Contemporary Authors

• The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 2002
• The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon and the Mysterious Disease That Bears His Name Pegasus Books (New York, NY), 2017

1. The dating game : one man's search for the age of the Earth https://lccn.loc.gov/2012472000 Lewis, Cherry, 1947- The dating game : one man's search for the age of the Earth / by Cherry Lewis. Canto classic edition. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012. ix, 258 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm QE508 .L48 2012 ISBN: 9781107659599 (pbk.) 2. The making of the Geological Society of London https://lccn.loc.gov/2010286916 The making of the Geological Society of London / edited by C.L.E. Lewis and S.J. Knell. London : Geological Society, 2009. xi, 471 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.) ; 25 cm. QE13.G7 M35 2009 ISBN: 97818623927791862392773 3. The age of the earth : from 4004 BC to AD 2002 https://lccn.loc.gov/2003464816 The age of the earth : from 4004 BC to AD 2002 / edited by C.L.E. Lewis & S.J. Knell. London : Geological Society, 2001. viii, 288 p. : ill., maps, ; 26 cm. QE508 .A336 2001 ISBN: 1862390932

• The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon - 2017 Pegasus Books, https://smile.amazon.com/Enlightened-Mr-Parkinson-Pioneering-Forgotten/dp/1681774542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516592629&sr=8-1&keywords=cherry+lewis

• The Conversation - https://theconversation.com/profiles/cherry-lewis-358458

  Cherry Lewis
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  Honorary Research Fellow , University of Bristol
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  I have an academic background in geology and geochemistry and worked in the exporation side of the oil industry.

  My interests now lie in the history of geology.

  I recently published a popular science book on the history of dating the age of the Earth entitled: 'The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth'.

  I have also written a book on the medical and geological work of James Parkinson (1755-1824) who gave his name to Parkinson's Disease, and started to research the geological work of David Mushet (1772-1847) who, although famous for his experiments on the manufacture of iron and steel, is not know for his geological expertise,
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• University of Bristol - http://www.bris.ac.uk/earthsciences/people/cherry-l-lewis/index.html

  Dr Cherry Lewis
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  History of Geology

  Wills Memorial Building,
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  cherry.lewis@bristol.ac.uk
  Summary

  I have an academic background in geology and geochemistry and worked in the exporation side of the oil industry.

  My interests now lie in the history of geology.

  I have recently published a popular science book on the history of dating the age of the Earth entitled: 'The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth'.

