92nd Street Y
About UsSupport the YY BlogJoin Our eNews
My ProfileShopping CartShopping Cart
By InterestBy ProgramBy AgeBy Calendar
Home :: 92Y Blog
92Y Blog
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
E. L. Doctorow’s Creationists

E.L. Doctorow. Illustration: Stephen SavageAuthor Ron Powers reviewed E.L. Doctorow’s new collection Creationists last weekend for the New York Times Sunday Book Review (we’re still catching up on our Times reading). The essays in Creationists explore the theme of literary and scientific creation in Doctorow’s signature style:

Doctorow chose his gallery with what may seem a generous dash of whimsy. Many of his writers and other “creationists” are not exactly habitués of the canon. Standing alongside the likes of Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, Scott Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos are Harriet Beecher Stowe; W. G. Sebald; the anonymous translators of Genesis into the King James version; Harpo Marx; Albert Einstein; the makers of the atomic bomb. (These final auteurs, he seems to be suggesting in this least congruent of the essays, carried the concept of magic realism a tad too far.)

And yet the writers assembled here efficiently serve the critic’s intentions. Each yields in robustly illustrative ways to “the voice of the book,” a voice more protean than the artist’s own; a voice that soars into conjunction with the voice of the region, the nation, the times.

The Times has the first chapter, on Genesis.

Doctorow will be here in December as part of our Unterberg Poetry Center Reading Series, already underway.

[E.L. Doctorow: 12/11/06]



Comments Reader Comments

Why can Creationists &/or Intelligent Design advocates solve Sudoku Number Puzzles so quickly?

THEY JUST PUT A “G” IN ALL THE EMPTY SQUARES.

It’s just a matter of faith! It’s the same method creationists resort to in trying to prove their unsustainable “intelligent design theory”. Creationists can just stop searching for reality by just assuming all gaps in current understanding and/or knowledge of evolution must be filled with a (G=god) solution. As Prof Richard Dawkins explains in chapter four of The GOD Delusion; “If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default must fill it.” Saves them having to think and question I suppose.

Much like the progress one makes by eliminating the possible numbers in each square as a Sudoku puzzle is solved, “gaps shrink as science advances and God is threatened with eventually having nothing to do and nowhere to hide.” This of course “worries thoughtful theologians” however the greater worry for scientists (and the rest of us) is that groups through politics or fear will walk away from the “essential part of the scientific enterprise [that is] to admit ignorance.”

Nothing is more dangerous than a, ‘I have all the answers’ arrogant preacher followed by a bunch of non-thinking ‘god-botherers’ driven by blind faith who absolve themselves from their societal responsibilities with the comfort of unquestioning feeble-minds!

Although some see Dawkins as a bit of a raver and less scientific in his arguments than he could (should) be, if you read Pascal Boyer’s “Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them”, Dawkins’ ‘emotional’ approach to battling the “ID” lobby is also needed.

caliibre

By caliibre at November 23, 2006, 8:25pm


Post a Comment
Due to comment spam, comments are moderated and will appear on the site after review by the editors.

Name (required)
Email (required; will not be published)
Website

Please enter the word you see in the image below:

Email this item to a friend. Email this item to a friend.
The email address(es) that you supply to use this service will only be used to send the requested item.


Highlights from the
92nd Street Y universe.

Contact Us

About this blog

Request a Catalog

Donate now

Sort By:
Y News
The Arts
Humanities
Jewish Life
Family
Fitness
Interviews
Podcasts
Tell Me Why
92YTribeca
Search 92Y Blog

Advanced Search
Archives
<   October 2008   >
s m t w t f s
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31

October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
Recent Entries
Nobel Prize at the Y: 41 and Counting
92Y Podcast: Paul Krugman and Tom Herman: Whither the Economy?
Next Week at the Y
Lidia Bastianich’s Food Diary
92Y Podcast: Edgar Bronfman with Charlie Rose
Subscribe
RSS Feed
Mobile Version
Email

UJA Federation of New York

Contact Us | Privacy Statement | Policies | Site Map | Help | Press Resources
© 2008 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. Click here for directions
Web Accessibility and the 92nd Street Y