Ronald Numbers

Ronald L. Numbers (born 1942) is an American historian of science. He was awarded the 2008 George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar".

Numbers is the son of a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, and was a Seventh-day Adventist in his youth, but now describes himself as agnostic. He became a leading scholar in the history of science and religion and an authority on the history of creationism and creation science.

Numbers received his Ph.D. in history of science from University of California, Berkeley in 1969. Currently he is Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From 1989 to 1993 he was editor of Isis, an international journal of the history of science. With David Lindberg, he has co-edited two anthologies on the relationship between religion and science. Also with Lindberg, he is currently editing the 8-volume Cambridge History of Science.

In 1976, while still a lecturer at Loma Linda University, he published the book Prophetess of Health. The book is about the relationship between church co-founder and prophetess Ellen 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.

In 1992, he published The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, a history of the origins of anti-evolutionism. It was revised and expanded in 2006, with the subtitle changed to From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. The book has been described as "probably the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism". It has received generally favorable reviews from both the academic and the religious community. Former Archbishop of York John Habgood described it, in an article in The Times, as a "massively well-documented history" that "must surely be the definitive study of the rise and growth of" creationism.

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