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The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood (2012)

by David R. Montgomery(Favorite Author)

3.79 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0393082393 (ISBN13: 9780393082395)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: Geologist David Montgomery, who teaches geomorphology at the University of Washington, began tracing flood stories from many countries and cultures after a field trip in Tibet. On this trip, he noted the hundreds of alternating layers of silt and finer clay segregated into distinct layers and knew that on this arid and rocky land, there had once been a lake. He began hearing many, many flood stories; some, although not all, remarkably similar.In this book, he discusses the various flood stories and traces their evidence in the geologic record. The book is part a history of the development of geology as a scientific discipline and part a history of Christianity's (mostly fundamentalism's) relationship to geology. He is particularly interested in the Biblical story of No... moreah's Flood and in the theory of Creationism. He, as well as most other geologists, debunked the Biblical story of Noah's Flood for a long time. But he discovers evidence of a very large flood in the vicinity of the one described in the Genesis story, even though not one of worldwide proportions or one in which all the details of the Genesis story would be plausible.He is clearly on the side of geology (the rocks that don't lie, although sometimes their interpreters are wrong); however he is neither confrontational nor condescending. Perhaps his best argument for science is that it is always open to evidence, even if that evidence contradicts a previously held belief. Religion, or more precisely, Creationism of the recent variety, he finds to be a closed system - one not open to new evidence. He ends up endorsing both science and religion - each in their own function and place.
review 2: I really liked this one. Much of it covers the development of Geology, how people learned about the rock formations on earth and the processes that created them and how they tried to shoehorn this information into their belief in Noah's flood. I found it fascinating the way that right from the start, some people would basically deny the evidence and others would force it into ever more implausible interpretations of the biblical story, until Morris in the mid 20th century, who decided that the bible definitely said a worldwide seven day flood and science must either be twisted to fit, or just ignored. It really is amazing, that although there big gaps in geology due to plate tectonics not being known or understood, and he tried to take advantage of this, there evidence that did exist, even then proved the Creationist idea conclusively false, something I suspect he knew, even with his ignorance of actual science and evidence less

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