What do you think?
Rate this book
Science of Today and the Problems of Genesis
As a missionary in China for 50 years, including during Teilhard de Chardin's "Peking Man" fraud, Fr. O'Connell got in on the ground floor of research into questions regarding man's origins. He studied all the relevant literature in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. Here, he brings forth the archaeological, paleontological, and astronomical evidence which confirms the traditional Catholic teaching that the human race did not evolve from lower animals - and that id did begin with a single man and woman.
Fr. O'Connell shows that science has vindicated the traditional teaching of the Church and he affirms the complete inerrancy of every world of Sacred Scripture, pointing out the errors of many Catholic writers who want to make the catechism conform to unfounded hypothesis. He covers "hominids" or "apemen" such as Neanderthal Man, Pre-Neanderthal Man, Java Man, Piltdown and Peking Man, etc., showing each to be a case of either fraud or error. Regarding the Flood, he shows that paleontology supports the view that the human race disappeared for a long time from Europe, Africa, and Western Asia. he covers Pre-Flood and Post-Flood fossils, the erroneous theory that the Flood was merely an overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the date of the Flood, its extant and duration, the Babylonian account thereof, excavations in Mesopotamia, Iran, the Caspian Sea area, etc., frozen mammoths, the glacial periods, and the question of whether the Deluge reached America. He also goes into the Galileo case, the "6 days" of Creation, the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, and Tielhard de Chardin's utter lack of scientific credibility. Fr. O'Connell also exposes the more than 100-year-old propaganda campaign that has been waged in order to give everyone the impression that these anti-Scripture theories are established fact.
Though Fr. O'Connell presented this work in 1968, the research findings he reports are still almost unknown today and the crisis of faith caused by unfounded scientific hypotheses has worked havoc in the Church and undermined the faith of most Catholic intellectuals and many "ordinary" Catholics. Fr. O'Connell gives the scientific evidence why the Church was right. This book is a major contribution and is destined to have a tremendous impact on rebuilding the faith of Catholics.
Fr. O'Connell shows that science has vindicated the traditional teaching of the Church and he affirms the complete inerrancy of every world of Sacred Scripture, pointing out the errors of many Catholic writers who want to make the catechism conform to unfounded hypothesis. He covers "hominids" or "apemen" such as Neanderthal Man, Pre-Neanderthal Man, Java Man, Piltdown and Peking Man, etc., showing each to be a case of either fraud or error. Regarding the Flood, he shows that paleontology supports the view that the human race disappeared for a long time from Europe, Africa, and Western Asia. he covers Pre-Flood and Post-Flood fossils, the erroneous theory that the Flood was merely an overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the date of the Flood, its extant and duration, the Babylonian account thereof, excavations in Mesopotamia, Iran, the Caspian Sea area, etc., frozen mammoths, the glacial periods, and the question of whether the Deluge reached America. He also goes into the Galileo case, the "6 days" of Creation, the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, and Tielhard de Chardin's utter lack of scientific credibility. Fr. O'Connell also exposes the more than 100-year-old propaganda campaign that has been waged in order to give everyone the impression that these anti-Scripture theories are established fact.
Though Fr. O'Connell presented this work in 1968, the research findings he reports are still almost unknown today and the crisis of faith caused by unfounded scientific hypotheses has worked havoc in the Church and undermined the faith of most Catholic intellectuals and many "ordinary" Catholics. Fr. O'Connell gives the scientific evidence why the Church was right. This book is a major contribution and is destined to have a tremendous impact on rebuilding the faith of Catholics.
- GenresCreation ScienceCatholic
448 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2009
4 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 5, 2020
When reading a book about the "science of today" it is important to know what "today" is. This book was first published in 1959, with a second edition coming out in 1968. The copy I have was printed in 1993 by Tan, a traditionally-minded Catholic publisher. The book is unabashedly pro-Church (as in the Roman Catholic Church) and is also a serious effort to understand and use scientific research in supporting the author's arguments.
Father Patrick O'Connell was a missionary in China throughout the time that the Peking Man fossils (assumed to be a "missing link" species between apes and man) were discovered. Those fossils were subsequently lost in 1941 during the Japanese occupation. O'Connell attributes the loss to a cover-up of fraudulent fossils, though the scientific community (with its bias towards evolutionary interpretations) did and still accepts Peking Man as legitimate. It is interesting to note that the site was opened back up for excavation after the war and no additional fossils have been found, even to the present day (the present day being February 2020).
