism, but at the same time confirms one of my arguments for