Official Review: Fact vs Value by John Lepp

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jcheiser
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Official Review: Fact vs Value by John Lepp

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[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Fact vs Value" by John Lepp.]
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3 out of 4 stars
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Fact vs Value: The Imaginary War Between Science and God, by John Lepp, takes a look at the arguments made regarding science in relation to events related to Christianity. This book is not what I had expected it to be based on the title and description, but it is an interesting read. Fact Vs Value reads very much like a scholarly paper. Unfortunately, there are many errors that could have been fixed with better editing, such as typos, repeated words, missing words, and other small technical errors.

Lepp brings up a lot of interesting points; however, I think that there are still a lot of missing pieces that aren’t mentioned in this book. That being said, I understand that covering all of the different points of view and various arguments made on this particular subject would make this a never-ending book, but I think that the other arguments are at least worth mentioning, even if they can’t be expanded upon in one book.

At the beginning of the book, Lepp provides a “very quick lesson on the two laws of inference - modus ponens and modus tollens,” which provides a basis for the way he makes and provides evidence for his points. This also allows him a way to clearly show, using these laws of inference, why some of the arguments posed in this discussion are false, given that they do not follow either of the laws of inference. I appreciate this element, and while I’m glad it was included, I think that some of the cases are looked at in too narrow a scope to be able to conclusively say, from the information provided, that said cases either follow or do not follow one of the laws of inference. Again, I think that this could have been made clearer by expanding and including more of the relevant information, but doing so would have made an impossibly long book.

The majority of the end of the book is a debate between author John Lepp and JT Eberhard, which was posted on Eberhard’s blog, “What Would JT Do?” I think that the inclusion of this debate had great intentions, but I think that both sides had instances of poorly communicating their points and/or rebuttals and instances of misunderstanding points made by the other party. This is probably due to the debate being held in writing on a blog, and I think that perhaps a summary of the points made by both sides would have been more effective within the context of this book.

I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It is a very interesting read and I think scholars interested in this subject would enjoy it, though it is certainly not for the average reader and has a few technical errors. I would really like to read more by Lepp taking on other points of view on this subject, perhaps as a series.

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Fact vs Value
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