Jay L. WileCritiques

This book is amazing! Dr. Wile lays everything out so clearly, and makes it easy to understand. Very well done! I especially loved how all of it was based on the Bible and creation. This not only taught me biology, but strengthened my world view! My future children are definitely doing this along with his other science courses for their high school science! Love love love! Definitely recommend for all high schoolers! I did it for tenth grade, but it is totally appropriate for grades 9-12.

We used this text for my 7th grader last year. What a great book! True science from a creation perspective! Some books written from a christian point of view are filled w/Bible stories and scripture, (which is great for a Bible study!) but lack much real information pertaining to science. Not this series. Wiley is brilliant and writes in a conversational style, so it doesn't read like a dry text book but like a teacher who is talking to you. My son loved it and we went on to Wile's next book this past year, Exploring Creation Through Physical Science. The experiments are easy and fun to do and show your student the concepts visually. We intend to keep w/Wile's books all through high school.

I found this in a Friends of the Library bookstore, $2.00. This is a text for home-schooled children, which offers religious explanations for material events. There is no attempt to be secular at all. It is biology from a fundamentalist Christian view. There are two sections which question Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species". Unfortunately for the student, this bias also leads to misinformation about genetics, mutation and common descent. The section on Cytochrome-C is just plain false; as is the claim that there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation. A student who passes biology from such a text will be, in my opinion, unprepared to proceed further in the study of the biological sciences. I find it inadequate in comparison to not only other beginning biology texts, it also fails when compared to my own high school biology text circa 1971. The text is large and widely spaced, most of the illustrations are clip art. It is easy to read and is written in an informal manner. It is sad to say that the desire to interject God into material science has caused a failure in the teaching of both science and God.

Dr. Wile's explanations of micro- and macroevolution and molecular biology are priceless for their clarity and relevance.

This is a wonderful textbook. Particularly valuable sections introduce students to the limitations of science, the ideas of catastrophism and uniformitarianism, and what can be learned from the fossil record.

I enjoyed our year of Biology with this curriculum. It is very self-explanatory, and the add-ons of slides and dissections made it very interesting. I highly recommend that you somehow find a way to get a high quality microscope to go with this. If it is beyond your means, see if there is one you can borrow or go in together with some other families to buy one. It made all the difference for my students.

When I was a freshman in high school I took a course called "Earth Science". It was a contender for my favorite science course. This book is the analogous course for my daughter's schooling. I enjoyed reading it, remembering lessons I had all those many years ago and picking up a few tidbits of information I had either forgotten or never learned before. Like its predecessor, Exploring Creation With General Science, this text is very readable, has a good variety of experiments and a companion CD-ROM. 'Tis well worth checking out . Like the other books in the series, it also has a creationist worldview and occasionally slips in some propaganda. In fact, Dr. Wile committed one of my pet peeves in that respect. At one point he talks about James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist who demonstrated that electricity and magnetism are the same force. Dr. Wile states that Maxwell was one of the three most important figures in the history of science, along with Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. He makes sure to point out that Maxwell was a Christian, something Dr. Wile also did with Newton in a previous chapter. About Einstein's beliefs, however, nary a word is said. C'mon, Doc. If a scientist's religious convictions are relevant to the study of the history of science, you should cover all the scientists in question. It doesn't take any glory from God to admit that unbelievers can be smart, too. .... Um, okay, end of rant.
--J.

This here is my elder daughter's 8th Grade science text. It's a general introduction to science, starting with the history of science, going on to teaching the scientific method and then giving a basic overview of various areas of scientific study. It's enjoyable to read and explains things very well. (or at least well enough for me to understand it. There's a companion CD-ROM available for those who want a little audio-visual help.) Even my artistic-minded daughter enjoyed it and was able to put together acceptable lab reports. As the title suggests, the book takes a creationist viewpoint, but unlike It Couldn't Just Happen, it doesn't hit you over the head with propaganda. Of course, I'm sure someone who is not creationist would disagree. Anyway, I definitely think it's a textbook worth checking out.
--J.

Main text for study. Use tabs to easily find topics. Advisory: Detailed chapter on human reproduction.