  I am currently writing a book on the medical and geological work of James Parkinson (1755-1824) who gave his name to Parkinson's Disease. I have also started to research the geological work of David Mushet (1772-1847) who, although famous for his experiments on the manufacture of iron and steel, is not know for his geological expertise,
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The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon and the Mysterious Disease That Bears
His Name
Tony Miksanek
Booklist.
113.22 (Aug. 1, 2017): p10. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon and the Mysterious Disease That Bears His Name. By Cherry Lewis. Aug. 2017.320p. illus. Pegasus, $27.95 (97816817745411.616.8.
Parkinson's disease--a disorder characterized by tremor, muscle stiffness, and slow movements-- trails only Alzheimer's dementia in frequency among neurodegenerative diseases. But who was the man that the disease was named for? James Parkinson (1755-1824) was an English apothecary-surgeon whose interests were not limited to the field of medicine but included fossil collecting, paleontology, geology, social and political activism involving his concern about the lives of working children, and advocacy for reform of Parliament and equality of wealth. Over the course of six years, he identified six men exhibiting the same tremor along with other symptoms and published "An Essay on the Shaking Palsy," the original description of Parkinsons disease. He likely never imagined how very long it would take to find an effective treatment for the condition. The pensive and passionate Parkinson is portrayed as a character caught in a sort of temporal paradox as a clinician ahead of his time in some ways, a scientist infatuated with prehistoric eras, and a citizen restless and uneasy with society and living conditions in his world.--Tony Miksanek
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Miksanek, Tony. "The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon
and the Mysterious Disease That Bears His Name." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2017, p. 10.
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Lewis, Cherry: THE ENLIGHTENED MR. PARKINSON
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lewis, Cherry THE ENLIGHTENED MR. PARKINSON Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $27.95 8, 8 ISBN: 978-1-68177-454-1
A biography of the doctor who first defined the "debilitating condition" that has become "one of the most familiar of all neurological disorders."In 1817, British surgeon James Parkinson (1755-1824) described the symptoms of a frightening neurodegenerative disease, the second most common after Alzheimer's. He was a Renaissance man who tried his hand at natural history and politics, and British geologist and historian Lewis (The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth, 2000) turns this into a fine biography of a colorful figure who lived in a turbulent era. In 18th-century Britain, the term "doctor" referred to a university-trained physician. Having a lower status but an arduous apprenticeship, surgeons like Parkinson were called "Mister," but their responsibilities overlapped. Medical practitioners of the time were ignorant, but they didn't think so. A card-carrying member of the Enlightenment, Parkinson shared the movement's belief in progress and experimental research, but, unlike 18th-century physical science, medicine remained a slave to ancient theories. Readers will squirm as Parkinson and his colleagues bleed, blister, purge, and poison patients with a confidence that gave the surgeon a nationwide reputation that he burnished with a steady stream of scientific papers and books, including a bestseller of popular health advice. He was, however, an acute observer, and his slim 1817 monograph, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, became a medical classic for its detailed, insightful depiction of the malady given the name Parkinson's disease--but not until 50 years later. Fascinated by fossils, he assembled a world-class collection and helped found the Geological Society of London in 1807, the world's first. Parkinson's overall contributions to medicine may be trivial except for a name, but Lewis delivers an appealing, often gruesome account of the life of a workaholic, highly respected physician from a far-off time.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lewis, Cherry: THE ENLIGHTENED MR. PARKINSON." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017.
PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491934282/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=77ed4bf1. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon
Publishers Weekly.
264.22 (May 29, 2017): p56. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon Cherry Lewis. Pegasus, $27.95 (320p) ISBN 9781-68177-454-1
Lewis, a research scholar at the University of Bristol, lifts from the shadows of history the fascinating story of James Parkinson (1755-1824), the Enlightenment-age surgeon-apothecary who first described the neurodegenerative condition that now bears his name. Parkinson emerges as a committed naturalist--he was among the founders of the Geological Society of London and compiled an unparalleled collection of fossils--and doctor (one of the first in London to offer smallpox vaccinations), as well as a fearless warrior for social justice during the turbulent dawning of the Industrial Revolution. Yet Parkinson's name lives on because of his 1817 work "Essay on the Shaking Palsy," a pamphlet favorably received in its day that nevertheless went on to be seen as "just another pamphlet in his long list of publications." However, Parkinson's groundbreaking work, as Lewis notes, represented a "farsighted, questioning approach" that "left us with a remarkable scientific and medical legacy." Lewis's lively, captivating biography illuminates the life and work of a pioneer who may have largely faded from medical history, but whose curiosity and passion are as relevant today as they were 200 years ago. Agent: Peter Tallack, Science Factory. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon." Publishers
Weekly, 29 May 2017, p. 56. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A494500746 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=9e768dff. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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A very very old planet
Sue Bowler
New Scientist.
168.2260 (Oct. 14, 2000): p50. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2000 New Scientist Ltd.. For more science news and comments, see http://www.newscientist.com.
http://www.newscientist.com/
Full Text:
Did the Earth move for Arthur? Sue Bowler on the man who put geologists to rights
The Dating Game: One man's search for the age of the Earth by Cherry Lewis, Cambridge University Press, [pound]17.95, ISBN 0521790514
MENTION Arthur Holmes to a geologist and most will say, "Oh, yes, the book." What they're referring to is a thumping great textbook, Principles of Physical Geology, and most will have seen it as a student. Surprisingly, the man behind this excellent book is practically unknown to geologists--and unheard of outside their world.
Holmes, who was born in 1890 and died in 1965, helped to lead the revolution that took geology from a pastime for gentlemen to a quantitative science that tackles the processes shaping the planets. Our picture of the Earth and how it formed owes much to this British geologist's application of physics and chemistry--very much minority interests in early 20th-century geology--and his persistence in the face of indifference and scepticism.
Lewis's biography of Holmes, The Dating Game, is her first book. Yet it's already evident that she has found her own voice, and that she knows her geology. She tells Holmes's story with just enough physics, chemistry and geology to set the scientific scene. Her extensive quotes from Holmes's letters and writings bring alive the realities of a career in science at the start of the past century. Mind you, some of those realities have changed little: Holmes chose geology because he reckoned it offered better job prospects than physics. He worried that he would never earn a decent wage--and his head of department was reduced to borrowing laboratory equipment from friends.
Lewis has an excellent eye for a clever turn of phrase, and a keen interest in the characters in this story. The passages she highlights reveal Holmes's playful approach. He writes in one letter, for example, "It is perhaps a little indelicate to ask of our Mother Earth her age, but Science admits no shame."
One weakness of the book, however, is that we're not always sure of either who he's addressing, or the context of the exchange, although it is a tribute to Lewis's choices that you do want to know. And there are other, more serious, problems with the text. Overall, the book lacks coherence. The potted histories and technical details are just dropped into the narrative, and because these dodge about in time they confuse the story.
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But don't be put off by these quibbles: the central subject grips from the beginning, and is full of surprises. One is that Holmes had such a broad-ranging career. As well as determining the Earth's age and setting up the first accurate geological timescale, he was an accomplished musician. He mapped in Mozambique, kept a curio shop in Newcastle and ran a failing oilfield in what was then Burma. Much of his life and times will ring bells with today's geologists, not least his whirlwind romance with fellow geologist Doris Reynolds in Ardnamurchan in the Scottish Highlands, which exposed them to the sniggering of their colleagues. Luckily, they were oblivious to it.
Holmes was a confident and independent thinker. He worried away at problems, going over calculations and refining ideas. He was never afraid to challenge received wisdom when it simply didn't add up, and time after time he kindly explained that there was no physical basis for many a cherished geological idea. This did not endear him to the establishment.
Holmes changed the nature of geology by bringing other scientific disciplines to it. He championed the idea of mantle convection and favoured ideas of continental drift at a time when geological orthodoxy regarded them as fanciful nonsense. In doing so, he anticipated the plate tectonics revolution, one of the most successful theories of the century.
Before, geologists had to struggle to fit geological time into a few thousand years; now they have a problem conveying the immensity of it. That it is so difficult to is a tribute to Holmes, who stretched our collective imagination by adding so much to our knowledge. The Dating Game puts modern geologists in touch with the strange ideas of just a century ago. Thanks to Holmes, it feels more like a millennium.
Sue Bowler is assistant editor of Geoscientist, the magazine of the Geological Society
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bowler, Sue. "A very very old planet." New Scientist, 14 Oct. 2000, p. 50. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A66527924/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=8859bf0e. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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THE DATING GAME: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth
Publishers Weekly.
247.46 (Nov. 13, 2000): p97. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2000 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
CHERRY LEWIS. Cambridge, $24.95 (216p) ISBN 0-521-79051-4
