Dinosaur dilemma

Duane T. Gish's Dinosaurs by design (Creation-Life, 1992): a nice-looking volume. Check out the publishers' blurb: "In art quality and detailed information on these mysterious beasts, this book [written for a juvenile audience] rivals that of any secular source. However, the strong Biblical theme makes it unique among dinosaur resource books. Offers plausible explanations for believing that man walked with dinosaurs." Almost 200 WorldCat libraries have a copy; we've got one right here at the Library of Congress. Not that we normally like to give much publicity to The Other System, but LC classes this work at QE862.D5 Dinosaurs. To be precise, that's Dinosaurs as in Geology--Paleozoology--Chordata--Vertebrates--Reptiles--Systematic divisions, A-Z--Dinosaurs. In other words -- science. The corresponding DDC number for comprehensive works on dinosaurs is 567.9 Reptilia, also under paleozoology and (ultimately) 500 Natural sciences. But is Dinosaurs by design really a book about science? Catalogers discussing this work on the AUTOCAT mailing list have questioned that interpretation, arguing that, since the intent of the author is to present "intelligent design" as an alternative to prevailing scientific theories of evolution, it is a religious rather than a scientific work and should be classed in the 200s. There's an extensive DDC Manual note at 231.7652 vs. 213, 500, 576.8 (Relation of scientific and Christian viewpoints of origin of universe vs. Creation in philosophy of religion vs. Natural sciences and mathematics vs. Evolution) that is intended to help with dilemmas of this kind, and in this particular case the following extract is relevant: "[W]hen a religious author is trying to enlighten scientists on a specific scientific matter, class the work with science, while if a scientist is trying to enlighten the religious on a specific religious matter, class the work with religion. The correct classification is determined by the intent of the author, and the interest of the readers that the author is seeking to reach, not by the truth, falsity, or validity of interpretations and premises." On this basis, we're ready to concur that the most helpful main class for a work that presents a creationist, faith-based explanation of a specific natural phenomenon that is normally explained using the scientific method is science.

Comments

[Laura Crossett]

Still, though, regardless of the intent of the author or the interest of the reader, if something is not recognized as science by the scientific community, it seems that there ought to be some recognition of that in the classification scheme.