RE: paleonet The Map That Changed the World

["bivalve" <bivalve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I, too, have been dismayed by Simon Winchester's approach to paleontology.  The problem is this:  when one sees so many things that one knows are no so, one begins to wonder what else might be wrong.  <

Winchester grossly misrepresents the attitude of Christians and other theists of the day to old-earth ideas.  By the late 1700’s, relatively few held to Ussher’s dating; in fact, some had advocated an old earth in the 1600’s.  Yet Winchester claims that to question Ussher was “to challenge both the dogma and the law, the clerics and the courts” (p. 29).  Major early proponents of Smith included two clerics, Townsend and Richardson, and no legal threat existed towards old earth views.  One of Smith’s important early publications was in Rev. Townsend’s book The Character of Moses Established for Veracity as an Historian, Recording Events from the Creation to the Deluge.

Such errors help promote young-earth views, because young earthers claim to defend the historic view of Christianity and cite the work of careless historians (e.g., Draper or Andrew White).  Although we do not have much information on the views of average laymen, among those publishing anything on the topic young earthers were a noisy but small minority by the early 1800’s.


    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    46860 Hilton Dr #1113
    Lexington Park MD 20653 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 Droigate Spa