Lewis's sketch of Arthur Holmes's (1890-1965) life and work captures a fascinating period of scientific achievement and recovers the accomplishments of a neglected thinker. The young Holmes was enamored of natural history and geology. As an adolescent, he eagerly followed the debates over the age of the Earth between the leading but aged physicist Lord Kelvin and his opponents, much younger scientists using radioactivity for dating. By age 21, Holmes had engaged in numerous experiments, seeking to perfect uranium-lead dating for determining the ages of rocks. Soon he used his research to gauge the Earth's age, and at 23, he wrote a seminal work, The Age of the Earth, in which he argued that the planet was 1.6 billion years old, refuting Kelvin's earlier estimate of 20 million years; later Holmes dated the Earth at 3.35 billion years. Eventually, as a professor of geology at Edinburgh University, he fulfilled his lifelong dream of producing a geological time scale that ordered the temporal ages of the Earth f rom the Cambrian period to the Pleistocene epoch. In his 1944 (and still used) book, Principles of Physical Geology, Holmes detailed these ideas and also proposed a theory of continental drift that challenged the reigning idea of a onetime land bridge. In due time, Holmes's conclusions about the Earth's age and plate tectonics were accepted into the scientific canon, even though, as Lewis, a British petroleum scientist, argues, he seldom receives credit. Science fans will appreciate Lewis's fast- paced biography tracing the evolution of Holmes's genius, the often hostile and sometimes divisive character of the scientific community and the quest to discover the age of the Earth. 44 illus. (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"THE DATING GAME: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth." Publishers Weekly, 13 Nov.
2000, p. 97. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A67162314 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=b97c3ee6. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A67162314
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The Age of the Earth: from 4004 BC to
AD 2002
S. George Pemberton
Geoscience Canada.
31.1 (Mar. 2004): p46+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2004 Geological Association of Canada http://www.gac.ca/wp/?page_id=106
Full Text:
by C.L.E. Lewis and S.J. Knell (Editors) Geological Society Publishing House Unit 7, Brassmill Lane Bath, BA1 3JN, United Kingdom Geological Society Special Publication No. 190, 2001, 288 p. Hardcover $US 117.00, GSL Members $US58.00, AAPG Members $US70.00
This volume resulted from the Geological Society's William Smith Millennium Meeting, convened on 28-29 June 2000 at Burlington House on behalf of the History of Geology Group. The book is dedicated to the memory of John Thackray, archivist at the Natural History Museum and the Geological Society who passed away in 1999.
A debate about the Age of the Earth has raged for centuries and absolute dates have been postulated and revised countless numbers of times. The discovery of the concept of deep geologic time was the cornerstone to the development of the modern concepts of geology and biology. It provided Hutton and Lyell with the mechanism to explain the history of the Earth and to formulate the modern principles of geology and Darwin with the time required to explain the transmutation of species. With apologies to plate tectonics it probably represents the most important concept to come out of geology. The volume contains 19 contributions from some of the best-known historians of geology and documents the development of the concept of determining the Age of the Earth over a span of some 350 years from 1650 to 2002. It provides valuable insights both on the techniques and the scientists involved in this enquiry. Although the author list is a bit top heavy with contributors from Great Britain (11 of the 21 contributors), the editors have tried to make it cosmopolitan with authors from Italy, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Sweden and Germany. This provides a more even handed treatment of the subject from a number of points of view.
The book opens with an introductory essay on "Celebrating the age of the Earth" by the editors Simon Knell and Cherty Lewis where they summarize the key developments for the quest of determining the Age of the Earth. The remaining 18 contributions are arranged in more or less chronological order, beginning with the work on biblical chronology in the 1660's and ending with the radiometric dating chronologies of the present day. Specific contributions on the role of fossils as geological clocks, time and life, dating humans, and the abstraction of cosmic time are also included.
I particularly enjoyed the contributions by Ken Taylor (on Buffon and Desmarest), Martin
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Rudwick (on Jean-Andre de Luc), Hugh Torrens (on William Smith), Patrick Wyse Jackson (on John Joly), and Cherry Lewis (on Arthur Holmes). The Torrens essay was brilliant and in spite of all of the recent work on Smith managed to cover new ground. On the other hand, I was disappointed with the essay by John Fuller on the early biblical chronologies especially the lack of discussion on the impact of the work by James Ussher and John Lightfoot. This is especially odd given that the title specifically mentions the 4004 BC date. This date became the rallying point from which geology began its dramatic separation from religious orthodoxy and established itself as a viable science. The contribution on the American perspective by Ellis Yochelson and Cherry Lewis was also disappointing as it was superficial. It could have used some of the verve given by Ezio Vaccari on his excellent treatment on the European views on the subject as exemplified by Descartes, Leibniz, Kirchner, Steno, Swedenborg, De Maillet and Scheuuchzer among others.
One disappointing aspect of the volume is the lack of illustrative materials. In total the 19 contributions have only 63 figures and 26 of them are graphic in nature. Geology is a visual science and I would have liked more illustrations. The history comes alive when it is depicted visually. Although the individual contributions stand alone, the editors have provided a common index that I found to be useful. As a bibliophile I enjoy perusing the bibliographies (references in the 19 contributions total 1,245) and I must say that this volume provides the reader with a concise over view of the literature on the subject.
On the whole I found the volume to be well written and tightly edited. Most of the contributions were informative and provided valuable insights on the techniques involved in determining the Age of the Earth. This book would serve well as a textbook for a graduate student seminar course because of its broad coverage of the topic. I think that this volume should be on the shelf of most geologists as it is only through a good understanding of the history of development of a concept that we truly understand it. I am sure that the final page on the quest for determining the age of the earth has not as yet been written and new methodologies will refine our understanding. The concept of deep geologic time will continue to excite future geologists and the quest to determine the Age of the Earth will continue.
S. George Pemberton
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E3 george.pemberton@ualberta.ca
Pemberton, S. George
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pemberton, S. George. "The Age of the Earth: from 4004 BC to AD 2002." Geoscience Canada,
vol. 31, no. 1, 2004, p. 46+. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A118543952 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=6de084a6. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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Book World: Doctor's legacy of social
justice, fossils and a namesake disease
Vanessa Grubbs
The Washington Post.
(Sept. 4, 2017): News: From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Vanessa Grubbs
The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon By Cherry Lewis
Pegasus. 306 pp. $27.95
---
As a doctor, I was drawn to Cherry Lewis' "The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon" by the title alone. I wondered: How could this man be forgotten when everybody knows his name, because he was the first to describe the shaking palsy condition that later became known as Parkinson's disease?
Lewis provides a fascinating, illustrated account of the life and times of James Parkinson, who lived from 1755 to 1824, a time of significant political upheaval and considerable probing into the earth sciences and medicine. It was an era when only white male landowners had the right to vote and bloodletting was the go-to treatment for most ailments. As Lewis tells it, Parkinson fought for the rights of the vulnerable, moved scientific fields forward and observed what most people could not see.
Lewis, an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol, explores three main themes of Parkinson's life: politics, fossils and medicine. The author's passion for geology gives us four chapters devoted to Parkinson's fossil endeavors. Only the penultimate chapter focuses on why he has an ailment named after him.
Though I personally have no interest in fossils, I was absorbed by Lewis' account of Parkinson's pioneering work. Particularly compelling was Lewis' depiction of Parkinson's struggle with his faith and how he reconciled history revealed in fossil evidence with his belief in the stories of the Bible.
Lewis recounts the remarks of the lecturer John Hunter, a renowned Scottish scientist and surgeon, about his remarkable collection of skulls. A newspaper of the day, reporting on the
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lecture, noted that "the most perfect human skull is the European; the most imperfect, the Negro." The paper added: "Mr. Hunter observed that in placing the Negro above the monkey, great honour is done to him; for although a man, he can hardly be called a brother."
In recounting this episode, Lewis writes rather off-handedly: "Today such comments shock our politically correct sensibilities." In an otherwise fine book, I found her casual response almost like a justification of Hunter's crassness.
Throughout the book, Lewis pieces together voluminous information from the late 18th and early 19th centuries to form her compelling tale. Anyone interested in the history of medicine, politics and geology will enjoy this book. I finished it in awe of Parkinson's many accomplishments and contributions to politics, health and science, despite having a large family and a very busy medical practice.
---
Grubbs is an associate professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and the author of "Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor's Search for the Perfect Match."
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Grubbs, Vanessa. "Book World: Doctor's legacy of social justice, fossils and a namesake
disease." Washington Post, 4 Sept. 2017. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A503577670/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=e318b007. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.
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Miksanek, Tony. "The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon and the Mysterious Disease That Bears His Name." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2017, p. 10. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A501718670/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=b9671498. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. "Lewis, Cherry: THE ENLIGHTENED MR. PARKINSON." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491934282/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=77ed4bf1. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. "The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon." Publishers Weekly, 29 May 2017, p. 56. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A494500746/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=9e768dff. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. Bowler, Sue. "A very very old planet." New Scientist, 14 Oct. 2000, p. 50. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A66527924/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=8859bf0e. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. "THE DATING GAME: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth." Publishers Weekly, 13 Nov. 2000, p. 97. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A67162314/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=b97c3ee6. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. Pemberton, S. George. "The Age of the Earth: from 4004 BC to AD 2002." Geoscience Canada, vol. 31, no. 1, 2004, p. 46+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A118543952/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=6de084a6. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018. Grubbs, Vanessa. "Book World: Doctor's legacy of social justice, fossils and a namesake disease." Washington Post, 4 Sept. 2017. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A503577670/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=e318b007. Accessed 21 Jan. 2018.

