Spring 2012 - University of California Press

academic trade
Walter M. Fitch
The Three Failures
of Creationism
Logic, Rhetoric, and Science
Walter M. Fitch, a pioneer in the study of
molecular evolution, has written this
cogent overview of why creationism fails
with respect to all the fundamentals of scientific
inquiry. He explains the basics of
logic and rhetoric at the heart of scientific
thinking, shows what a logical syllogism is,
and tells how one can detect that an argument
is logically fallacious, and therefore
invalid, or even duplicitous. Fitch takes his
readers through the arguments used by creationists
to question the science of evolution.
He clearly delineates the fallacies in
logic that characterize creationist thinking,
and explores the basic statistics that creationists
tend to ignore, including elementary
genetics, the age of the Earth, and
fossil dating. His book gives readers the
tools they need for detecting and disassembling
the ideas most frequently repeated by
creationists.
Walter M. Fitch (1929–2011) was Professor of
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University
of California, Irvine. He was a member of the
National Academy of Sciences and author of books
including Variation and Evolution in Plants and
Microorganisms: Toward a New Synthesis Fifty
Years after Stebbins.
MARCH
196 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/4”, 7 line illustrations
Science/Evolution/Religion
World
paper 978-0-520-27053-4 $24.95sc/£16.95
Jerry D. Moore
The Prehistory of Home
Many animals build shelters, but only
humans build homes. No other species creates
such a variety of dwellings. Drawing
examples from across the archaeological
record and around the world, archaeologist
Jerry D. Moore recounts the cultural development
of the uniquely human imperative
to maintain domestic dwellings. He shows
how our houses allow us to physically adapt
to the environment and conceptually order
the cosmos, and explains how we fabricate
dwellings and, in the process, construct
our lives. The Prehistory of Home points out
how houses function as symbols of equality
or proclaim the social divides between
people, and how they shield us not only
from the elements, but increasingly from
inchoate fear.
Jerry D. Moore is Professor of Anthropology
at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
He is the author of Architecture and Power in
the Ancient Andes, Cultural Landscapes in the
Prehispanic Andes, and Visions of Culture: An
Introduction to Anthropological Theories and
Theorists.
MAY
267 pages, 6 x 9”, 27 b/w photographs,
9 line illustrations, 1 table
Anthropology/Architecture
World
cloth 978-0-520-27221-7 $29.95sc/£19.95
34 | University of California Press