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Apologia Report 12:15
April 19, 2007
Subject: The Secret's effect on publishing worldwide
In this issue:
NEW AGE MOVEMENT - a Mind-Body-Spirit marketing strategy update
+ how Rhonda Byrne's book The Secret affects publishing worldwide
ORIGINS - Skeptical Inquirer attacks young-earth creationist book
+ has a hoax by Ann Coulter "exposed" Intelligent Design?
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NEW AGE MOVEMENT
"Getting the Word Out" by Kimberly Winston -- this New Age marketing strategy update begins: "In the past five years, some niche magazines that were favorites among publishers of Mind-Body-Spirit (MBS) books have disappeared - Green Egg, Magical Blend, Common Boundaries and Organic Style are all gone. Meanwhile, mainstream magazines have tapped into MBS, with O, Ladies' Home Journal and Real Simple hitting the yoga mat or lighting an aromatherapy candle. But editorial space in those magazines is limited, making it difficult for small or midsize publishers to land a review or a mention. ...
"'Yoga Journal has become more mainstream and their ad rates have gone up dramatically,' [Munro Magruder, associate publisher for New World Library] says. 'That used to be a place we always looked to advertise first, but now we can only do it with our biggest books.'"
Winston finds that the solution to their problem is to "get creative" - which includes depending more on "small magazines," offering "front-of-store freebies," and making more use of "online marketing." Hosts for the latter include OfSpirit.com, GhostVillage.com, and Beliefnet.com, according to this special "Religion Update" feature. Publishers Weekly, Mar 26 '07, ppS4-5.
"The Secret of Success" by Lynn Garrett -- finds that Rhonda Byrne's The Secret [1] is reinvigorating the Mind-Body-Spirit book sales category. "Joel Fotinos, director of religious publishing for the Penguin Group and publisher for its Tarcher imprint, compares the Secret phenomenon to The Da Vinci Code: 'It came out of nowhere, and its sales are lifting up an entire genre of books.'
"Fotinos calls The Secret a 'Cliff's Notes for New Thought,' the 19th-century movement with roots in Christian Science and Ralph Waldo Emerson that has inspired many authors over the past century. Both Tarcher and Inner Traditions are publishing new editions of The Science of Getting Rich, the 1910 book by Wallace Wattles [3] that Rhonda Byrne credits with inspiring her to make The Secret movie that led to the book (PW Daily, Mar 6). Tarcher's edition (50,000 first printing) will be part of its Tarcher Success Classics line, which also includes titles by Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill.
"Tarcher also publishes the works of Ernest Holmes - founder of Religious Science, a New Thought denomination - including his seminal work The Science of Mind [4], first published in 1938. Fotinos himself is a Religious Science minister - he co-founded and co-leads a church in Manhattan. ...
"As for criticism of The Secret, Fotinos notes, 'It's like any religion - there's a shallow end and a deep end. The shallow end here is that it appeals to greed and consumerism. But on the deep end, it teaches that I alone am responsible for my life and for what I can give to the world, not just get. There is a power for good, and it can use you if you find the greatness within.' ...
"Absent from The Secret were the husband and wife team of Esther and Jerry Hicks, perhaps the premier teachers of the law of attraction and authors of several successful books, including Ask and It Is Given [5] and The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent [6] and The Law of Attraction [7].
"On February 25 the New York Times reported on a conflict between Byrne and the Hickses over the movie version of The Secret [2]. The Hickses have been teaching the principles of the law of attraction for more than 20 years and claim not to have read or been influenced by New Thought teachers. (Esther Hicks channels an entity called Abraham, who does the actual teaching.) Prominently featured in the first version of the movie, the Hickses were the only teachers who were paid for their participation. But they demanded to be edited out of the second version because, they say, of unhappiness over how Byrne represented them. ...
"The Hicks books 'sold well' before The Secret, notes Tracy - Ask and It Is Given (2004) had sold 200,000 copies by the end of 2005 and 100,000 more in 2006 - but after Oprah's shows, Ask and It Is Given sold 144,000 in February alone. ...
"With an astounding 3.75 million copies in print in English, Atria is bringing out a Spanish-language edition [of The Secret] this summer ('it's very multicultural in its appeal,' Curr points out), and 'it's now in 22 countries and counting.'" Publishers Weekly, Mar 26 '07, pS3. <http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6427384.html>
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ORIGINS
Astronomy and the Bible, by Donald B. DeYoung [8] -- hostile reviewer William D. Stansfield is emeritus professor in the Biological Sciences Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Stansfield begins: "DeYoung states, 'Literal creation days and a young age for the universe are ... promoted because I believe this view is true to Scripture and science.' [DeYoung] claims that 'When the Bible touches on scientific subjects, it is entirely accurate.' ...
"As for his credentials, 'Don DeYoung holds a PhD in physics from Iowa State University and a Master of Divinity from Grace Seminary' (176). How can a person obtain a PhD in physics (or any other field of science) from a prestigious secular university while relying on a faith that is fundamentally anti-scientific?"
Stansfield refers to additional remarks by DeYoung: "'[S]ome experiments indicate that the universe may be young, on the order of 10,000 years old' (98). DeYoung does not cite these experiments, and the scientists I have contacted are unaware of any such scientific evidence. Moreover, he states 'Evidence shows that, at some point in history, radioactive decay was temporarily accelerated' (139). Again, DeYoung provides no evidence: 'If atoms were ÒpreprogrammedÓ in this way ... an appearance of age may have been built into the universe.' ...