• The Washington Post
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/tracing-parkinsons-other-passions-besides-the-disease-that-bears-his-name/2017/09/01/b1d77852-810f-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?utm_term=.9bf97d89df38
  Word count: 529

  Tracing Parkinson’s other passions besides the disease that bears his name
  By Vanessa Grubbs September 1, 2017

  Vanessa Grubbs is an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of “Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor’s Search for the Perfect Match.”

  As a doctor, I was drawn to Cherry Lewis’s “The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon” by the title alone. I wondered how could this man be forgotten when everybody knows his name, because he was the first to describe the shaking palsy condition that later became known as Parkinson’s disease?

  Lewis provides a fascinating, illustrated account of the life and times of James Parkinson, who lived from 1755 to 1824, a time of significant political upheaval and considerable probing into the earth sciences and medicine. It was an era when only white male landowners had the right to vote and bloodletting was the go-to treatment for most ailments. As Lewis tells it, Parkinson fought for the rights of the vulnerable, moved some scientific fields forward and observed what most people could not see.

  Lewis, an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol, explores three main themes of Parkinson’s life: politics, fossils and medicine. The author’s passion for geology gives us four chapters devoted to Parkinson’s fossil endeavors. Only the penultimate chapter focuses on why he has an ailment named after him.

  [Parkinson’s disease and depression often go hand in hand]
  “The Enlighted Mr. Parkinson” by Cherry Lewis (Pegasus Books)

  Though I personally have no interest in fossils, I was absorbed by Lewis’s account of Parkinson’s pioneering work in the field. Particularly compelling was Lewis’s depiction of Parkinson’s struggle with his faith and how he reconciled history revealed in fossil evidence with his belief in the stories of the Bible.

  Lewis recounts the remarks of the lecturer John Hunter, a renowned Scottish scientist and surgeon, about his remarkable collection of skulls. A newspaper of the day, reporting on the lecture, noted that “the most perfect human skull is the European; the most imperfect, the Negro.” The paper added: “Mr. Hunter observed that in placing the Negro above the monkey, great honour is done to him; for although a man, he can hardly be called a brother.”

  In recounting this episode, Lewis writes rather off-handedly: “Today such comments shock our politically correct sensibilities.” In an otherwise fine book, I found her casual response almost like a justification of Hunter’s crassness.

  Throughout the book, Lewis pieces together voluminous information from the late 18th and early 19th centuries to form her compelling tale. Anyone interested in the history of medicine, politics and geology will enjoy this book. I finished it in awe of Parkinson’s many accomplishments and contributions to politics, health and science, despite having a large family and a very busy medical practice.
  The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson
  The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten Surgeon

  By Cherry Lewis

  Pegasus.

  306 pp. $27.95

• The Scotsman
  https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/book-review-the-enlightened-mr-parkinson-the-pioneering-life-of-a-forgotten-english-surgeon-by-cherry-lewis-1-4430462
  Word count: 929

  Book review: The Enlightened Mr Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon, by Cherry Lewis An illustration from 1804 book The Villagers Friend by James Parkinson showing a village apothecary, believed to be the author. Illustration: Wellcome Library An illustration from 1804 book The Villagers Friend by James Parkinson showing a village apothecary, believed to be the author. Illustration: Wellcome Library Rob Ewing Published: 16:47 Wednesday 03 May 2017 Share this article 0 Have your say The Scotsman’s monthly review of a book about health, promoted by Wellcome Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition which affects millions of people worldwide, and yet surprisingly this is the first popular scientific account of the life of James Parkinson (1755-1824), who first described the illness in his classic treatise, ‘An Essay on the Shaking Palsy’, published in 1817. Still more surprising because Parkinson himself was a fascinating figure, a veritable enlightenment polymath: surgeon-apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political radical, as Cherry Lewis’s excellent new book The Enlightened Mr Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon makes clear. Parkinson was 62 when his treatise was published, towards the end of a rich professional life and a turbulent private one. Lewis, an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol, is a geologist by training, and has written about Parkinson before with respect to his work in this field and in palaeontology (known then as oryctology). The book begins by describing Parkinson’s upbringing in Hoxton, then a village about to be engulfed by London’s urban sprawl at the time of the industrial revolution, and within a few pages we’re grounded nicely in the sights, smells and social changes of the time. During a seven-year apprenticeship Parkinson trained to become an apothecary like his father: learning to grind and mix his own medicines, how to diagnose minor ailments, let blood and purge and blister his patients (medical practitioners of the 18th century still believed in the Hippocratic notion of bodily humours, and tried by these means to rebalance them.) After this he trained as a dresser (surgeon’s assistant) on his way to later becoming a surgeon. Parkinson would generally have treated poor and lower middle-class patients; if he attended to the servants of the wealthy he would be admitted via the back door (while the physicians, arriving in a chaise at the front door, administered to the family themselves.) Around this time Parkinson worked in a receiving house, where “bedraggled bodies, most of them pulled from London’s waterways, could be taken for treatment.” Enlightenment society appeared to share the later Victorian dread of being buried (or dissected) alive, and it seems the roots of resuscitation were as much about proving death as preserving life. I was surprised to learn attempts were being made even then to “defibrillate” the heart – in fact Parkinson may have been one of the first to carry out such a procedure, using a “portable electrical machine” he kept in his pocket. During the late 18th century, the Age of Revolution, Parkinson turned into something of a political radical, perhaps inspired by the poverty and inequality he had witnessed during his rounds. In 1792 he joined the London Corresponding Society, whose main objective was parliamentary reform – particularly universal male suffrage (only 2 per cent of the population were eligible to vote). Parkinson began writing for the anti-government fortnightly Hog’s Wash, writing (dreadful) poems under the pseudonym “Old Hubert.” Then in 1794 he was caught up in the Pop Gun Plot, an alleged conspiracy to assassinate the “Mad King” George III, which reads like a precursor of McCarthy-era American paranoia. He most comes to life during an account of his interrogation by the Privy Council, including no less a figure than Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. Parkinson’s tart replies reveal a proud man who risks serious consequences by admitting his authorship of “seditious” pamphlets. His later career demonstrates a wealth of talent and interests. In 1799 he published no fewer than five books, including his Magnum Opus, Medical Admonitions, a medical advice guide for families. He was an advocate of social reform and made recommendations for the regulation of child labour and asylums, and was a supporter of smallpox vaccination; he designed a hernia truss the poor could make cheaply for themselves, and wrote about gout (which he himself suffered); and he wrote foundation works in Geology and Palaeontology. And of course there was his ‘Essay on the Shaking Palsy’, in which he described the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson’s disease for the first time: a seminal work which led Jean-Martin Charcot 50 years later to propose the illness be named after him. Lewis writes in an enjoyably digressive style: her descriptions of medical practice at the end of the 18th century, and of changing life in east London, are particularly engaging. My only quibble would be the last chapter, which traces Parkinson’s descendents to New Zealand and the present day; this reveals nothing about the man himself. This aside, Lewis’s book shines a light on Parkinson, and gives something of the name back to the person: a man whose interests ranged far beyond medicine, and whose social engagement, and engagement with his time, sings from the page. The Enlightened Mr Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon is published by Icon, £20 Rob Ewing is an Edinburgh-based GP. His debut novel The Last of Us is published by Borough Press and he was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Short Story Award.

  Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/book-review-the-enlightened-mr-parkinson-the-pioneering-life-of-a-forgotten-english-surgeon-by-cherry-lewis-1-4430462

• Prospect Magazine
  https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/books-in-brief-the-enlightened-mr-parkinson-by-cherry-lewis
  Word count: 308

  Books in brief: The Enlightened Mr Parkinson by Cherry Lewis
  "Lewis paints a vivid portrait of the life and times of a man of many talents"
  by Manjit Kumar / April 13, 2017 / Leave a comment
  Published in May 2017 issue of Prospect Magazine

  The Enlightened Mr Parkinson, by Cherry Lewis (Icon Books, £20)

  During the last two decades of the 18th century, the organisation of medical practice in Britain was changing from the three-way division of apothecaries, surgeons and physicians into the more familiar model of the general practitioner and specialist consultant. This change was driven largely by the competition for fee-paying patients, explains Cherry Lewis in her biography of James Parkinson, after whom Parkinson’s disease is named.

  Starting out as an apothecary, by the time of his death in December 1824 Parkinson was a highly respected surgeon and a medical pioneer. Born in Hoxton in April 1755, his life spanned a period of great upheaval wrought by the industrial revolution and the burgeoning of science and technology. Against this backdrop, Lewis paints a vivid portrait of the life and times of a man of many talents.

  A political radical who supported the French Revolution, Parkinson was a noted collector of fossils, who helped reveal a distant past when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Acute observational powers enabled him to make associations others missed. So it was that in June 1817, aged 62, he published a paper that first identified and described the symptoms that defined the “shaking palsy,” known to us as Parkinson’s disease: “Involuntary tremulous motion, with lessened muscular power, in parts [limbs] not in action and even when supported; with a propensity to bend the trunk forward, and to pass from a walking to a running pace: the senses and intellects being uninjured.” This is a fine, informative read.

• Science of Parkinsons
  https://scienceofparkinsons.com/2017/04/08/the-enlightened-mr-parkinson/
  Word count: 947

  April 8, 2017
  The Enlightened Mr Parkinson

  JP

  Something different today – but certainly keeping in line with our interest in all things Parkinson-related. As many readers will be aware, 2017 is the 200th anniversary of the first description of Parkinson’s disease by one James Parkinson (1817).

  Just in time for Parkinson’s Awareness week (next week), a new book has been published that outlines the life of the great man behind the disease. This book, however, takes a very different look at James. While discussing his medical contributions, it also provides a deeper understanding of all of the ‘other stuff’ he did.

  In today’s post, we have our first ever author interview.

  Book

  Source: Dm-3

  This week ‘The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: The Pioneering Life of a Forgotten English Surgeon’ by Cherry Lewis was published by Icon Books Ltd.

  In the book, Dr Lewis provides a new angle on the life of James Parkinson: while discussing many of the medical related activities of his life as several other books have done, Lewis also provides insight into Parkinson’s interest in the geological sciences.

  The-Enlightened-Mr-Parkinson-cover

  We have previously communicated with Dr Cherry Lewis about our interest in James Parkinson, and when we heard that her book was being published this week we reached out and asked if she would mind answering a few questions about the book.

  Good soul that she is, she readily agreed.

  That said, let’s begin:

  Hi Cherry, thank you for agreeing to do this. Please introduce yourself to the readers.

  I am an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A geologist by training, I have worked in the oil industry as well as in the press office at the University of Bristol where I ‘translated’ developments in science and medicine for the general public. I now write on the history of geology and other sciences.

  And why have you written a book about James Parkinson? What was your interest in him?

  Parkinson wrote the first scientific account of fossils – a three-volume work entitled, ‘Organic Remains of a Former World’.

  1-challinor-collection-1804

  Organic Remains of a Former World by James Parkinson, London, 1804. Source: Aberrarebooks

  I felt Parkinson’s understanding of geology and fossils had never been properly examined and interpreted before. I wanted to put the record straight.

  Were you familiar with his life story before you started?

  Once I started, I realised that there were other biographies, but these tended to focus on his medical work and didn’t cover his most important work – his study of fossils – in any depth.

  What surprised you in your research on JP?

  That he had worked with Edward Jenner shortly after Jenner discovered the cow pox vaccine. Parkinson gave Jenner his dissecting microscope.

  url

  Edward Jenner. Source: MoneyWeek

  What was the most interesting episode in JP’s life for you personally?

  The intellectual struggle he underwent between the conventional religious convictions he had been brought up with and the truth about the age and creation of the Earth that was revealed to him through fossils. Like Darwin 50 years later, the version he presented to his audience through his books was not always what he believed himself.

  What aspect of JP’s life do you wish people knew more about?

  Most people have no idea who James Parkinson was at all so I’ll just be happy if they have now at least heard of him. But I would really like them to know that not only did he identify Parkinson’s disease but that during his lifetime he was internationally famous for his geological work and many fossils were named in his honour. So when the Royal College of Surgeons awarded him their first Gold Medal it was not for his medical work, nor even his Essay on the Shaking Palsy, but for his ‘splendid work on Organic remains’. It is my contention that while he would have been proud to know a disease had been named in his memory, I suspect he would rather be remembered for his work on fossils.

  And finally where can readers find your book?

  The book is available on Amazon.

  You can hear me talking about the book on BBC London’s Robert Elms show, at 1 hour 37 minutes into the programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04xf5nl

  Fantastic. Thank you very much for your time. I’m sure the readers will be interested in buying the book and reading more.

  One last note.

  We here at the SoPD would also like to thank Dr Lewis for correcting us on the fact that James Parkinson was never actually a ‘Dr’.

  He was simply Mr James Parkinson.

  James (like his father) was trained as an apothecary (a medical practitioner who formulated and dispensed medications) and surgeon.

