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Orrex

(64,105 posts)
Tue Oct 11, 2016, 08:18 AM Oct 2016

Interesting find on a local Goodwill bookshelf

Spotted this little gem recently at my local store:
Exploring Creation with Physics (2nd Edition), Textbook by the esteemed Dr. Jay L. Wile, who apparently is not related to the coyote.

It's decorated with enough actual science to convince its willing readers that it's a serious and credible science textbook. From a quick perusal, it's clear that the author took care to avoid any overt declarations that we're all living in God's wind-up toy, but that's the unmistakable subtext. Further, the book focuses on classical physics, so it can cover material that's generally consistent with biblical cosmology without having to worry about all of that pesky astrophysics stuff.

What really bugged me about it, though, was the tone of the writing. It had a chatty, pseudo-conversational style that I've never before seen in a serious text. I infer that this is intended to undermine the "overly academic" tone of actual science texts, but for me the effect was to make it seem less like an instructional manual and more like an overheard conversation on a bus.

I don't have a direct quote, but it went something like:

Now I want to take a moment to tell you about gravity. You might think that heavier objects fall faster than light objects, but that's not the case. Galileo showed us that objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass.
And so on.


I didn't purchase it; although it was only $2.00, I was afraid that the book might be found on my shelf after my eventual death and lead people to think that I've bought into Creationism. It might still be there if you're looking to expand your library of piffle.
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Interesting find on a local Goodwill bookshelf (Original Post) Orrex Oct 2016 OP
Sounds like something my home-schooling neighbors would have. progressoid Oct 2016 #1
Just wait until they get to the chapter of Thermodynamics. DetlefK Oct 2016 #2

progressoid

(50,747 posts)
1. Sounds like something my home-schooling neighbors would have.
Tue Oct 11, 2016, 09:00 AM
Oct 2016

The postal carrier once mistakenly put one of their catalogs in our mail box. It was chock full of religious themed home schooling text books.

I think I accidentally put it in the recycling bin.

DetlefK

(16,455 posts)
2. Just wait until they get to the chapter of Thermodynamics.
Thu Oct 13, 2016, 02:36 AM
Oct 2016

Gay-Lussac's streaming-experiment is a simple thought-experiment to show entropy via expansion of gas. Except when you calculate how much entropy actually gets created, you see that there's a possibility for entropy to get destroyed.

Oops. We just disproved Intelligent Design.

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