Review: In Six Days
Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation
Editor, John Ashton (Sydney, Australia: New Holland Publishers, 1999, 360 pages paperback). Reviewed by Islwyn Rees, May 2007
In Six Days was the first of John Ashton’s publications in defence of the Creationist view of Origins. It was followed by On the Seventh Day published in 2002. Offering an alternative view to that offered by Dawkins’ in TGD, in 2006 Ashton co-edited and had published, The Big Argument: Does God Exist? In Six Days was compiled in 1999 and is really a response to a claim by a visiting scientist at a creationist lecture held at Macquarie University, Sydney, who thought no scientist with a PhD could believe in a literal six-day creation. John Ashton began his quest for his book by asking colleagues at the University of Newcastle if they knew of any scientists with a doctorate degree who believed in special creation. From his inquiries he found himself with positive responses from about 80 scientists willing to give reasons for their belief in a literal six-day creation and allow it to be published. Fifty PhD scientists eventually contributed to the 360 page paperback, In Six Days. Each wrote a chapter, without collaboration, telling why they hold to a literal creation. It features fields as wide ranging as geology, cosmology, zoology, botany, geophysics, biochemistry and more. One of the authors estimates that there are more than 10,000 scientists in the USA alone who openly believe in a six-day creation. “In Six Days” has been published in several countries including Australia, Italy and the USA.
Said Ashton, “The list of names read like a ‘who’s who’ of leading scientists, including D.B. Gower, Emeritus Professor of Steroid Biochemistry at the University of London; Ken Thompson, former director of the U.S. Air Force Terrestrial Sciences Laboratory; E.A. Boudreaux, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of New Orleans; W.J. Veith, Chairman of the Zoology Department at the University of Western Cape, South Africa; W. Gitt, Federal Institute of Physics and Technology in Germany; and K. Wanser, Professor of Physics at California State University, Fullerton. I could not wait to read their essays,” said Ashton. Other institutions represented among the writers are the Universities of La Trobe, Newcastle, Queensland, Michigan, Loma Linda, Andrews, Colorado, Pennsylvania State, Harvard, Toronto, Cambridge, Leeds, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Liverpool and London.
“Over the next couple of months, as the essays came in,” said Ashton, “I saw the arguments and evidences for the Darwinian evolution very effectively challenged. I had never read anything like this material.” “Those readers who believe that they descended from Adam and Eve and have been made ‘in the image of God,’” said Ashton, “feel good about themselves and their world.” Each essay is preceded by a brief profile of the author. In Six Days has been available for reading online or downloading on both the Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International web sites.
Revised 8/05/07