  In the 18/19th centuries, physicians had to undergo formal university training to gain possession of a degree in medicine before they could begin to practice medicine. With this degree – a doctorate – the individual was entitled to call themselves a ‘Doctor of Medicine’ or simply Doctor (Source: Rcseng). James never went to university, and thus he is not a ‘Dr’.

  An interesting fact – a fascinating read. We recommend it.

• Falmouth Public Library
  http://www.falmouthpubliclibrary.org/blog/friday-reads-enlightened-mr-parkinson/
  Word count: 388

  Friday Reads: The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson

  “Friday Reads” is a weekly blog written by reference librarian Faith Lee about great books, magazines, and the occasional reference work. Topics may be new titles added to the library, selections from the Staff Picks shelf or about something she recently read. Admittedly, there is a definite slant toward nonfiction, because, well, she’s a reference librarian and likes to learn new things. Guest bloggers take a turn sometimes too. No matter the source, good reads are featured here.

  __________________________________________________________________

  This week, Reference Librarian, Donna Burgess, takes a turn with this column and highlights a new biography of James Parkinson, the man for whom Parkinson’s disease was named 200 year ago.

  The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson: the pioneering life of a forgotten surgeon and the mysterious disease that bears his name. The title of this book drew me in immediately. My sister was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when she was fifty years old, and each year she struggles with the onset of even more debilitating effects.

  Written by Cherry Lewis, The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson delivers an appealing, often gruesome account of the life of a workaholic and highly respected surgeon-apothecary from a time long-ago. In 1817, during the age of Enlightenment, he “defined this disease so precisely that we still diagnose Parkinson’s disease today by recognizing the symptoms he identified.” Parkinson also helped Edward Jenner in inoculating Londoners against smallpox, being among the first to do so.

  In addition to medicine, Parkinson had two other passions: politics and fossils, which were popular pastimes for upper crust Edwardians. As a political radical, Parkinson was interrogated in the plot to assassinate King George III. He became a founder of the Geological Society of London, and wrote a scientific paper on fossils, one of which, a Jurassic ammonite, was named for him: Parkinsonia parkonsoni.

  A Kirkus review noted that The Enlightened Mr. Parkinson is “a fine biography of a colorful figure who lived in a turbulent era.” And Publisher’s Weekly stated, “Parkinson’s groundbreaking work, as Lewis notes, represented a ‘farsighted, questioning approach’ that ‘left us with a remarkable scientific and medical legacy’.” – Publishers Weekly

  Look for this intriguing biography on the NEW nonfiction shelf, Call # 926.17 Parkinson.

• Creation
  https://creation.com/cherry-lewis-the-dating-game-one-mans-search-for-the-age-of-the-earth-book-review
  Word count: 3724

  Western culture and the age of the earth

  Review of The Dating Game: One Man’s Search for the Age of the Earth by Cherry Lewis
  Cambridge University Press, 2000

  by Tas Walker
  The Dating Game book cover

  I enjoyed Cherry Lewis’s fascinating biography of Arthur Holmes (1890–1965), the English geologist famous for his work on radioactive dating and the age of the earth. It traces how ideas about the age of the earth changed over one man’s lifetime. Dr Lewis is a geologist/geochemist, currently working as Research Communications Manager at Bristol University, and is Secretary of the History of Geology Group (HOGG) there.

  Holmes was ‘the only child of staunchly Methodist parents’ (p. 7) and he ‘well remembered his parents’ Bible, and the magic fascination of the date of Creation, 4004 BC’ (p. 27). In later years Holmes reminisced ‘that the Earth has grown older much more rapidly than I have—from about six thousand years when I was ten, to four or five billion years by the time I reached sixty’. I would like to learn more about Holmes’ own reasons for his apostasy from his Christian heritage, because his story sadly is all too common.

  A short, interesting book, The Dating Game is filled with photos and human interest. Lewis has researched her topic thoroughly, and quotes widely from diaries and letters. Clearly, Holmes was a perceptive and independent thinker, a dynamic lecturer and diligent worker.
  Is it really a game?

  Those who think that science has proved the earth is billions of years old should find this book disturbing. Lewis clearly shows that the quest for the age of the earth is not objective science but a subjective, arbitrary and erratic pursuit.

  Even her name for the book illustrates that point. Some reviewers must have urged her to use a different title, but what could be more fitting than The Dating Game? Lewis refused to change it, but apologized to any readers who found the book ‘on the “Romance” shelves’ (p. 242).
  Before anyone can calculate an age for anything, they have to assume its history.

  My dictionary defines ‘game’ as ‘a contest for amusement in the form of a trial of chance, skill or endurance according to a set of rules’. She vividly paints the characters of the players in the ‘dating game’, and tracks the progress of the score for a hundred years. To the uninitiated, a history like hers is one of the best ways to understand a subject.

  In a game, the score is determined, not by impersonal scientific meas­urement, but by the strength, skill and creativity of the players. The rules of play are not laws of nature, but arbitrarily agreed by the players, and sometimes changed during play. We see this acutely demonstrated in the events she describes.1

  Holmes’ interest in the game was aroused in his teens one summer holiday. This is when the great physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin, 1824–1907) instigated the dating game in The Times. Lewis described how Arthur and his friend ‘were on the edge of their seats with the excitement of it all, for not only did they become familiar with all the arguments, they also got to know all the big names in science at that time—William Ramsay, Ernest Rutherford, Frederick Soddy and Robert Strutt’ (p. 12). Watching The Times exchange influenced Holmes to take up the sport.
  The Kelvin affair

  Holmes began his career at a most interesting time, as Lewis describes. For forty years Lord Kelvin had completely demolished all opposition. But by the early 1900s, Kelvin was grad­ually losing his dominance. The upcoming generation had a new weapon and were about to dislodge him. Holmes would soon be a key player.
  Photo by Andrew Snelling Lord Kelvin
  Lord Kelvin was a major player in the dating game.

  By the end of the 1800s, Lord Kelvin was saying that the earth was between 40 million and 20 million years old, with a ‘personal preference’ for the lower value (p. 39). Of course Kelvin had not measured the age (otherwise he would not talk about ‘personal preference’), but he had calculated it (or rather, logically his methods could calculate at best an upper limit for the age). And before he could start his calculations, he had to make assumptions about the past. In particular, he had to assume a history for the earth.

  In fact, every age calculation is based on an assumed history—assumed because, without an eyewitness report, we cannot travel back in time to observe what happened. This reality is not generally recognized—that it is impossible to measure the age of something scientifically—impossible. The numbers quoted for the age of the earth (or the age of the dinosaurs or the age of a volcano) are the outworking of personal beliefs, made to look authoritative by much technical equipment and complicated calculations. It is not until we understand this fundamental fact that the antics of the players in the dating game make sense.