"Since DeYoung believes that all stars were instantaneously created on the fourth day of creation, they are all actually the same age, and there was no 'embryonic' stage of star formation from nebulae. He maintains this position despite the fact that stars in various phases of formation throughout our galaxy have been independently documented by innumerable astronomers. ...
"[DeYoung] claims that if protons were just 0.2 percent more massive they would decay into neutrons and there would be no atomic elements as we know them. Apparently he does not realize that if the proton was more massive, the neutron would be as well! ...
"DeYoung writes that '[C]reationists suggest that most dinosaurs died out as a result of the great flood of Genesis 6-8. Dinosaur representatives that were protected on the ark probably faced severe climate changes in the centuries following the flood, just a few thousand years ago' (51). In fact, all of the scientific data to date point to the disappearance of the dinosaurs from the fossil record at about 65 million years ago." Skeptical Inquirer, Mar/Apr '07, pp69-70.
"The Ann Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement" by Peter Olofsson <peter@peterolofsson.com> -- "In the summer of 2006, I heard that a new book called Godless [9] presented an insightful and devastating criticism of the theory of evolution. ... I started reading. ... I suddenly realized: it was a hoax! And it was brilliant.
"Coulter has very cleverly written a fake criticism of evolution, much like the way NYU physicist Alan Sokal in 1996 published a fake physics article in a literary journal.... An equally unabashed rightist, [Coulter] is apparently disturbed by how factions within the political right abandon their normally rational standards when it comes to the issue of evolution. However, whereas Sokal revealed his hoax in a separate article, Coulter challenges her readers to find out the truth for themselves. Without claiming to do justice to Coulter's multifaceted and sometimes subtle satire, I will attempt to outline some of her most amusing and salient points. ...
"Coulter makes fun of [Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe] by vastly exaggerating his claims. For example, she claims that Behe has 'disproved evolution' by demonstrating it to be a 'mathematical impossibility.' The truth is that Behe, who has no expertise in mathematics, accepts much of evolutionary theory.
"On occasion, Coulter's satire is quite esoteric. Such is the case when she states, 'Behe disproved evolution - unless evolution is simply a nondisprovable pseudoscience, like astrology.' To understand the subtle linking of Behe to astrology, one must be familiar with Behe's testimony in the Dover trial in which he had to concede that if intelligent design was accepted as science, one must also accept astrology. ...
"Coulter lists postdoctoral positions in physics, mathematics, and computer science [for pro-ID representative William Dembski], but when one looks up Dembski's publication record, none of these positions led to any published research. In fact, Dembski has published precisely one original research article in a reputable journal: a 1990 paper on probability theory. Coulter goes on to refer to Dembski's 'complicated mathematical formulas' and statistical models' and jokes that there is yet no serious response. In reality, the few mathematicians who have bothered examining Dembski's mathematics have been completely unimpressed. A nice summary and evaluation of Dembski's oeuvre was written for the Dover trial by renowned mathematician Jeffrey Shallit. Shallit's conclusion is one word: pseudomathematics.
"Arguments against evolution have not evolved much. Coulter illustrates this fact by repeating many old antievolution arguments, some of which are wrong, some of which are irrelevant, and some of which are both. I will only briefly touch upon three: the Piltdown man, the peppered moth, and the fossil record. ...
"Coulter has written a biting satire over the trend of anti-intellectualism that clouds part of the conservative ideology, which is otherwise based on principle and reason." Skeptical Inquirer, Mar/Apr '07, p48-50. <http://www.math.tulane.edu/~polofsson/TheCoulterHoax.pdf>
Apologia Report consulting editor Mark Hartwig offers the following counterpoint: "Dembski's seminal work on the math underlying ID, The Design Inference [10], was published by Cambridge University Press and was thoroughly peer-reviewed. The book was a revision of his PhD thesis at the University of Illinois, Chicago, which also was thoroughly peer-reviewed (by his committee). It seems Shallit has chosen to dismiss all of this even though he is listed in the book's acknowledgements."
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne (Beyond Words, 2006, hardcover, 216 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582701709/apologiareport>
2 - The Secret (Extended Edition DVD) with Rhonda Byrne, Paul Harrington, and Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith (Rating: None; Director: Drew Heriot; Studio: TS Production; Release Date: October 1, 2006; Run Time: 92 minutes)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000K8LV1O/apologiareport>
3 - The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Wattles (Filiquarian, 2006, paperback, 112 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1599869624/apologiareport>
4 - The Science of Mind, by Ernest Holmes (Murine, 2006, paperback, 200 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0975309382/apologiareport>
5 - Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, by Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks, and Wayne W. Dyer (Hay House, 2004, paperback, 314 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401904599/apologiareport>
6 - The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing, by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks (Hay House, 2006, paperback, 304 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401906966/apologiareport>
7 - The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham, by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks (Hay House, 2006, paperback, 224 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401912273/apologiareport>
8 - Astronomy and the Bible: Questions and Answers, by Donald B. DeYoung (Baker, 2000, 2nd ed., paperback, 176 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/080106225X/apologiareport>
9 - Godless: The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter (Crown, 2006, hardcover, 320 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400054206/apologiareport>
10 - The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory), by William A. Dembski (Cambridge Univ Prs, 2006, paperback, 262 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521678676/apologiareport>
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