Ronald Numbers

Ronald Numbers

Ronald L. 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 was a Seventh-day Adventist lecturer at Loma Linda University's La Sierra Campus in Southern California when he wrote the book Prophetess of Health, published in 1976, 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 supposedly divinely-inspired books.^[2] Numbers' book claimed most of Ellen White's supposedly inspired writings were in fact based in the health beliefs being propounded by health writers such as those of John Harvey Kellogg, who was influential on the public's thinking about health at that time partly due to his large Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. His brother Will Keith Kellogg owned the Kellogg's cereal company. The Adventist church interpreted Numbers' writings as suggesting that White's writings were not divinely inspired, and did not renew his teaching contract at the university. As of 2008, he describes his religious views as "agnostic".^[3]

Numbers received his Ph.D. in history of science from University of California, Berkeley in 1969. 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.

Numbers is an eminent figure in the history of science and religion and an authority on the historical significance of creationism and creation science. His book The Creationists documents the creationist movement and is considered as possibly the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism. Numbers is in the rare position of being widely respected by both scientists and creationists.^[4]

Bibliography

• Galileo Goes to Jail, and Other Myths about Science and Religion (ed.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
• 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.)
• 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.

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

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