  In Kelvin’s case, he assumed the earth was initially a molten blob and calculated how long it would take for the blob to cool (assuming numbers for all the relevant parameters such as its initial temperature, conductivity and reflectivity).

  Was Kelvin’s answer right? Scientifically, it is impossible to say. How could anyone check? What would you compare it with? You could only say whether it seemed reasonable, and Kelvin certainly thought so. For a start, it agreed with similar calculations of the age of the sun by Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894).2

  But for the geologists (and evolutionary biologists as shown below), 20 Ma was far too short because they envisaged the earth was unimaginably old. Kelvin knew their long ages flowed from their assumption that geological processes have always operated slowly, like they do at present. They were not based on experimentally established laws such as the laws of heat transfer. Kelvin was blunt, ‘A great reform in geological speculation seems now to have become necessary’ (p. 35). In other words, Kelvin challenged them to assume a different history. He knew the geologists could easily harmonize their age for the earth with his result by imagining a bit of catastrophe.

  The geologists did not take kindly to Kelvin’s suggestion. ‘Although incensed,’ Lewis explained, ‘most geologists were clearly intimidated by Kelvin’s authority and felt obliged to heed his arguments’ (p. 35).
  The problem was not his ‘authority’. The problem was that they agreed with his assumed history for the planet, and could find no mistake with his chosen parameters.

  The problem was not his ‘authority’. The problem was that they agreed with his assumed history for the planet, and could find no mistake with his chosen parameters. After that it was just a matter of cranking the mathematical handle and the age popped out.

  But T.C. Chamberlin (1843–1928), head of the Department of Geology at the University of Chicago was not prepared to concede defeat. He speculated that there might yet be discovered new sources of energy within the particles of matter (unknown to him then) that would allow more time than Kelvin had calculated.2 In geological circles this response is regarded as heroic but it really shows that the age issue cannot be resolved scientifically. Clearly, he was simply defending his belief in long-ages as a matter of faith, without any observational basis whatever.

  The evolutionary biologists such as Charles Darwin and T.H. Huxley were not happy with Kelvin either. 20 Ma was nowhere near enough time for evolution to occur. Darwin was particularly dissatisfied, describing Kelvin as his ‘sorest trouble’ (p. 35). That suited Kelvin because he opposed evolution. Loren Eiseley writes:

  ‘It can be observed from Darwin’s letters that this development in physics gravely troubled him. He refers to Lord Kelvin as an “odious spectre”, and in a letter [of 1869] … he writes: “Notwithstanding your excellent remarks on the work which can be effected within a million years, I am greatly troubled at the short duration of the world according to Sir W. Thomson [Lord Kelvin] for I require for my theoretical views a very long period before the Cambrian formation.” … Painfully and doubtfully he [Darwin] wrote to Wallace in 1871, “I have not as yet been able to digest the fundamental notion of the shortened age of the sun and earth.”’3

  Christians often regard Kelvin as a great creationist apologist because of his opposition to evolution. They credit him with keeping Darwin at bay for 40 years. But Kelvin did serious damage to the credibility of the Christian worldview be­cause he publicly promoted an earth history that contradicted the Bible. The Bible says the earth was originally covered with water; Kelvin said it was a molten blob. The Bible indicates the earth is 6,000 years old; Kelvin said 20 million was acceptable. If Christians won’t stand on the plain teaching of their own book, why should anyone else accept the Bible as authoritative?
  Radioactivity changed the game

  So the dating game was set for a fascinating turn when Holmes began his career. The dynamics changed dramatically when (Antoine-) Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) discovered radioactivity in 1896. Heat generated by the radioactive decay of elements within the earth was quickly invoked to explain cooling of the earth over long ages. Thus, radioactivity allowed a different history for the earth to be proposed, one that could extend ‘for as long as geologists and biologists might need’ (p. 49)—notice the word ‘need’! It is widely paraded that the discovery of radioactivity solved the heat problem but that is not so. Empirical evidence still favours the view that the earth is much younger than presently believed.4
  Arthur Holmes
  Arthur Holmes

  Most importantly, radioactivity allowed age calculations to be applied to individual rocks and minerals, and this is where Holmes became famous. It was Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937), Lewis explains, who was the ‘very first person ever to date the true age of a rock’ (p. 54). Her word true is curious because her explanations demonstrate that ages are not found but assumed. (Remember, every age calculation is based on assumptions about the past.) Two pages later, Lewis says that Robert Strutt ‘recognised the flaw in the method’ (p. 56). So much for Rutherford’s true age.

  Apart from the ‘flaw’, Lewis reveals that in those early days they did not know there were two different uranium decay chains or different isotopes of uranium and lead. In fact, they did not know isotopes existed—this had to wait till Frederick Soddy (1877–1956) in 1913 (pp. 112–115). This illustrates another vital fact about the dating game: assumptions are always made in ignorance. That’s why every age result is always tentative, just waiting for a new finding to knock it over, as Lewis illustrates again and again.

  Holmes was just 21 when he published his first uranium-lead result for a rock from Norway (still before the discovery of isotopes). He also recalculated ages from data previously published by Boltwood, the oldest result being 1,640 million years (pp. 63–64). That was a vast increase on any numbers previously published. The response of the scientific community was stunned incredulity. Geologists ‘had been given vast time scales to fill with sediments of which there was no evidence’ (p. 65).
  Methods and dates are selected

  One interesting episode Lewis describes involved ‘dating’ two rocks from northern England using the helium method (pp. 149–150). The ‘dates’ Holmes obtained were 182 million years for the igneous sill, and 26 million years for the dyke. Holmes was delighted. He considered the results ‘to be in excellent agreement with the geological evidence’. But then, how would anyone know?

  But today the sill is considered to be 295 million years old, not 182 million, and the dyke 60 million years compared with 26 million. The helium method has been blamed for the discrepancy because it is held that helium leaks from the rocks, giving too low an age.

  But why did Holmes so quickly accept a faulty method? Lewis explains,

  ‘So strong was the desire to find a successful dating technique, he convinced himself that although the helium results were “slightly low”, they concurred “quite satisfactorily with the scanty results based on lead ages”’ (p. 151).

  So much for objective scientific methods.

  Interestingly, the helium method continued to be used on meteorites and some very ancient dates were obtained (p. 221). It was argued that, unlike terrestrial samples, meteorites did not lose helium (again, how would you know?). However, when ages were obtained that were anomalously high (i.e. did not agree with what was expected), it was suggested that meteorites gained helium by being bombarded by cosmic radiation as they cruised the heavens. This is another example of an ad hoc assumption invoked to dismiss anomalous results.

