Originally posted by McCoy
[Rough Draft, will be edited later. Thank you for yourpatience.]

I read the book when it first came out. I own the book. You are correct, Ward and Brownlee are not creationist. Which is what made them a perfect if unwiting Trojan Horse for "Guillermo Gonzalez [who] changed many of our views about planets and habitable zones," preface, page x.

Gonzalez is a creationist, intelligent design proponent, and Christian appologist. See interview.

Guillermo Gonzalez
Glad to hear we're not debating in a total vacuum here! Interesting interview. However, nothing in it invalidates the position of Rare Earth. Gonzalez wasn't the only contributor for this book, just one of many. (Were any other creationists involved?) And in the interview you cited, he makes it clear that he disagrees with Ward and Brownlee's conclusions. There's a big difference between the book's titular "rare earth" hypothesis and Gonzalez's "unique, privileged, -had-to-be-designed-by-god-, earth" position. Ward and Brownlee used scientific work provided by a creationist, true, but they came to a completely different conclusion. It appears that Ward and Brownlee accepted Gonzalez's science, while simply rejecting his very un-scientific conclusions. I don't see how that makes them, or their work, "creationist claptrap". Nor does it fit the "trojan horse" analogy.

I also read Gonzalez's article on Galactic Habitable Zones in Scientific American when it came out. (and made the connection when I read the preface to Rare Earth, thank you very much) Apparently, S.A. reached the same conclusion as Ward and Brownlee. They published the article, without any of Gonzalez's creationist conclusions. Do you think Scientific American should have refused to publish it, based on his religious ideas? Should all of his work, and everything he to which he contributes be considered illegitimate creationist nonsense? Some creationists have falsely accused the scientific community of doing this, and I think Ward and Brownlee have helped disprove these allegations by including Gonzalez.

Aside from Gonzalez's contribution, are there any other creationists cited in Rare Earth? (I looked. Didn't see any, but then, I missed Gonzalez....) And even if there are, did Ward and Brownlee support creationism, or reach any creationistic conclusions? I don't think so, but correct me if I'm wrong.

thanx heaps,

DGv3.0