From:    Paul D. Farrar
To:      All                                    Msg #81, Sep-30-93 12:00PM
Subject: Re: Source of Adam's Bowels Argument

Organization: 
From: farrar@128.160.21.215 (Paul D. Farrar)
Message-ID: <28fdt7$466@news.cs.tulane.edu>
Reply-To: farrar@128.160.21.215
Newsgroups: talk.origins

clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

>Some time ago I read a book in which a 19th century American
>theologian/philosopher (I don't remember name, that is problem)
>was cited as giving an argument for why if the earth was
>created (by God, say) that it would have to have been created
>with fossils and everything just as if it had eveolved geologically.

>Does anyone know the author of this argument.  I would like to be
>able to cite it without rethinking all my reading for the past
>five years.

The originator was an Englishman, Philip Gosse, an eminent naturalist
(specialty marine invertebrates of the British Isles) and acquaintance
of Charles Darwin.  Gosse was a very enthusiastic member of the
Plymouth Brethren and a strict believer in the absolute correctness
of every word of the bible.  The publication of Darwin's _Origin.._
caused him great personal dismay.  He was too much a believer to
accept it, and too good a naturalist to not recognize the revolution
in biology.  (Much like the devout American naturalist Dana, who, however
converted late in life.)  After much distraught thinking, he published
_Omphalos_, which he saw as the doctrine which would reunite the
world of biology with the vanishing world of Paley and the Bridgewater
Treatises.  _Omphalos_, Greek for navel, refers to the question of
whether or not Adam had a navel (full bowels I don't know about).
This was once a hot topic apparently; most medieval and Renaissance
artists avoided it by using strategically placed vegetation (see
Cranach's Adam and Eve).  The _Omphalos_ thesis was that God created
the earth, and Adam and his navel, according to the Genesis schedule.
But for everything to work right, he had to build in features giving
the appearance of great age.  To his dismay, this effort was met with
derision from all quarters; one writer summarized it as "God hid the
fossils in the rocks to tempt the geologists into infidelity." [quote
from memory, caveat lector]  The _Omphalos_ thesis is, of course,
quite unanswerable, unverifiable, or unfalsifiable.  It is notable
as one of the last attempts by a legitimate scientist to give an
alternative (sort of) to Darwin.  Many modern Creationist arguments have
taken the tack of _Omphalos_, often without realizing it.

Stephen Gould has written an essay on _Omphalos_.  Martin Gardner has,
I believe, also written on Gosse, but I have the impression that his
essay was rather poor.  Gosse is best known today from his son's,
literary critic Edmund Gosse, _Father and Son_.  _F&S_ is an account
which any child of enthusiasts will find eerily resonant.

Paul Farrar
not an official spokesman
I'm not an omphalosceptic, but I play one on TV