  These stories illustrate how in the dating game, the methods used, and dates obtained, are selected after the event according to whether the results agree with what is already believed and desired to be correct. Recent creationist work is particularly relevant to the helium method. Helium retained in zircons from granite actually provides strong evidence against the idea of millions of years, and for the idea that accelerated nuclear decay occurred in the past. A main pillar of the argument is precisely the rapid leakage of helium noted above—yet much helium still remains in the zircons!5
  The Hubble affair
  Image by NASA, ESA, J. Blakeslee and F. Ford (JHU) Image from Hubble
  In the late 1940s the age of the earth became twice as old as the age of the universe!

  Lewis describes a curious complication that emerged in the late 1940s. As the age of the earth gradually crept up towards 3000 million years, and beyond, the earth eventually became twice as old as the universe (p. 191). As with Kelvin, the issue became a battle of wills across scientific disciplines.

  The age of the universe was calculated from the Hubble constant, assuming the big bang history for the universe. Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) had such standing that no-one seriously questioned his value for the constant. As recently as 1936, Hubble had concluded that any further revision of the constant would only be of minor importance.
  So the blame was levelled at radioactive dating. Even in 1949 it was considered highly improbable that observational changes in the value of the Hubble constant would resolve the timescale problem. Some astronomers were again suggesting that the radioactive decay rate had changed with time (yet modern creationists are castigated for the same suggestion!).

  But the astronomers eventually gave in. In the 1950s new measurements of the Hubble constant extended the age of the universe and at last it was ‘safely older than the age of the Earth’ (p. 191). This dramatic episode again illustrates that the age issue is a battle of wills and beliefs, and not a scientifically measurable parameter.
  Patterson takes the prize

  As readers would expect, Lewis reveals the answer to the age question just before the end of her book. She relates that Clair Patterson (1922–1995) ‘goes down in the history books as the man who finally dated the true age of the Earth. Wild miracle, finally achieved’ (p. 225).

  But here we see an ironic twist. Patterson did not date the earth primarily using earth rocks. His key evidence came from meteorites! What have meteorites to do with the age of the earth?

  Remember that before anyone can calculate an age for anything, they have to assume its history, namely how it formed and what has happened to it from that time to the present. Early in the 20th century, T.C. Chamberlin had developed the idea that the earth had formed by the accumulation of cold, solid particles and rocks he called ‘planetesimals’. By the 1950s this explanation was widely accepted, and meteorites were considered to be junk left over from when the earth formed.

  The number calculated from the meteorite data based on these assumptions gave an age of 4.55 ± 0.07 Ga, the age Patterson announced in 1956,6 and which is still accepted today.

  At first Holmes was not enthusiastic with the method

  ‘to use the isotopic composition of lead from iron meteorites as part of the basic data for calculating the age of the earth or its crust, is unsound in principle … the correct procedure is to use terrestrial materials’ (p. 227).

  That of course raises one very obvious problem. As Lewis explains,

  ‘If there was no genetic relationship and the Earth and meteorites had not formed at the same time from the same material, then the primeval lead of meteorites would not be that of the Earth; thus there would be no point of trying to determine the age of Earth from meteorites, and everyone would be back to square one’ (p. 225).

  To answer this challenge, Patterson produced a graph in 1956 showing the isotopic composition of lead from four meteorites and lead from modern ocean floor sediment. Because the ocean floor sample plotted on the same line as the meteorites, Patterson argued that they all formed from the same cosmic material (p. 226).
  In other words, the consensus history of the earth is different now from what Patterson assumed, yet his result is still accepted as the true age of the earth.

  That settled the matter, and the age of 4.55 Ga is universally quoted. Yet, as more ocean floor sediment has been analyzed, it has been found that they do not all fall on the straight line but plot all over the place.7

  Another problem concerns a view developing ‘that the lead isotope clock of the Earth may have been reset by the formation of the Earth’s core’ (p. 227). In other words, the consensus history of the earth is different now from what Patterson assumed, yet his result is still accepted as the true age of the earth. As Lewis muses, ‘Patterson’s results were more fortuitous than was realised fifty years ago’ (p. 228). This raises a question: if we know Patterson’s assumptions are wrong, why should we believe that his answer is right?

  Clearly the age of the earth is not a scientific issue but a religious and philosophical one.
  Why no more changes?

  Lewis’s book highlights another fascinating insight into how science works. In the first fifty years of the 20th century, the age of the earth increased from 20 million years to 4,550 million. But in the second fifty years the age has not changed at all. Why?

  Some would argue it’s because scientists have discovered the correct answer. But how would anyone check? It could also be argued that the changing age was driven by changing cultural and philosophical values in the West. Holmes lived through a period that saw the progressive development of an all-encompassing naturalistic philosophy in Western thought. All supernatural actions by a Creator God were ruled out; only naturalistic explanations were allowed.

  The key parameter for every naturalistic explanation is time:

  ‘Time is in fact the hero of the plot … given so much time the “impossible” becomes possible, the possible probable and the probably virtually certainly certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles.’8

  In the first fifty years, every academic discipline was developing its naturalistic models. The age of the earth was the crucial parameter in every case: in geology, biology, astronomy, cosmology, geography, archaeology, anthropology, history and so on. Enough time for one discipline was often too little for another—hence the Kelvin and Hubble conflicts. With the present state of play, anywhere between 3 and 7 billion years would probably be suitable. So 4.55 billion is a happy choice—and it looks precise and authoritative.

  4.55 billion years is comfortably less than the age of the universe, allowing enough time for the big bang, stellar evolution and the origin of our solar system. It is also allegedly old enough for geological evolution, for the chemical evolution of the first living cell, for the evolution of life, and for landscape evolution, etc. So by the mid 20th century the jostling between disciplines had settled down—the different naturalistic models appeared to be meshing together. Everyone had enough time to work with, and there was nothing to gain by changing the number.
  It affects me personally

  The age of the earth is not just an academic issue. As Lewis states,

  ‘By knowing the age of Earth rocks, Moon rocks and rocks from other planets we … are more able to understand our place in the order of things, our relationship with other celestial bodies. It helps us to navigate our way around the Universe and build up a picture of why we are here at all’ (p. 4–5).

  If naturalism is true, then Holmes was right—there is no meaning to this Universe.

  That, of course, is a religious question involving the meaning of life. In Mozambique in his early twenties, Holmes wrote home about the stars: ‘I felt somehow what a fearful meaningless tragedy the whole Universe appeared to be’ (p. 93). If naturalism is true, then Holmes was right—there is no meaning to this Universe.

  However, the Bible reveals the true history of the world and why we are here. There is a purpose for this universe, and for every human life. That’s why the age of the earth is a critical issue for the Christian worldview. Long ages destroy the credibility and message of the Bible.9

  I enjoyed Lewis’s book because she so vividly demonstrated that the billion-year age of the earth is subjective and arbitrary. Thus, it is perfectly valid scientifically to start with the biblical data on the age of the earth and interpret the scientific evidence accordingly. In reality, the only sure way of knowing the age of anything is by reliable eyewitnesses.

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