William A. Williams

William Asbury Williams D.D. (May 30, 1854 – May 6, 1938) was an American Presbyterian clergyman and creationist writer.

Biography

Williams was born in Beallsville, Ohio. He was the son of Elam Williams and Elizabeth Sarah McKitrick. He graduated from Franklin College in 1876 and Western Theological Seminary in 1880.

In 1885, he was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry. He was Professor of Greek and Hebrew at Franklin College (1880–1887) and served as President (1887–1901).

From 1908 he resided in Philadelphia and after 1920 in Camden.

Creationism

Williams was a Christian young earth creationist who claimed to have mathematically disproven evolution. In 1925, Williams authored The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved: In 50 Arguments. It was revised and republished in an edition of 20,000 copies in 1928. The book was dismissed by mathematicians as a fundamentalist tract.

Williams' book gave the first presentation of the creationist probability argument against evolution which influenced the pseudoscientific creation science movement. Glenn Branch deputy director of the National Center for Science Education has described Williams' arguments against evolution as "pseudomathematics".

Selected publications

Early American Families (1916) The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved: In 50 Arguments (1925, 1928)