Ronald Numbers
Numbers in 2008
Born	(1942-06-03)June 3, 1942
Died	July 24, 2023(2023-07-24) (aged 81)
Education	Southern Missionary College (BA) Florida State University (MA) University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Awards	George Sarton Medal
Scientific career
Fields	History of science
Institutions	University of Wisconsin–Madison

Ronald Leslie Numbers (June 3, 1942 – July 24, 2023) was an Americanhistorian of science.^[1] He was awarded the 2008George Sarton Medal by theHistory of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar".^[2]

Ronald Leslie Numbers was the son of a fundamentalistSeventh-day Adventist preacher, and was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist religion and schools well into college.^[2] Regarding religious beliefs, he described himself asagnostic, and has written, "I no longer believe in creationism of any kind".^[3] He became a leading scholar in the history of science and religion and an authority on the history ofcreationism andcreation science.^[4]

Numbers was educated atSouthern Missionary College, and obtained his master's degree atFlorida State University.^[5] Numbers received his Ph.D. inhistory of science fromUniversity of California, Berkeley, in 1969.^[6] He was Hilldale andWilliam Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison. From 1989 to 1993 he was editor ofIsis, an international journal of the history of science. WithDavid Lindberg, he has co-edited two anthologies on therelationship between religion and science. Also with Lindberg, he had edited the eight-volumeCambridge History of Science.

Ronald Numbers died on July 24, 2023, at the age of 81.^[7]

In 1976, while still a lecturer atLoma Linda University, he published the bookProphetess of Health. The book is about the relationship between Seventh-day Adventist Church co-founder and prophetessEllen 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.^[8]

In 1992, he publishedThe Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, a history of the origins ofanti-evolutionism. It was revised and expanded in 2006, with the subtitle changed toFrom Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. The book has been described as "probably the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism".^[9] It has received generally favorable reviews from both the academic and the religious community.^[10] Formerarchbishop of YorkJohn Habgood described it, in an article inThe Times, as a "massively well-documented history" that "must surely be the definitive study of the rise and growth of" creationism.^[11]

In 2009, he was editor forGalileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion, where the book focuses on popular misconceptions that are connected between science and religion.^[12][13][14]

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, thatGalileo Galilei was imprisoned and tortured for advocating Copernicanism, or that the idea of creationism is a uniquely American phenomenon.^[14]

• 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
• 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. withJohn 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 ofThe 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.
• 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

• PBS Evolution articles
• Interview with Science & Theology News^{[dead link]}
• Brief treatise on the history of creationismArchived 2017-12-12 at theWayback Machine
• Interview in Salon
• Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science
• Salon.com interview
• Video of discussion about creationism/intelligent design with Numbers and creationistPaul Nelson onBloggingheads.tv
• Ronald Numbers atIMDb

• 1942 births
• 2023 deaths
• 21st-century American historians
• 21st-century American male writers
• American historians of religion
• American historians of science
• Former Seventh-day Adventists
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• American agnostics
• University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
• Critics of Seventh-day Adventism
• American critics of creationism
• Presidents of the American Society of Church History
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• American male non-fiction writers
• Southern Adventist University alumni
• Florida State University alumni

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