Ronald Numbers

Ronald Leslie Numbers was the son of a fundamentalist Seventh-day Adventist preacher, and was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist religion and schools well into college. Regarding religious beliefs, he described himself as agnostic, and has written, "I no longer believe in creationism of any kind".See introduction to Ronald Number's book (page xvi): The Creationists. See also [http://www.spectrummagazine.org/articles/spectrum_interview/2008/08/10/emprophetess_healthem_hits_shelves_again Prophetess of Health Reappears], an interview of Numbers by Alita Byrd of Spectrum. And [http://brainwaveweb.com/diavlogs/21107 Inside the Mind of a Creationist: Ron Numbers & Paul Nelson in discussion] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101010060052/http://brainwaveweb.com/diavlogs/21107 |date=2010-10-10}} He became a leading scholar in the history of science and religion and an authority on the history of creationism and creation science.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Numbers was educated at Southern Missionary College, and obtained his master's degree at Florida State University.{{Cite web |title=Ronald Leslie Numbers |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/ronald-leslie-numbers |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}} Numbers received his Ph.D. in history of science from University of California, Berkeley, in 1969.{{cite thesis|last=Numbers|first=Ronald Leslie|type=Ph.D.|date=1969|title=The nebular hypothesis in American thought|publisher=University of California, Berkeley|url=http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b14930694~S1}} He was 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 had edited the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science.

Ronald Numbers died on July 24, 2023, at the age of 81.{{cite web |title=Ronald L. Numbers|url=https://memorials.compassioncremation.com/ronald-numbers/5238762/index.php#details|access-date=July 25, 2023|date=July 25, 2023}}

In 1976, while still a lecturer at Loma Linda University, he published the book Prophetess of Health. The book is about the relationship between Seventh-day Adventist 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.Critiques and reviews include "[http://whiteestate.org/issues/Prophetess-of-Health.pdf A Critique of the Book Prophetess of Health]" by the official church Ellen G. White Estate; Glenn Vandervliet. Isis 69:1 (March 1978), pp. 146–147. [https://www.jstor.org/pss/230669 JSTOR]. See also the reviews in Spectrum [http://www.spectrummagazine.org/spectrum/issue/vol_8_no_2_jan_1977 8:2 (January 1977)]

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".Steve Paulson, [http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/ "Seeing the light – of science"], Interview with Ronald Numbers, Salon.com, Jan. 2, 2007. It has received generally favorable reviews from both the academic and the religious community.See references in "notable reviews". 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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20080829185250/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4383951.ece The creation of Creationism], John Habgood, The Times, July 23, 2008

In 2009, he was editor for Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion, where the book focuses on popular misconceptions that are connected between science and religion.{{cite book|url=http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057418|title=Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion — Ronald L. Numbers |date=8 November 2010 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674057418 }}{{cite journal|title=Galileo goes to jail and other myths about science and religion. Edited by Ronald L. Numbers. pp. xiii+302. Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780674033276|first=Thomas|last=Dixon|journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History|year=2010|volume=61|issue=4|pages=789–790|doi=10.1017/S0022046910001703|s2cid=162849038}}{{Cite journal |last=Snobelen |first=Stephen D. |date=2010 |title=Reviewed Work: Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion by Ronald L. Numbers |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/659668 |journal=Isis |volume=101 |issue=4 |pages=856–857 |doi=10.1086/659668 |jstor=10.1086/659668 }}

Among other things the work seeks to debunk various claims, such as that the medieval Christian Church suppressed science, that medieval Islamic culture was inhospitable to science, that the Church issued a universal ban on human dissection in the Middle Ages, that Galileo Galilei was imprisoned and tortured for advocating Copernicanism, or that the idea of creationism is a uniquely American phenomenon.

• The Warfare Between Science and Religion: The Idea That Wouldn't Die, (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018) (ed. with Jeff Hardin, Ronald A. Binzley). {{ISBN|978-1421426181}}
• [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674967984 Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science], (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2015) (ed. with Kostas Kampourakis). {{ISBN|9780674967984}}
• 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, Massachusetts: 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, Massachusetts: 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.
• [https://books.google.com/books/about/Darwinism_Comes_to_America.html?id=drk3zykoEy4C Darwinism Comes to America]. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 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}}

{{reflist|2}}

• [https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/bio/num-frame.html PBS Evolution articles]
• [http://www.stnews.org/rlr-770.htm Interview with Science & Theology News]
• [http://www.meta-library.net/history/intro-frame.html Brief treatise on the history of creationism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212140726/http://www.meta-library.net/history/intro-frame.html |date=2017-12-12}}
• [http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/index_np.html Interview in Salon]
• [http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science]
• [http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/ Salon.com interview]
• [http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21107 Video of discussion about creationism/intelligent design with Numbers] and creationist Paul Nelson on Bloggingheads.tv
• {{IMDb name|3343138}}

{{Presidents of the History of Science Society}}

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Category:1942 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:Charles Darwin biographers

Category:American historians of religion

Category:American historians of science

Category:Former Seventh-day Adventists

Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni

Category:American agnostics

Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty

Category:Critics of Seventh-day Adventism

Category:American critics of creationism

Category:Presidents of the American Society of Church History

Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Category:American male non-fiction writers