Ronald Numbers

Ronald Numbers at the 2008 History of Science Society conference, 2008-11-08.

Ronald Leslie Numbers (born 1942) is an American historian of science. He was awarded the 2008 George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar".^[1]

Biography

Numbers is the son of a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, and was a Seventh-day Adventist in his youth,^[1] but now describes himself as agnostic.^[2] He became a leading scholar in the history of science and religion and an authority on the history of creationism and creation science.

Numbers received his Ph.D. in history of science from University of California, Berkeley in 1969.^[3] Currently he is Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From 1989 to 1993 he was editor of Isis, an international journal of the history of science. With David Lindberg, he has co-edited two anthologies on the relationship between religion and science. Also with Lindberg, he is currently editing the 8-volume Cambridge History of Science.

Writings

Prophetess of Health

In 1976, while still a lecturer at Loma Linda University, he published the book Prophetess of Health. The book is about the relationship between church co-founder and prophetess Ellen G. White and popular ideas about health that were fashionable in certain circles in America just prior to the time during which she wrote her books.^[4]

The Creationists

In 1992, he published The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, a history of the origins of anti-evolutionism. It was revised and expanded in 2006, with the subtitle changed to From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. The book has been described as "probably the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism".^[5] It has received generally favorable reviews from both the academic and the religious community.^[6] Former Archbishop of York John Habgood described it, in an article in The Times, as a "massively well-documented history" that "must surely be the definitive study of the rise and growth of" creationism.^[7]

Bibliography

• Science and Religion Around the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) (ed. with John Hedley Brooke). ISBN 978-0-195-32819-6
• "Wrestling with Nature: From Omens to Science", (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) (ed.with Peter Harrison and Michael H. Shank). ISBN 9780226317816
• Galileo Goes to Jail, and Other Myths about Science and Religion (ed.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). ISBN 0-674-03327-2
• Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White, 3rd Ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2008).
• Science and Christianity in Pulpit and Pew, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
• The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006),
  - expanded version of The Creationists, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Reprinted by University of California Press, 1993.) ISBN 978-0-674-02339-0
• When Science and Christianity Meet, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). ed. with David C. Lindberg
• Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), ed. with John Stenhouse.
• Darwinism Comes to America. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
• God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) ed. with David C. Lindberg. ISBN 978-0-520-05538-4

References

External links

• Academic homepage
• PBS Evolution articles
• Interview with Science & Theology News
• Brief treatise on the history of creationism
• Interview in Salon
• Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science
• Salon.com interview
• Video of discussion about creationism/intelligent design with Numbers and creationist Paul Nelson on Bloggingheads.tv