Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

by Philip Henry Gosse, David M. Knight

Unearthed after nearly a century and a half of obscurity, Gosse's (1810-88) attempt to resolve the conflict between 18th-century fundamentalist Christianity and the emerging sciences of evolution and historical geology. Here is the infamous, usually unattributed, contention that God created the earth five millennia ago, as in the Bible, with evidence of a much longer history, such as tree rings and fossils. Two years later Darwin published and the scientific community never had to take Gosse seriously. Even his fellow fundamentalists thought he was accusing God of fraud. The original illustrations and advertisements for his other books are included. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: Spirituality

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1857

About the author

Philip Henry Gosse FRS (/ɡɒs/; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology. Gosse created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and coined the term "aquarium" when he published the first manual, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea, in 1854. His work was the catalyst for an aquarium craze in early Victorian England.

Gosse was also the author of Omphalos, an attempt to reconcile the geological ages presupposed by Charles Lyell with the biblical account of creation. After his death, Gosse was portrayed as an overbearing father of uncompromising religious views in Father and Son (1907), a memoir written by his son, Edmund Gosse, a poet and critic, though the son's description of Gosse has since been described as having included "error, distortion...unwarranted claims, misrepresentation" and "abuse of the written record".

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A WORK OFTEN RIDICULED, YET STILL OF INTEREST

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science. (After his death, he was portrayed in unflattering terms by his poet son in the book, 'Father and Son.')

Gosse states in the Preface, "I venture to suggest in the following pages an element, hitherto overlooked, which disturbs the conclusions of geologists respecting the antiquity of the earth. Their calculations are sound on the recognized premises; but they have not allowed for the Law of Prochronism in Creation." (He later defines "prochronic" as "unreal developments whose apparent results are seen in the organism at the moment of its creation," as opposed to "diachronic," which is "occurring during time.") He adds, "I do not claim originality for the thought which I have here endeavored to work out. It was suggested to me by a Tract, which I met with some dozen years ago, or more; the title of which I have forgotten; I am pretty sure it was anonymous."

He fairly and accurately states the evidence for the antiquity of the earth. "Looking only at nature, or looking at it only with the lights of experience and reason, I see not how it is possible to avoid one of these two theories, the development of all organic existence out of gaseous elements, or the eternity of matter in its present forms. Creation, however, solves the dilemma.... The life-history of every organism commenced at some point or other of its circular course. It was created, called into being, in some definite stage."

Thus, Gosse proposed what modern creationists would call "creation with an appearance of age": he states, "no example can be selected from the vast vegetable kingdom, which did not at the instant of its creation present indubitable evidences of a previous history. This is not put forth as a hypothesis, but as a necessity ... it could not have been otherwise."

Concerning man, "If it were legitimate to suppose that the first individual of the species Man was created in the condition answering to that of a new-born infant, there would still be the need of maternal milk for its sustenance, and maternal care for its protection, for a considerable period ... the navel cord or its cicatrix remains, to testify to something anterior to both." He adds, "Just as the newly-created Man was, at the first moment of his existence, a man of twenty, or five-and-twenty, or thirty years old; physically, palpably, visibly, so old, though not really, not diachronically. He appeared precisely what he would have appeared had he lived so many years."

Of course, Gosse is most ridiculed for his suggestion that fossils were not "really" the remains of extinct animals. He writes, "the readings of the `stone book' will be found not less worthy of man who deciphers them, if we consider them as prochronically, than if we judge them diachronically, produced."

It should be noted that none other than Stephen Jay Gould [in 'The Flamingo's Smile'] called Gosse "the finest descriptive naturalist of his day."

[Maksym Shcherban · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book by a mentally deficient creationist degenerate, written for mentally deficient creationist degenerates. Although 165 years have passed since its publishing, the "arguments" that creationists use today remain exactly the same: ignoring any evidence in favor of a fairy tale.