[.ca] Rocks of Ages (ISBN 0345430093)

From Amazon.com:
Revered and eminently readable essayist Stephen Jay Gould has once again rendered the complex simple, this time mending the seeming split between the two "Rocks of Ages," science and religion. He quickly, and rightfully, admits that his thesis is not new, but one broadly accepted by many scientists and theologians. Gould begins by suggesting that Darwin has been misconstrued--that while some religious thinkers have used divinity to prove the impossibility of evolution, Darwin would have never done the reverse. Gould eloquently lays out not "a merely diplomatic solution" to rectify the physical and metaphysical, but "a principled position on moral and intellectual grounds," central to which is the elegant concept of "non-overlapping magisteria." (Gould defines magisteria as a "four-bit" word meaning domain of authority in teaching.) Essentially, science and religion can't be unified, but neither should they be in conflict; each has its own discrete magisteria, the natural world belonging exclusively to science and the moral to religion. Gould's argument is both lucid and convincing as he cites past religious and scientific greats (including a particularly touching section on Darwin himself). Regardless of your persuasions, religious or scientific, Gould holds up his end of the conversation with characteristic respect and intelligence. --Paul Hughes

Not much new material:
This book was not the great for me, mainly because most of the materials covered are addressed in his books like Ever Since Darwin, Bully for Brontosaurs, and It's a Wonderful Life. If you have not read some of those works then this would be great. Gould finally shows some emotion when he comes right out and says creationists have never contributed anything to science and are not scientists. He has mentioned similar epithets elsewhere, but not to this degree. I wondered though, while reading those quotes how Gould accepted that one of his best students, Kurt Wise, is not only a creationist but a YEC. Gould comments about Darwin and his views up until his death and how Darwin's view remained, as far as anyone knows, intact. Further I wonder, though, if Gould ever had any second thoughts about his views before his death.

A valuable popularization:
This would be a valuable book for anyone who is not well versed in philosophy of religion. I found it so good on listening to the audio book version that I got the hard copy from the library and read it straight through. Other reviewers here have provided summaries so I won't take the time to do that. For me the book was most valuable in reinforcing and clarifying my own thinking about the relationship between science and religion, and the universal "need for religion" in the sense that everyone needs clarity about his/her own values and meaning. It is also useful to have "NOMA" as a word for the useful concept of the non-overlapping nature of science and religion. I especially liked the quotes from Darwin and Huxley and the review of the Scopes trial and William Jennings Bryan.

sdklfsd:
I had to write a review for this for my Biology class so I thought I might as well post it here. Overall, even though the book has a strong thesis and idea, I felt that the book was pretty dry and almost redundant at times. There were a few enjoyable moments where Gould's voice really stood out, but other than that the book was extremely boring about a topic that shouldn't be. Gould's intentions are pretty clear over the course of the novel, but I think that he should have undertaken them in a different way. There are also times in the book where he seems to drift on and just throw in irrelevant information that leaves you wondering, "Where did that come from?" At times it seems he beats around the bush and doesn't get to his main point of what NOMA is. Although I am more or less bashing the book, some of the accounts in Rocks of Ages were pretty interesting, including the Christopher Columbus and William Jennings Bryan portions of the book. For example, I learned that back in the 1400's, it was not perceived that the world was flat. Instead, this was just an overblown exaggeration that went along with the story of Columbus discovering the Americas. The problem about my liking towards these sections of the book is that they are not really the basis and meat of Gould's argument. Also, another problem that I have with this book is the construction of sentences. There are times in the book where it is almost torture to read the amazingly long, run-on sentences. On top of this, the author adds in thoughts or other tidbits of information mid-sentence, making the already dizzying text even harder to get through. Gould is definitely a skilled writer but I believe that he misuses his talents at times in this book. In general, the book is an interesting read on a thought provoking subject that has been around for several centuries. Gould makes his solution pretty simple, and overall gets his point across about the matter of religion and science. However, the manner that he does this in is very dry, and at times, just flat out boring to tell the truth. To conclude, I would probably Rocks of Ages a C+ or B- just for the valid points and suggestions that Gould brings up, but it could have been done a lot better in my opinion.

ok, but repetetive and dull:
This book, ROCKS OF AGES, was ok, but repetitive and simplistic in its evaluation of the problem to religion offering a duh solution without any way to work out the problem in real life. Gould also seems full of himself as well as boring, making for a rather unpleasant reading.

Beware of the NOMA trap:
The NOMA concept defended by Sephen Jay Gould in pages 47 ss. is a trap that no serious christian should fall in to. By now Stephen Jay Gould must have realized how wrong it is. The NOMA concept assumes that science is objective and rational, and that religion is subjective and emotional. It assumes that science is about statements of fact, and religion is about value judgements. In its apparent plausibility, this notion couldn't be more naíve. Perhaps naive is not really the best word, since Stephen Jay Gould chose is words carefully so as to promote his naturalistic agenda. The fact of the matter is: 1) Evolution is itself interpretative, speculative and fideistic. In evolutionary theory, conjectures are much more important than the empirical data as such, because all the empirical data available (v.g. absence of intermediate forms in the fossil record and molecular biology, DNA information; catastrophism in geology; molecular machines; fine-tuning of the universe; mathematical improbability of evolution) points towards criation, not evolution. Evolutionary theory has not yet proved the casual origin of life, the existence of the prebiotic soup, the existence of the needed intermediate life forms, nor has it identified the evolutionary mechanism. On the other hand, the Big Bang theory has not yet explained the Big Bang itself, the inflation of the Universe, the origin of galaxies, stars, the solar system, the sun and the moon. So when Stephen Jay Gould says that evolution is based on objective empirical data, I really don't understand what he is talking about. On the other hand, 2) The Bible clearly speaks of instantaneous creation ex nihilo, of the fall, the curse, and the flood. It also speaks about the comming of the Messiah. Lets talk about this last aspect for a while. Is there any historical evidence of the comming of the Messiah? Well, there is plenty. Jesus Christ was simply the most important single person that the World has haver known. So the Bible is about historical facts, not value statements. In the case of Jesus Christ, there is abundant circunstantial evidence that God rose him from the dead, thus creating life from inorganic matter and inteligently designing a new and glorious body in a few seconds, not billions of years. This historical fact is more than enough for us to believe in the factual and objective ability of the Creator to create the world in six days. I understand that this may seem incredible, but the fact is that it is not blind faith. There is good empirical evidence for that, such as the fine-tuning of the Universe for life, the incredible ammounts of DNA information, the extremly complex proteins, molecular machines, cells and biological systems. In facto, the needed simultaneous presence of millions of nucleotides precisely sequenced to specify extremly complex biological structures and functions speaks more about instantaneous creation than about evolutionary gradualism or saltationism. The fotosynthesis mechanism is an example of an extremely complex structure that must be put in place at once or else it wont' work, and I don't see how gradualism or saltationism can solve that, nor does any scientist, not even all of them together. Much more could be said about the objective nature of christian religion, as in the case of the curse, the flood, Babel, etc. Some religions, along with many scientific theories of origins, are no doubt subjective and speculative and even counterfactual. But Biblical faith is as solid, objective and factual as anything else can be. The whole notion of NOMA makes no sense. The Bible is magisterial and science can only be ministerial. NOMA is a naturalistic trap in which, alas, many christians of good faith and bad arguments have fallen. It is not so much about Bible v. Science. It is abou the possibility of acquiring real knowledge about the origins, the meaning and the destiny of our lives. Contrary to commom held beliefs, faith in the Bible leads to Homo Sapiens. Faith in evolution produces Homo Ignorans.