Dr. Melvin Louis Riley was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 14, 1937 and died on November 12, 2011. He was an engineer and a lawyer, with an unstoppable curiosity not only in the physical world but the spiritual as well. As a child, he was academically precocious and excelled in his studies. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Doctor of Juris Prudence from Southern University Law School in Louisiana. After UCLA, Dr. Riley joined the U.S. Army and was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Prior to becoming an attorney, he worked as a Computer Engineer for many years at IBM.
Science and engineering were his first loves, followed later by the law. But, it was during his later years that he developed a passionate inquisitiveness about God and the creation of the universe. He doggedly sought answers to questions about the what, why and how of the universe's formation and especially the Earth's. His desire to know just how our planet came to be and the process by which it was formed led him read voraciously on the subject. But he was neither totally satisfied by what he found in the Bible nor in the scientific literature. This led him on a journey that resulted in this book, which opens up new paths of thought about our creation and purpose in life. Dr. Riley's insightful and new perspective on the long-standing tension between creationism and evolution science is highly thought provoking, no matter where you may stand on the subject of creation of the Earth.