O'Connell argues against evolution a lot (about half the book) and also discusses the antiquity of man and evidence for Noah's flood. He sites many findings from paleontology and archaeology to back up his claims that Biblical account is highly compatible with scientific discoveries. His rhetoric is often a little too heavy handed, calling "absurd and ridiculous" claims that men were descended from apes or that mankind on Earth goes back half a million years. The style of writing would be off-putting for those not already sympathetic to his conclusions.
Which is a shame because O'Connell makes a lot of good arguments and ties together information from various disciplines (paleontology, archaeology, astronomy, and literary analysis of biblical and other ancient texts). He has read and discusses works from all sides of the arguments. He remains staunchly Catholic and argues that science and faith can be reconciled. He does a convincing job of that. And the interdisciplinary approach is indispensable for understanding complicated topics like evolution and human history.
Slightly recommended. The information is a bit old and the rhetorical style is a bit harsh.
If you want a reconciling of modern science with biblical faith, Seven Glorious Days is a much better book, though it is strictly focused on the Genesis creation account. See my review and the discussion of Seven Glorious Days on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.
Father Patrick O'Connell was a missionary in China throughout the time that the Peking Man fossils (assumed to be a "missing link" species between apes and man) were discovered. Those fossils were subsequently lost in 1941 during the Japanese occupation. O'Connell attributes the loss to a cover-up of fraudulent fossils, though the scientific community (with its bias towards evolutionary interpretations) did and still accepts Peking Man as legitimate. It is interesting to note that the site was opened back up for excavation after the war and no additional fossils have been found, even to the present day (the present day being February 2020).
O'Connell argues against evolution a lot (about half the book) and also discusses the antiquity of man and evidence for Noah's flood. He sites many findings from paleontology and archaeology to back up his claims that Biblical account is highly compatible with scientific discoveries. His rhetoric is often a little too heavy handed, calling "absurd and ridiculous" claims that men were descended from apes or that mankind on Earth goes back half a million years. The style of writing would be off-putting for those not already sympathetic to his conclusions.
Which is a shame because O'Connell makes a lot of good arguments and ties together information from various disciplines (paleontology, archaeology, astronomy, and literary analysis of biblical and other ancient texts). He has read and discusses works from all sides of the arguments. He remains staunchly Catholic and argues that science and faith can be reconciled. He does a convincing job of that. And the interdisciplinary approach is indispensable for understanding complicated topics like evolution and human history.
Slightly recommended. The information is a bit old and the rhetorical style is a bit harsh.
If you want a reconciling of modern science with biblical faith, Seven Glorious Days is a much better book, though it is strictly focused on the Genesis creation account. See my review and the discussion of Seven Glorious Days on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.
September 24, 2018
Mostly focuses on human evolution and the fossils of "human ancestors", but also discusses the background of the evolution debate and the position of the Catholic Church concerning the debate. The author doesn't go into detail about Darwinian evolution in general, and was writing sixty years ago, so the book doesn't include the latest information on the origins debate. However, the points he brings up are still a valid argument against Darwin, such as the Cambrian explosion (pp. 46-47) since evolutionists were never able to explain it. Also, the discussion concerning the various "ape-men" ancestors is still good (especially the obvious fraud of the Peking Man), since evolutionists are still trying to use them as evidence of Darwinism. The author uses several chapters to disprove the theory that Noah's Flood was simply a local Mesopotamian flood.
However, there are a few passages of the book that don't seem to be supported by other creation science books I've read. For example, there's a paragraph near the end of Part 1 chapter 6, which states "the first form of life was of a primitive kind such as suited the conditions of the earth at the time . . . God intervened at various times to produce other forms of life, according as the earth was prepared to receive them . . ." This contradicts what I've read in other books that the Hebrew word for day (yom) used in the context of Genesis chapter 1 means a literal 24 hour day. On page 170, the author states that the Neanderthals were "the race of Cain", without giving any sources for this conclusion; the recent creation science resources I've check don't mention this.
However, there are a few passages of the book that don't seem to be supported by other creation science books I've read. For example, there's a paragraph near the end of Part 1 chapter 6, which states "the first form of life was of a primitive kind such as suited the conditions of the earth at the time . . . God intervened at various times to produce other forms of life, according as the earth was prepared to receive them . . ." This contradicts what I've read in other books that the Hebrew word for day (yom) used in the context of Genesis chapter 1 means a literal 24 hour day. On page 170, the author states that the Neanderthals were "the race of Cain", without giving any sources for this conclusion; the recent creation science resources I've check don't mention this.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews