The
creation–evolution controversy (also termed the
creation vs. evolution debate or the
origins debate) involves a recurring cultural, political, and
theological
dispute about the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life.
This debate rages most publicly in the United States, and to a lesser
extent in Europe and elsewhere,
[1] often portrayed as part of a
culture war.
[2]
The
level of support for evolution is extremely high within the
scientific community and in
academia, with 95% of
scientists supporting
evolution.
[3][4][5][6][7][8] Support for
Abrahamic religions'
accounts or other creationist alternatives is very low among scientists
in general, and virtually nonexistent among scientists in the relevant
fields.
[9]
Christian fundamentalists dispute the
evidence of common descent of humans and other animals as demonstrated in modern
paleontology,
genetics,
histology and
cladistics and those other sub-disciplines which are based upon the conclusions of modern
evolutionary biology,
geology,
cosmology, and other related fields. They argue for the Abrahamic accounts of creation, framing them as reputable science ("
creation science"). While the controversy has a long history, today it is mainly over what constitutes good
science education,
[11][12] with the politics of
creationism primarily focusing on the teaching of
creation and evolution in public education.
[13][14][15][16][17]
A 2014
Gallup survey reports, "More than four in 10 Americans continue to believe that
God
created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, a view that has
changed little over the past three decades. Half of Americans believe
humans evolved, with the majority of these saying God guided the
evolutionary process. However, the percentage who say God was not involved is rising."
[18]
The debate is sometimes portrayed as being between science and religion, but as the United States
National Academy of Sciences states:
Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution
has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of
Earth's history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution
and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and
theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the
history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they
see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for
evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of
evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal
interpretations of religious texts.
—National Academy of Sciences,
Science, Evolution, and Creationism[19]
History
The creation–evolution controversy began in Europe and
North America in the late 18th century, when new interpretations of geology led to various theories of an
ancient earth, and extinctions demonstrated in the
fossil geological sequence prompted
early ideas of evolution, notably
Lamarckism. In England these ideas of continuing change were at first seen
[by whom?] as a threat to the existing "fixed" social order, and both church and state repressed them. Conditions gradually eased, and in 1844
Robert Chambers's controversial
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation popularised the idea of
transmutation of species. The scientific establishment at first dismissed it scornfully and the
Church of England reacted with fury, but many
Unitarians,
Quakers and
Baptists—groups opposed to the privileges of the
established church—favoured its ideas of God acting through such laws.
[21]
Contemporary reaction to Darwin
| “ |
By the
end of the 19th century, there was no serious scientific opposition to
the basic evolutionary tenets of descent with modification and the
common ancestry of all forms of life. |
” |
—Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction
|
A satirical image of Darwin as an
ape from 1871 reflects part of the social controversy over whether humans and apes share a
common lineage.
The publication of Darwin's
On the Origin of Species in 1859 brought scientific credibility to evolution, and made it a respectable field of study.
Despite the intense interest in the religious implications of
Darwin's book, the Church of England's attention was largely diverted by
theological controversy over
higher criticism set out in
Essays and Reviews (1860) by
liberal Christian authors, some of whom expressed support for Darwin, as did many
Nonconformists. The Reverend
Charles Kingsley, for instance, openly supported the idea of God working through evolution.
[25] Other Christians opposed the idea, and even some of Darwin's close friends and supporters—including
Charles Lyell and
Asa Gray—initially expressed reservations about some of his ideas.
Gray later became a staunch supporter of Darwin in America, and
collected together a number of his own writings to produce an
influential book,
Darwiniana
(1876). These essays argued for a conciliation between Darwinian
evolution and the tenets of theism, at a time when many on both sides
perceived the two as mutually exclusive.
[27]
Gray said that investigation of physical causes was not opposed to the
theological view and the study of the harmonies between mind and Nature,
and thought it "most presumable that an intellectual conception
realized in Nature would be realized through natural agencies."
Thomas Huxley, who strongly promoted Darwin's ideas while campaigning to end the dominance of science by the
clergy, coined the term
agnostic to describe his position that God's existence is unknowable. Darwin also took this position, but prominent
atheists including
Edward Aveling and
Ludwig Büchner also took up evolution and it was criticised, in the words of one reviewer, as "tantamount to atheism."
[31] Following the lead of figures such as
St. George Jackson Mivart and
John Augustine Zahm,
Roman Catholics in the United States became accepting of evolution itself while ambivalent towards
natural selection and stressing humanity's divinely imbued
soul. The
Catholic Church
never condemned evolution, and initially the more conservative-leaning
Catholic leadership in Rome held back, but gradually adopted a similar
position.
During the late 19th century evolutionary ideas were most strongly disputed by the
premillennialists, who held to a prophesy of the imminent
return of Christ based on a form of
Biblical literalism,
and were convinced that the Bible would be invalidated if any error in
the Scriptures was conceded. However, hardly any of the critics of
evolution at that time were as concerned about geology, freely granting
scientists any time they needed before the
Edenic creation to account for scientific observations, such as fossils and geological findings. In the immediate post-Darwinian era, few scientists or
clerics rejected the antiquity of the earth, the progressive nature of the
fossil record. Likewise, few attached geological significance to the
Biblical flood, unlike subsequent creationists.
Evolutionary skeptics, creationist leaders and skeptical scientists
were usually either willing to adopt a figurative reading of the first
chapter of the
Book of Genesis, or allowed that the
six days of creation were not necessarily 24-hour days.
[37]
Science professors at liberal northeastern universities
[which?]
almost immediately embraced the theory of evolution and introduced it
to their students. However, some people in parts of the south and west
of the United States, which had been influenced by the
preachings of Christian fundamentalist
evangelicals, rejected the theory as immoral.
Creationism in theology
A simplified depiction of human evolution
At the beginning of the 19th century most Europeans had accepted the Genesis creation narrative as true,
[citation needed] but debate had started to develop over applying historical methods to
Biblical criticism,
suggesting a less literal account of the Bible. Simultaneously, the
developing science of geology indicated the Earth was ancient, and
religious thinkers sought to accommodate this by
day-age creationism or
gap creationism. The
Neptunianist catastrophism, which had earlier proposed that a universal flood could explain all geological features, gave way to ideas of geological
gradualism (introduced in 1795 by
James Hutton) based upon the erosion and depositional cycle over millions of years, which gave a better explanation of the
sedimentary column.
Biology and the discovery of
extinction (first described in the 1750s and put on a firm footing by
Georges Cuvier in 1796) challenged ideas of a fixed immutable
Aristotelian "
great chain of being."
Natural theology
had earlier expected that scientific findings based on empirical
evidence would help religious understanding. These differences led some
to increasingly regard science and
theology
as concerned with different, non-competitive domains. When most
scientists came to accept evolution (by around 1875), European
theologians generally came to accept evolution as an instrument of God.
Pope Leo XIII,
for instance, referred to longstanding Christian thought that
scriptural interpretations could be reevaluated in the light of new
knowledge,
[citation needed]
and Roman Catholics came around to acceptance of human evolution
subject to direct creation of the soul. In the United States the
development of the racist
Social Darwinian eugenics movement led a number of Catholics to reject evolution. In this enterprise they received little aid from conservative Christians in
Great Britain and Europe. In Britain this has been attributed
[by whom?] to their minority status leading to a more tolerant, less militant theological tradition.
Development of creationism in the United States
At first in the U.S., evangelical Christians paid little attention to
the developments in geology and biology, being more concerned with the
rise of higher
Biblical criticism
which questioned the belief in the Bible as literal truth. Those
criticising these approaches took the name "fundamentalist"—originally
coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological
beliefs that developed into a movement within the
Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and which had its roots in the
Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy of the 1920s and 1930s.
[40] The term usually has a religious connotation indicating unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs.
[41]
Up until the early mid-20th century
[when?]
mainline denominations within the United States showed little official
resistance to evolution. Around the start of the 20th century some
evangelical scholars had ideas accommodating evolution, such as
B. B. Warfield
who saw it as a natural law expressing God's will. By then most U.S.
high school and college biology classes taught scientific evolution, but
several factors, including the rise of Christian fundamentalism and
social factors of changes and insecurity in more traditionalist
Bible Belt
communities, led to a backlash. The numbers of children receiving
secondary education increased rapidly, and parents who had
fundamentalist tendencies or who opposed social ideas of what was called
"
survival of the fittest" had real concerns about what their children were learning about evolution.
British creationism
The main British creationist movement in this
[which?] period, the
Evolution Protest Movement (EPM), formed in the 1930s out of the
Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain (founded in 1865 in response to the publication of Darwin's
On the Origin of Species in 1859 and of
Essays and Reviews
in 1860). The Victoria Institute had the stated objective of defending
"the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture ... against the opposition
of Science falsely so called." Although it did not officially oppose
evolution, it attracted a number of scientists sceptical of
Darwinism, including
John William Dawson and
Arnold Guyot.
It reached a high point of 1,246 members in 1897, but quickly plummeted
to less than one third of that figure in the first two decades of the
twentieth century. Though it was anti-evolution at first, the institute joined the
theistic evolution camp by the 1920s, which led to the development of the Evolution Protest Movement in reaction. Amateur
ornithologist Douglas Dewar, the main driving force within the EPM, published a booklet entitled
Man: A Special Creation
(1936) and engaged in public speaking and debates with supporters of
evolution. In the late 1930s he resisted American creationists' call for
acceptance of
flood geology, which later led to conflict within the organisation. Despite trying to win the public endorsement of
C. S. Lewis, the most prominent
Christian apologist
of his day, by the mid-1950s the EPM came under control of
schoolmaster/pastor Albert G. Tilney, whose dogmatic and authoritarian
style ran the organisation "as a one-man band," rejecting flood geology,
unwaveringly promoting gap creationism, and reducing the membership to
lethargic inactivity. As a result of being captured by
young Earth creationists (YEC) in the 1970s
[citation needed] it was renamed
Creation Science Movement (CSM) in 1980, under the chairmanship of David Rosevear, who holds a
Ph.D. in
organometallic chemistry from the
University of Bristol.
By the mid-1980s the CSM had formally incorporated flood geology into
its "Deed of Trust" (which all officers had to sign) and condemned gap
creationism and day-age creationism as unscriptural.
United States legal challenges and their consequences
In 1925,
Tennessee passed a statute called the
Butler Act,
which prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution in all schools
in the state. Later that year, a similar law was passed in
Mississippi, and likewise,
Arkansas in 1927. In 1968, these "anti-monkey" laws were struck down by the
Supreme Court of the United States as unconstitutional, "because they established a religious doctrine violating both the
First and
Fourth Amendments to the
United States Constitution."
The modern struggle of religious fundamentalists accepting
creationism, to get their rejection of evolution accepted as legitimate
science within education institutions in the U.S., has been highlighted
through a series of important court cases.
Butler Act and Scopes monkey trial
Main article:
Scopes Trial
In the aftermath of
World War I,
the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy had brought a surge of
opposition to the idea of evolution, and following the campaigning of
William Jennings Bryan several
states
introduced legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. By 1925,
such legislation was being considered in 15 states, and had passed in
some states, such as Tennessee.
[45] The
American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone who wanted to bring a test case against one of these laws.
John T. Scopes accepted, and he confessed to teaching his Tennessee class evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. The
textbook in question was
George William Hunter's
A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (1914). The trial was widely publicized by
H. L. Mencken among others, and is commonly referred to as the
Scopes Monkey Trial. Scopes was convicted but the widespread publicity galvanized proponents of evolution. When the case was appealed to the
Tennessee Supreme Court,
the Court overturned the decision on a technicality (the judge had
assessed the minimum $100 fine instead of allowing the jury to assess
the fine).
[46]
Although it overturned the conviction, the Court decided that the law
was not in violation of the Religious Preference provisions of the
Tennessee Constitution
(Section 3 of Article 1), which stated "that no preference shall ever
be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship."
[47] The Court, applying that state constitutional language, held:
We are not able to see how the prohibition of teaching the theory
that man has descended from a lower order of animals gives preference to
any religious establishment or mode of worship. So far as we know,
there is no religious establishment or organized body that has in its
creed or confession of faith any article denying or affirming such a
theory.... Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are divided among themselves
in their beliefs, and that there is no unanimity among the members of
any religious establishment as to this subject. Belief or unbelief in
the theory of evolution is no more a characteristic of any religious
establishment or mode of worship than is belief or unbelief in the
wisdom of the prohibition laws. It would appear that members of the same
churches quite generally disagree as to these things.
... Furthermore, [the Butler Act] requires the teaching of nothing. It only forbids
the teaching of evolution of man from a lower order of animals.... As
the law thus stands, while the theory of evolution of man may not be
taught in the schools of the State, nothing contrary to that theory
[such as Creationism] is required to be taught.
... It is not necessary now to determine the exact scope of the
Religious Preference clause of the Constitution ... Section 3 of Article
1 is binding alike on the Legislature and the school authorities. So
far we are clear that the Legislature has not crossed these
constitutional limitations.
—
Scopes v. State, 289 S.W. 363, 367 (Tenn. 1927).
[48]
The interpretation of the
Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution up to that time was that the government could not establish a particular religion as the
State religion.
The Tennessee Supreme Court's decision held in effect that the Butler
Act was constitutional under the state Constitution's Religious
Preference Clause, because the Act did not establish one religion as the
"State religion."
[49]
As a result of the holding, the teaching of evolution remained illegal
in Tennessee, and continued campaigning succeeded in removing evolution
from school textbooks throughout the United States.
[50][51][52][53]
Epperson v. Arkansas
In 1968, the United States Supreme Court invalidated a forty-year-old
Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the
public schools. A
Little Rock, Arkansas,
high school biology teacher, Susan Epperson, filed suit charging the
law violated the federal constitutional prohibition against
establishment of religion as set forth in the Establishment Clause. The
Little Rock Ministerial Association supported Epperson's challenge,
declaring, "to use the Bible to support an irrational and an archaic
concept of static and undeveloping creation is not only to misunderstand
the meaning of the Book of Genesis, but to do God and religion a
disservice by making both enemies of scientific advancement and academic
freedom."
The Court held that the United States Constitution prohibits a state
from requiring, in the words of the majority opinion, "that teaching and
learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any
religious sect or dogma."
[55] But the Supreme Court decision also suggested that creationism could be taught in addition to evolution.
Daniel v. Waters
Daniel v. Waters was a 1975 legal case in which the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
struck down Tennessee's law regarding the teaching of "equal time" of
evolution and creationism in public school science classes because it
violated the Establishment Clause. Following this ruling, creationism
was stripped of overt biblical references and renamed "Creation
Science," and several states passed legislative acts requiring that this
be given equal time with the teaching of evolution.
Creation science
As
biologists grew more and more confident in evolution as the central defining principle of biology,
[58] American membership in churches favoring increasingly literal interpretations of scripture also rose, with the
Southern Baptist Convention and
Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod outpacing all other denominations.
With growth and increased finances, these churches became better
equipped to promulgate a creationist message, with their own colleges,
schools, publishing houses, and broadcast media.
In 1961, the first major modern creationist book was published:
John C. Whitcomb and
Henry M. Morris' influential
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications.
The authors argued that creation was literally 6 days long, that humans
lived concurrently with dinosaurs, and that God created each 'kind' of
life individually.
On the strength of this, Morris became a popular speaker, spreading
anti-evolutionary ideas at fundamentalist churches, colleges, and
conferences. Morris' Creation Science Research Center (CSRC) rushed publication of biology textbooks that promoted creationism. Ultimately, the CSRC broke up over a divide between sensationalism and a more intellectual approach, and Morris founded the
Institute for Creation Research, which was promised to be controlled and operated by scientists.
During this time, Morris and others who supported flood geology adopted
the terms "scientific creationism" and "creation science."
[65] The "flood geology" theory effectively co-opted "the generic creationist label for their hyperliteralist views."
Court cases
McLean v. Arkansas
In 1968, Appellant Epperson, an Arkansas public school teacher,
challenged the Arkansas “anti-evolution” statute. The statute makes it
unlawful for a teacher in any state supported school or university to
teach evolution.
[68]
In 1982, another case in Arkansas ruled that the Arkansas "Balanced
Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act" (Act 590) was
unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause. Much of
the transcript of the case was lost, including
evidence from
Francisco Ayala.
Edwards v. Aguillard
In the early 1980s, the
Louisiana
legislature passed a law titled the "Balanced Treatment for
Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act." The act did not require
teaching either evolution or creationism as such, but did require that
when evolutionary science was taught, creation science had to be taught
as well. Creationists had lobbied aggressively for the law, arguing that
the act was about academic freedom for teachers, an argument adopted by
the state in support of the act. Lower courts ruled that the State's
actual purpose was to promote the religious doctrine of creation
science, but the State appealed to the Supreme Court.
In the similar case of
McLean v. Arkansas (see above) the federal trial court had also decided against creationism.
Mclean v. Arkansas was not appealed to the federal Circuit Court of Appeals, creationists instead thinking that they had better chances with
Edwards v. Aguillard.
In 1987 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana act
was also unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to
advance a particular religion. At the same time, it stated its opinion
that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of
humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear
secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction,"
leaving open the door for a handful of proponents of creation science to
evolve their arguments into the iteration of creationism that later
came to be known as
intelligent design.
[69]
Intelligent design
In response to
Edwards v. Aguillard, the
neo-creationist intelligent design movement was formed around the
Discovery Institute's
Center for Science and Culture.
It makes the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living
things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected
process such as natural selection."
[71]
It has been viewed as a "scientific" approach to creationism by
creationists, but is widely rejected as unscientific by the science
community—primarily because intelligent design cannot be tested and
rejected like scientific
hypotheses (see for example,
List of scientific bodies explicitly rejecting Intelligent design).
Kansas evolution hearings
In the push by intelligent design advocates to introduce intelligent
design in public school science classrooms, the hub of the intelligent
design movement, the Discovery Institute, arranged to conduct hearings
to review the evidence for evolution in the light of its
Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans. The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in
Topeka, Kansas, May 5 to May 12, 2005. The
Kansas State Board of Education
eventually adopted the institute's Critical Analysis of Evolution
lesson plans over objections of the State Board Science Hearing
Committee, and electioneering on behalf of conservative
Republican Party candidates for the Board.
[72]
On August 1, 2006, four of the six conservative Republicans who
approved the Critical Analysis of Evolution classroom standards lost
their seats in a primary election. The moderate Republican and
Democrats
gaining seats vowed to overturn the 2005 school science standards and
adopt those recommended by a State Board Science Hearing Committee that
were rejected by the previous board,
[73]
and on February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended
science standards enacted in 2005. The definition of science was once
again limited to "the search for natural explanations for what is
observed in the universe."
[74]
Dover trial
Following the
Edwards v. Aguillard
decision by the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court held
that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public
schools whenever evolution was taught was unconstitutional, because the
law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion,
creationists renewed their efforts to introduce creationism into public
school science classes. This effort resulted in intelligent design,
which sought to avoid legal prohibitions by leaving the source of
creation to an unnamed and undefined
intelligent designer, as opposed to God.
[75] This ultimately resulted in the "Dover Trial,"
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,
which went to trial on 26 September 2005 and was decided on 20 December
2005 in favor of the plaintiffs, who charged that a mandate that
intelligent design be taught in public school science classrooms was an
unconstitutional establishment of religion. The
Kitzmiller v. Dover decision
held that intelligent design was not a subject of legitimate scientific
research, and that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and
hence religious, antecedents."
[76]
The December 2005 ruling in the
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial
[77] supported the viewpoint of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
and other science and education professional organizations that Teach
the Controversy proponents seek to undermine the teaching of evolution
[6][78] while promoting intelligent design,
[79][80][81]
and to advance an education policy for U.S. public schools that
introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to
public-school science curricula.
[77][82]
Texas Board of Education support for intelligent design
On March 27, 2009, the Texas Board of Education, by a vote of 13 to
2, voted that at least in Texas, textbooks must teach intelligent design
alongside evolution, and question the validity of the fossil record.
Don McLeroy,
a dentist and chair of the board, said, "I think the new standards are
wonderful ... dogmatism about evolution [has sapped] America's
scientific soul." According to
Science
magazine, "Because Texas is the second-largest textbook market in the
United States, publishers have a strong incentive to be certified by the
board as 'conforming 100% to the state's standards'."
[83] The 2009 Texas Board of Education hearings were chronicled in the 2012 documentary
The Revisionaries.
Recent developments
The
scientific consensus
on the origins and evolution of life continues to be challenged by
creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold some
form of creationism (usually young Earth creationism, creation science,
old Earth creationism or intelligent design) as an alternative. Most of these groups are
literalist Christians who believe the biblical account is
inerrant, and more than one sees the debate as part of the Christian mandate to
evangelize.
[84][85]
Some groups see science and religion as being diametrically opposed
views that cannot be reconciled. More accommodating viewpoints, held by
many mainstream churches and many scientists, consider science and
religion to be separate categories of thought (
non-overlapping magisteria), which ask fundamentally different questions about reality and posit different avenues for investigating it.
[86]
More recently, the intelligent design movement has attempted an
anti-evolution position that avoids any direct appeal to religion.
Scientists argue that intelligent design does not represent any research
program within the mainstream scientific community, and is still
essentially creationism.
[9]
Its leading proponent, the Discovery Institute, made widely publicised
claims that it was a new science, although the only paper arguing for it
published in a scientific journal was accepted in questionable
circumstances and quickly disavowed in the
Sternberg peer review controversy,
with the Biological Society of Washington stating that it did not meet
the journal's scientific standards, was a "significant departure" from
the journal's normal subject area and was published at the former
editor's sole discretion, "contrary to typical editorial practices."
[88] On August 1, 2005, U.S. President
George W. Bush
commented endorsing the teaching of intelligent design alongside
evolution "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught ... so
people can understand what the debate is about."
[11][89]
Viewpoints
In the controversy a number of divergent opinions can be recognised,
regarding both the acceptance of scientific theories and religious
practice.
Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism rejects completely the conventional
scientific approach and argues for the belief that the Earth was created
by God within the last 10,000 years, literally as described in
Genesis, within the approximate timeframe of biblical genealogies (detailed for example in the
Ussher chronology). Young Earth creationists often believe that the
Universe has a similar age to the Earth's.
Creationist cosmologies
are attempts by some creationist thinkers to give the universe an age
consistent with the Ussher chronology and other Young-Earth timeframes.
This belief generally has a basis in
biblical literalism.
Old Earth creationism
Old Earth creationism holds that the
physical universe
was created by God, but that the creation event of Genesis within 6
days is not to be taken strictly literally. This group generally accepts
the
age of the Universe and the
age of the Earth as described by
astronomers and
geologists, but that details of the
evolutionary theory
are questionable. Old Earth creationists interpret the Genesis creation
narrative in a number of ways, that each differ from the six,
consecutive, 24-hour day creation of the young Earth creationist view.
Neo-creationism
Neo-creationists intentionally distance themselves from other forms
of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from
creationism as a philosophy. They wish to re-frame the debate over the
origins of life
in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture, and to bring
the debate before the public. Neo-creationists may be either young Earth
or old Earth creationists, and hold a range of underlying theological
viewpoints (e.g. on the interpretation of the Bible). Neo-creationism
currently exists in the form of the intelligent design movement, which
has a
'big tent' strategy making it inclusive of many young Earth creationists (such as
Paul Nelson and
Percival Davis).
Theistic evolution
Theistic evolution is the general view that, instead of faith being
in opposition to biological evolution, some or all classical religious
teachings about God and
creation are compatible with some or all of modern
scientific theory, including, specifically, evolution. It generally views evolution as a tool used by a creator god, who is both the
first cause and
immanent sustainer/upholder of the universe; it is therefore well accepted by people of strong
theistic (as opposed to
deistic) convictions. Theistic evolution can synthesize with the
day-age
interpretation of the Genesis creation myth; most adherents consider
that the first chapters of Genesis should not be interpreted as a
"literal" description, but rather as a
literary framework or
allegory.
This position generally accepts the viewpoint of
methodological naturalism, a long standing convention of the
scientific method in science.
Theistic evolutionists have frequently been prominent in opposing
creationism (including intelligent design). Notable examples have been
biologist
Kenneth R. Miller and theologian
John F. Haught, who testified for the plaintiffs in
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
Another example is the Clergy Letter Project, an organization that has
created and maintains a statement signed by American Christian clergy of
different denominations rejecting creationism, with specific reference
to points raised by intelligent design proponents. Theistic
evolutionists have also been active in Citizens Alliances for Science
that oppose the introduction of creationism into public school science
classes (one example being evangelical Christian geologist
Keith B. Miller, who is a prominent board member of
Kansas Citizens for Science).
Agnostic evolution
Agnostic evolution is the position of acceptance of biological
evolution, combined with the belief that it is not important whether God
is, was, or will have been involved.
Materialistic evolution
Materialistic evolution is the position of acceptance of biological evolution, combined with the position that the
supernatural does not exist (a position common to
philosophical naturalists,
humanists and atheists). It is a view championed by the
New Atheists, who argue strongly that the creationist viewpoint is not only dangerous, but is completely rejected by science.
Arguments relating to the definition and limits of science
Critiques such as those based on the distinction between theory and
fact are often leveled against unifying concepts within scientific
disciplines. Principles such as
uniformitarianism,
Occam's razor or parsimony, and the
Copernican principle are claimed to be the result of a
bias within science toward
philosophical naturalism, which is equated by many creationists with atheism.
[92] In countering this claim,
philosophers of science use the term
methodological naturalism to refer to the long standing convention in science of the scientific method. The
methodological assumption is that
observable events in
nature
are explained only by natural causes, without assuming the existence or
non-existence of the supernatural, and therefore supernatural
explanations for such events are outside the realm of science.
[93]
Creationists claim that supernatural explanations should not be
excluded and that scientific work is paradigmatically close-minded.
[94]
Because modern science tries to rely on the minimization of
a priori assumptions, error, and
subjectivity, as well as on avoidance of
Baconian idols, it remains neutral on subjective subjects such as
religion or
morality.
[95] Mainstream proponents accuse the creationists of conflating the two in a form of
pseudoscience.
[96]
Definitions
Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly
confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as "true." Truth in
science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact today
may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world
leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are
verified, it becomes more probable that the hypothesis is correct. If
the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis can be abandoned
or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and
explanations.
Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some
aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws,
inferences, and tested hypotheses.
—National Academy of Sciences,
Science and Creationism[97]
Limitations of scientific endeavor
In science, explanations are limited to those based on observations
and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists.
Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not a part
of science.
—National Academy of Sciences,
Science and Creationism[98]
The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating
phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating
previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be
based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific
principles of reasoning. What I believe in my heart must make sense in
my mind. In other words, truth is not only a matter of offense, in that
it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense in that it
must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints
that are raised. Truth by definition excludes.
—
Ravi Zacharias,
Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
Theory vs. fact
The argument that evolution is a
theory, not a fact, has often been made against the exclusive teaching of evolution.
[100]
The argument is related to a common misconception about the technical
meaning of "theory" that is used by scientists. In common usage,
"theory" often refers to conjectures, hypotheses, and unproven
assumptions. In science, "theory" usually means "a plausible or
scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles
offered to explain phenomena."
[101]
Exploring this issue,
paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote:
Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are
different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty.
Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that
explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate
rival theories to explain them. Einstein's
theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend
themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from
ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or
by some other yet to be discovered.
—Stephen Jay Gould,
Evolution as Fact and Theory[102]
Falsifiability
Philosopher of science Karl R. Popper set out the concept of
falsifiability as a way to distinguish science and pseudoscience:
[104] testable theories are scientific, but those that are untestable are not.
[105] In
Unended Quest, Popper declared "I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a
metaphysical research programme, a possible framework for testable scientific theories," while pointing out it had "scientific character."
[106]
In what one sociologist derisively called "Popper-chopping,"
[107]
opponents of evolution seized upon Popper's definition to claim
evolution was not a science, and claimed creationism was an equally
valid metaphysical research program.
[108] For example,
Duane Gish, a leading Creationist proponent, wrote in a letter to
Discover
magazine (July 1981): "Stephen Jay Gould states that creationists claim
creation is a scientific theory. This is a false accusation.
Creationists have repeatedly stated that neither creation nor evolution
is a scientific theory (and each is equally religious)."
[109]
Popper responded to news that his conclusions were being used by
anti-evolutionary forces by affirming that evolutionary theories
regarding the origins of life on earth were
scientific because "their hypotheses can in many cases be tested."
Creationists claimed that a key evolutionary concept, that all life on
Earth is descended from a single common ancestor, was not mentioned as
testable by Popper, and claimed it never would be.
[110]
In fact, Popper wrote admiringly of the value of Darwin's theory.
[111]
Only a few years later, Popper wrote, "I have in the past described the
theory as 'almost tautological' ... I still believe that natural
selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I
have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the
theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to
make a recantation." His conclusion, later in the article is "The theory
of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from
tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to
be not strictly universally true."
[112]
Debate among some scientists and philosophers of science on the applicability of falsifiability in science continues.
[113] Simple falsifiability tests for
common descent have been offered by some scientists: for instance, biologist and prominent critic of creationism
Richard Dawkins and
J. B. S. Haldane both pointed out that if
fossil rabbits were found in the Precambrian era, a time before most similarly complex lifeforms had evolved, "that would completely blow evolution out of the water."
[114][115]
Falsifiability has caused problems for creationists: in his 1982 decision
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, Judge
William R. Overton
used falsifiability as one basis for his ruling against the teaching of
creation science in the public schools, ultimately declaring it "simply
not science."
[116]
Conflation of science and religion
Creationists commonly argue against evolution on the grounds that "evolution is a religion; it is not a science,"
in order to undermine the higher ground biologists claim in debating
creationists, and to reframe the debate from being between science
(evolution) and religion (creationism) to being between two equally
religious beliefs—or even to argue that evolution is religious while
intelligent design is not.
[119] Those that oppose evolution frequently refer to supporters of evolution as "
evolutionists" or "
Darwinists."
This is generally
argued by analogy,
by arguing that evolution and religion have one or more things in
common, and that therefore evolution is a religion. Examples of claims
made in such arguments are statements that evolution is based on
faith, that supporters of evolution revere Darwin as a prophet, and that supporters of evolution
dogmatically reject alternative suggestions out-of-hand.
[121]
These claims have become more popular in recent years as the
neocreationist movement has sought to distance itself from religion,
thus giving it more reason to make use of a seemingly anti-religious
analogy.
In response, supporters of evolution have argued that no scientist's
claims, including Darwin's, are treated as sacrosanct, as shown by the
aspects of Darwin's theory that have been rejected or revised by
scientists over the years, to form first
neo-Darwinism and later the
modern evolutionary synthesis.
[123][124]
Appeal to consequences
A number of creationists have blurred the boundaries between their
disputes over the truth of the underlying facts, and explanatory
theories, of evolution, with their purported philosophical and moral
consequences. This type of argument is known as an
appeal to consequences, and is a
logical fallacy. Examples of these arguments include those of prominent creationists such as
Ken Ham[125] and Henry M. Morris.
[126]
Disputes relating to science
Many creationists strongly oppose certain scientific theories in a
number of ways, including opposition to specific applications of
scientific processes, accusations of bias within the scientific
community,
[127] and claims that discussions within the scientific community reveal or imply a crisis. In response to perceived crises in
modern science,
creationists claim to have an alternative, typically based on faith,
creation science, or intelligent design. The scientific community has
responded by pointing out that their conversations are frequently
misrepresented (e.g. by
quote mining)
in order to create the impression of a deeper controversy or crisis,
and that the creationists' alternatives are generally pseudoscientific.
Biology
phylogenetic tree based on rRNA genes
Disputes relating to evolutionary biology are central to the
controversy between creationists and the scientific community. The
aspects of evolutionary biology disputed include
common descent (and particularly human evolution from common ancestors with other members of the
great apes),
macroevolution, and the existence of
transitional fossils.
Common descent
Main article:
Common descent
[The] Discovery [Institute] presents common descent as controversial
exclusively within the animal kingdom, as it focuses on embryology,
anatomy, and the fossil record to raise questions about them. In the
real world of science, common descent of animals is completely
noncontroversial; any controversy resides in the microbial world. There,
researchers argued over a variety of topics, starting with the very
beginning, namely the relationship among the three main branches of
life.
—John Timmer,
Evolution: what's the real controversy?[128]
A group of
organisms is said to have common descent if they have a common
ancestor.
A theory of universal common descent based on evolutionary principles
was proposed by Charles Darwin and is now generally accepted by
biologists. The most recent common ancestor of all living organisms is
believed to have appeared about
3.9 billion years ago. With a few exceptions (e.g.
Michael Behe)
the vast majority of creationists reject this theory in favor of the
belief that a common design suggests a common designer (God), for all
thirty million species.
[129][130][131] Other creationists allow evolution of species, but say that it was specific "kinds" or
baramin that were created. Thus all bear species may have developed from a common ancestor that was separately created.
Evidence of common descent includes evidence from genetics, fossil records,
comparative anatomy,
geographical distribution of species,
comparative physiology and
comparative biochemistry.
Human evolution
Human evolution is the study of the biological evolution of humans as a distinct
species from its common ancestors with other animals. Analysis of fossil evidence and
genetic distance are two of the means by which scientists understand this evolutionary history.
Fossil evidence suggests that humans' earliest
hominid ancestors may have split from other
primates as early as the late
Oligocene, circa 26 to 24
Ma, and that by the early
Miocene, the
adaptive radiation of many different hominoid forms was well underway.
[132] Evidence from the
molecular dating of genetic differences indicates that the
gibbon lineage (family
Hylobatidae) diverged between 18 and 12 Ma, and the
orangutan lineage (subfamily
Ponginae)
diverged about 12 Ma. While there is no fossil evidence thus far
clearly documenting the early ancestry of gibbons, fossil
proto-orangutans may be represented by
Sivapithecus from India and
Griphopithecus from
Turkey, dated to around 10 Ma. Molecular evidence further suggests that between 8 and 4 Ma, first the
gorillas, and then the
chimpanzee (genus
Pan) split from the line leading to the humans. We have no fossil record of this divergence, but distinctively hominid fossils have been found dating to 3.2 Ma (see
Lucy) and possibly even earlier, at 6 or 7 Ma (see
Toumaï).
[134] Comparisons of
DNA show that 99.4 percent of the
coding regions are identical in chimpanzees and humans (95–96% overall
[135][136]), which is taken as strong evidence of recent common ancestry.
[137] Today, only one distinct human species survives, but many earlier species have been found in the fossil record, including
Homo erectus,
Homo habilis, and
Homo neanderthalensis.
Creationists dispute there is evidence of shared ancestry in the
fossil evidence, and argue either that these are misassigned ape fossils
(e.g. that
Java Man was a gibbon
[138]) or too similar to modern humans to designate them as distinct or transitional forms. Creationists frequently disagree where the dividing lines would be.
[140] Creation myths (such as the Book of Genesis) frequently posit a
first man (
Adam, in the case of Genesis) as an alternative viewpoint to the scientific account.
Creationists also dispute science's interpretation of genetic
evidence in the study of human evolution. They argue that it is a
"dubious assumption" that genetic similarities between various animals
imply a common ancestral relationship, and that scientists are coming to
this interpretation only because they have preconceived notions that
such shared relationships exist. Creationists also argue that genetic
mutations are strong evidence against evolutionary theory because the
mutations required for major changes to occur would almost certainly be
detrimental.
Macroevolution
Main article:
Macroevolution
Many creationists accept the possibilities of
microevolution
within "kinds" but refuse to accept and have long argued against the
possibility of macroevolution. Macroevolution is defined by the
scientific community to be evolution that occurs at or above the level
of species. Under this definition, macroevolution can be considered to
be a fact, as evidenced by observed instances of
speciation.
Creationists tend to apply a more restrictive, if vaguer, definition of
macroevolution, often relating to the emergence of new body forms or
organs.
The scientific community considers that there is strong evidence for
even such more restrictive definitions, but the evidence for this is
more complex.
Recent arguments against (such restrictive definitions of) macroevolution include the intelligent design (ID) arguments of
irreducible complexity and
specified complexity.
Neither argument has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal, and both arguments have been rejected by the
scientific community as pseudoscience. When taken to court in an attempt
to introduce ID into the classroom, the judge wrote "The overwhelming
evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere
re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."
Biologist Richard Dawkins published a book
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009) giving evidence for evolution and macroevolution.
Transitional fossils
It is commonly stated by critics of evolution that there are no known transitional fossils.
[142]
This position is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of what
represents a transitional feature. A common creationist argument is that
no fossils are found with partially functional features. It is
plausible that a complex feature with one function can adapt a different
function through evolution. The precursor to, for example, a wing,
might originally have only been used for gliding, trapping flying prey,
or mating display. Today, wings can still have all of these functions,
but they are also used in active flight.
As another example,
Alan Hayward stated in
Creation and Evolution
(1985) that "Darwinists rarely mention the whale because it presents
them with one of their most insoluble problems. They believe that
somehow a whale must have evolved from an ordinary land-dwelling animal,
which took to the sea and lost its legs ... A land mammal that was in
the process of becoming a whale would fall between two stools—it would
not be fitted for life on land or at sea, and would have no hope for
survival."
[143] The
evolution of whales has been documented in considerable detail, with
Ambulocetus, described as looking like a three-metre long mammalian
crocodile, as one of the transitional fossils.
[144]
Although transitional fossils elucidate the evolutionary transition
of one life-form to another, they only exemplify snapshots of this
process. Due to the special circumstances required for preservation of
living beings, only a very small percentage of all life-forms that ever
have existed can be expected to be discovered. Thus, the transition
itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils,
but it will never be known in detail. Progressing research and
discovery managed to fill in several gaps and continues to do so.
Critics of evolution often cite this argument as being a convenient way
to explain off the lack of 'snapshot' fossils that show crucial steps
between species.
The theory of
punctuated equilibrium developed by Stephen Jay Gould and
Niles Eldredge
is often mistakenly drawn into the discussion of transitional fossils.
This theory pertains only to well-documented transitions within taxa or
between closely related taxa over a geologically short period. These
transitions, usually traceable in the same geological outcrop, often
show small jumps in morphology between periods of morphological
stability. To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged
comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of
rapid evolution. For example, the change from a creature the size of a
mouse, to one the size of an elephant, could be accomplished over 60,000
years, with a rate of change too small to be noticed over any human
lifetime. 60,000 years is too small a gap to be identified or
identifiable in the fossil record.
[145]
Experts in evolutionary theory have pointed out that even if it were
possible for enough fossils to survive to show a close transitional
change critics will never be satisfied, as the discovery of one "missing
link" itself creates two more so-called "missing links" on either side
of the discovery. Richard Dawkins says that the reason for this "losing
battle" is that many of these critics are theists who "simply don't want
to see the truth."
Geology
Main article:
Flood geology
Many believers in young Earth creationism – a position held by the majority of proponents of flood geology – accept biblical
chronogenealogies (such as the Ussher chronology, which in turn is based on the
Masoretic version of the
Genealogies of Genesis).
[146][undue weight? – discuss][147]
They believe that God created the universe approximately 6000 years
ago, in the space of six days. Much of creation geology is devoted to
debunking the dating methods used in
anthropology, geology, and
planetary science that give ages in conflict with the young Earth idea. In particular, creationists dispute the reliability of
radiometric dating and
isochron
analysis, both of which are central to mainstream geological theories
of the age of the Earth. They usually dispute these methods based on
uncertainties concerning initial concentrations of individually
considered species and the associated measurement uncertainties caused
by
diffusion
of the parent and daughter isotopes. A full critique of the entire
parameter-fitting analysis, which relies on dozens of radionuclei parent
and daughter pairs, has not been done by creationists hoping to cast
doubt on the technique.
The consensus of professional scientific organisations worldwide is
that no scientific evidence contradicts the age of approximately 4.5
billion years.
[5]
Young Earth creationists reject these ages on the grounds of what they
regard as being tenuous and untestable assumptions in the methodology.
They have often quoted apparently inconsistent radiometric dates to cast
doubt on the utility and accuracy of the method. Mainstream proponents
who get involved in this debate point out that dating methods only rely
on the assumptions that the
physical laws governing
radioactive decay
have not been violated since the sample was formed (harking back to
Lyell's doctrine of uniformitarianism). They also point out that the
"problems" that creationists publicly mentioned can be shown to either
not be problems at all, are issues with known contamination, or simply
the result of incorrectly evaluating legitimate data. The fact that the
various methods of dating give essentially identical or near identical
readings is not addressed in creationism.
Other sciences
Cosmology
While young Earth creationists believe that the
Universe was created by the
Judeo-Christian God approximately 6000 years ago, the current scientific consensus is that the Universe as we know it emerged from the
Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The recent science of
nucleocosmochronology is extending the approaches used for
carbon-14 dating to the dating of astronomical features. For example, based upon this emerging science, the Galactic
thin disk of the
Milky Way galaxy is estimated to have been formed 8.3 ± 1.8 billion years ago.
[148]
Nuclear physics
Creationists point to experiments they have performed, which they
claim demonstrate that 1.5 billion years of nuclear decay took place
over a short period, from which they infer that "billion-fold speed-ups
of nuclear decay" have occurred, a massive violation of the principle
that
radioisotope decay rates are constant, a core principle underlying
nuclear physics generally, and
radiometric dating in particular.
[149]
The scientific community points to numerous flaws in these
experiments, to the fact that their results have not been accepted for
publication by any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and to the fact
that the creationist scientists conducting them were untrained in
experimental
geochronology.
[150][151]
In refutation of young Earth claims of inconstant decay-rates
affecting the reliability of radiometric dating, Roger C. Wiens, a
physicist specialising in isotope dating states:
There are only three quite technical instances where a half-life
changes, and these do not affect the dating methods [under discussion]":[152]
- Only one technical exception occurs under terrestrial conditions,
and this is not for an isotope used for dating.... The
artificially-produced isotope, beryllium-7 has been shown to change by
up to 1.5%, depending on its chemical environment. ... [H]eavier atoms
are even less subject to these minute changes, so the dates of rocks
made by electron-capture decays would only be off by at most a few
hundredths of a percent.
- ... Another case is material inside of stars, which is in a plasma
state where electrons are not bound to atoms. In the extremely hot
stellar environment, a completely different kind of decay can occur.
'Bound-state beta decay' occurs when the nucleus emits an electron into a
bound electronic state close to the nucleus.... All normal matter, such
as everything on Earth, the Moon, meteorites, etc. has electrons in
normal positions, so these instances never apply to rocks, or anything
colder than several hundred thousand degrees....
- The last case also involves very fast-moving matter. It has been
demonstrated by atomic clocks in very fast spacecraft. These atomic
clocks slow down very slightly (only a second or so per year) as
predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. No rocks in our solar system are going fast enough to make a noticeable change in their dates....
—Roger C. Wiens ,
Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective[153]
Misrepresentations of science
The Discovery Institute has a "formal declaration" titled
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
which has many evangelicals, people from fields irrelevant to biology
and geology and few biologists. Many of the biologists who signed have
fields not directly related to evolution.
[154] Some of the biologists signed were deceived into signing the "declaration." In response, there is
Project Steve.
Quote mining
Main article:
Quote mining
As a means to criticise mainstream science, creationists have been
known to quote, at length, scientists who ostensibly support the
mainstream theories, but appear to acknowledge criticisms similar to
those of creationists.
[58] Almost universally these have been shown to be
quote mines
that do not accurately reflect the evidence for evolution or the
mainstream scientific community's opinion of it, or highly out-of-date.
[155][156] Many of the same quotes used by creationists have appeared so frequently in Internet discussions due to the availability of
cut and paste functions, that the
TalkOrigins Archive has created "The Quote Mine Project" for quick reference to the original context of these quotations.
[155]
Creationists often quote mine Darwin, especially with regard to the
seeming improbability of the evolution of the eye, to give support to
their views.
[157]
The Panda's Thumb blog has some material on quote mining.
[158]
Public policy issues
The creation–evolution controversy has grown in importance in recent years, particularly as a result of the
Southern strategy of the Republican Party strategist
Kevin Phillips, during the Nixon and Reagan administrations in the U.S. He saw that the
African-American Civil Rights Movement
had alienated many poor white southern voters of the Bible Belt and set
out to capture this electorate through an alliance with the "
New Right"
Christian right movement.
Science education
Creationists promoted the idea that evolution is a theory in crisis
[6][77] with scientists criticizing evolution
[160] and claim that fairness and equal time requires educating students about the alleged scientific controversy.
Opponents, being the overwhelming majority of the scientific community and science education organizations,
[161] reply that there is no scientific controversy and that the controversy exists solely in terms of religion and politics.
[6][160]
George Mason University
Biology Department introduced a course on the creation/evolution
controversy, and apparently as students learn more about biology, they
find objections to evolution less convincing, suggesting that "teaching
the controversy" rightly as a separate elective course on philosophy or
history of science, or "politics of science and religion," would
undermine creationists' criticisms, and that the scientific community's
resistance to this approach was bad public relations.
[162]
Freedom of speech
Creationists have claimed that preventing them from teaching creationism violates their right of
freedom of speech. Court cases (such as
Webster v. New Lenox School District (1990) and
Bishop v. Aronov (1991)) have upheld school districts' and universities' right to restrict teaching to a specified curriculum.
Issues relating to religion
Religion and historical scientists
Creationists often argue that Christianity and literal belief in the
Bible are either foundationally significant or directly responsible for
scientific progress.
[163]
To that end, Institute for Creation Research founder Henry M. Morris
has enumerated scientists such as astronomer and philosopher
Galileo Galilei, mathematician and theoretical physicist
James Clerk Maxwell, mathematician and philosopher
Blaise Pascal, geneticist monk
Gregor Mendel, and
Isaac Newton as believers in a biblical creation narrative.
[164]
This argument usually involves scientists who were no longer alive
when evolution was proposed or whose field of study did not include
evolution. The argument is generally rejected as specious by those who
oppose creationism.
[165]
Many of the scientists in question did some early work on the
mechanisms of evolution, e.g., the modern evolutionary synthesis
combines Darwin's theory of evolution with
Mendel's
theories of inheritance and genetics. Though biological evolution of
some sort had become the primary mode of discussing speciation within
science by the late-19th century, it was not until the mid-20th century
that evolutionary theories stabilized into the modern synthesis. The
orthodox believer,
Theodosius Dobzhansky, called the Father of the Modern Synthesis, argued that "
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," and saw no conflict between evolutionary and his religious beliefs.
[166]
Nevertheless some of the historical scientists marshalled by
creationists were dealing with quite different issues than any are
engaged with today:
Louis Pasteur, for example, opposed the theory of
spontaneous generation with
biogenesis, an advocacy some creationists describe as a critique on
chemical evolution and
abiogenesis. Pasteur accepted that some form of evolution had occurred and that the Earth was millions of years old.
[167]
The
Relationship between religion and science
was not portrayed in antagonistic terms until the late-19th century,
and even then there have been many examples of the two being
reconcilable for evolutionary scientists.
[168]
Many historical scientists wrote books explaining how pursuit of
science was seen by them as fulfillment of spiritual duty in line with
their religious beliefs. Even so, such professions of faith were not
insurance against dogmatic opposition by certain religious people.
Forums
Debates
Many creationists and scientists engage in frequent public debates
regarding the origin of human life, hosted by a variety of institutions.
However, some scientists disagree with this tactic, arguing that by
openly debating supporters of supernatural origin explanations
(creationism and intelligent design), scientists are lending credibility
and unwarranted publicity to creationists, which could foster an
inaccurate public perception and obscure the factual merits of the
debate.
[169] For example, in May 2004 Dr.
Michael Shermer debated creationist
Kent Hovind
in front of a predominantly creationist audience. In Shermer's online
reflection while he was explaining that he won the debate with
intellectual and scientific evidence he felt it was "not an intellectual
exercise," but rather it was "an emotional drama," with scientists
arguing from "an impregnable fortress of evidence that converges to an
unmistakable conclusion," while for creationists it is "a spiritual
war."
[170]
While receiving positive responses from creationist observers, Shermer
concluded "Unless there is a subject that is truly debatable (evolution
v. creation is not), with a format that is fair, in a forum that is
balanced, it only serves to belittle both the magisterium of science and
the magisterium of religion."
[170] (see
Non-overlapping magisteria). Others, like evolutionary biologist
Massimo Pigliucci,
have debated Hovind, and have expressed surprise to hear Hovind try "to
convince the audience that evolutionists believe humans came from
rocks" and at Hovind's assertion that biologists believe humans "evolved
from bananas."
In September 2012, educator and television personality
Bill Nye of
Bill Nye the Science Guy fame spoke with the
Associated Press
and aired his fears about acceptance of creationist theory, believing
that teaching children that creationism is the only true answer and
without letting them understand the way science works will prevent any
future innovation in the world of science.
[172][173] In February 2014, Nye defended evolution in the classroom in a
debate with creationist Ken Ham on the topic of whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era.
[174][175][176]
Eugenie Scott of the
National Center for Science Education,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of
evolution in the public schools, claimed debates are not the sort of
arena to promote science to creationists.
[170]
Scott says that "Evolution is not on trial in the world of science,"
and "the topic of the discussion should not be the scientific legitimacy
of evolution" but rather should be on the lack of evidence in
creationism. Stephen Jay Gould adopted a similar position, explaining:
Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is
not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures
to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact—which
[creationists] are very good at. Some of those rules are: never say
anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked,
but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's
position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the
creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are
terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom
you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your
belief.
—Stephen Jay Gould, lecture 1985
Political lobbying
On both sides of the controversy a wide range of organizations are
involved at a number of levels in lobbying in an attempt to influence
political decisions relating to the teaching of evolution. These include
the Discovery Institute, the National Center for Science Education, the
National Science Teachers Association, state
Citizens Alliances for Science, and numerous national science associations and state academies of science.
[178]
Media coverage
The controversy has been discussed in numerous newspaper articles, reports,
op-eds and letters to the editor, as well as a number of radio and television programmes (including the
PBS series,
Evolution (2001) and
Coral Ridge Ministries'
Darwin's Deadly Legacy
(2006)). This has led some commentators to express a concern at what
they see as a highly inaccurate and biased understanding of evolution
among the general public.
Edward Humes states:
There are really two theories of evolution. There is the genuine
scientific theory and there is the talk-radio pretend version, designed
not to enlighten but to deceive and enrage. The talk-radio version had a
packed town hall up in arms at the Why Evolution Is Stupid
lecture. In this version of the theory, scientists supposedly believe
that all life is accidental, a random crash of molecules that magically
produced flowers, horses and humans – a scenario as unlikely as a
tornado in a junkyard assembling a 747. Humans come from monkeys in this
theory, just popping into existence one day. The evidence against
Darwin is overwhelming, the purveyors of talk-radio evolution rail, yet
scientists embrace his ideas because they want to promote atheism.
—Edward Humes,
Unintelligent Designs on Darwin[179]
Outside the United States
Views on human evolution in various countries (2008)
[180][181]
While the controversy has been prominent in the United States, it has flared up in other countries as well.
[182][183][184]
Europe
Europeans have often regarded the creation–evolution controversy as an American matter.
[183] In recent years the conflict has become an issue in other countries including
Germany, the
United Kingdom,
Italy, the
Netherlands,
Poland, Turkey and
Serbia.
[183][184][185][186][187]
On September 17, 2007, the Committee on Culture, Science and Education of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) issued a report on the attempt by American-inspired creationists
to promote creationism in European schools. It concludes "If we are not
careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights which are a
key concern of the Council of Europe... The war on the theory of
evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of
religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing
political movements... some advocates of strict creationism are out to
replace democracy by theocracy."
[188] The
Council of Europe firmly rejected creationism.
[189]
Australia
Under the former
Queensland state government of
Joh Bjelke-Petersen, in the 1980s Queensland allowed the teaching of creationism in
secondary schools.
In 2010, the Queensland state government introduced the topic of
creationism into school classes within the "ancient history" subject
where its origins and nature are discussed as a significant controversy.
[191] Public lectures have been given in rented rooms at universities, by visiting American speakers.
[page needed] One of the most acrimonious aspects of the Australian debate was featured on the science television program
Quantum, about a long-running and ultimately unsuccessful court case by
Ian Plimer, Professor of Geology at the
University of Melbourne, against an ordained minister, Dr. Allen Roberts, who had claimed that there were remnants of
Noah's Ark
in eastern Turkey. Although the court found that Roberts had made false
and misleading claims, they were not made in the course of trade or
commerce, so the case failed.
[193]
Islamic countries
In recent times, the controversy has become more prominent in Islamic countries.
[194] In
Egypt, evolution is currently taught in schools, but
Saudi Arabia and
Sudan have both banned the teaching of evolution in schools.
[182][195] Creation science has also been heavily promoted in Turkey and in immigrant communities in
Western Europe, primarily by
Harun Yahya.
[184] In
Iran, traditional practice of
Shia Islam isn't preoccupied with Qur'anic literalism as in case of Saudi
Wahhabism but
ijtihad, many influential Iranian Shi'ite scholars, including several who were closely involved in
Iranian Revolution, are not opposed to evolutionary ideas in general, disagreeing that evolution necessarily conflicts with the Muslim mainstream.
[195]
Iranian pupils since 5th grade of elementary school learn only about
evolution, thus portraying geologists and scientists in general as an
authoritative voices of scientific knowledge.
[195]
Creation science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Creation science or
scientific creationism[1] is a branch of
creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the
Genesis creation narrative in the
Book of Genesis and disprove or reinterpret the
scientific facts,
theories and
scientific paradigms about the history of the
Earth,
cosmology and biological
evolution.
[2][3]
The overwhelming
consensus of the
scientific community
is that creation science is a religious, not a scientific view, and
that creation science does not qualify as science because it lacks
empirical support, supplies no tentative
hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural history in terms of scientifically untestable
supernatural causes.
[4][5] Creation science has been characterized as a
pseudoscientific attempt to map the Bible into scientific facts.
[6][7] According to a popular introductory
philosophy of science text, "virtually all professional biologists regard creation science as a sham."
[8]
It began in the 1960s as a
fundamentalist Christian effort in the United States to prove
Biblical inerrancy and nullify the scientific
evidence for evolution.
[9]
It has since developed a sizable religious following in the United
States, with creation science ministries branching worldwide.
[10] The main ideas in creation science are: the belief in "creation
ex nihilo"
(Latin: out of nothing); the conviction that the Earth was created
within the last 6,000–10,000 years; the belief that mankind and other
life on Earth were created as distinct fixed "
baraminological"
kinds; and the idea that
fossils found in geological strata were deposited during a cataclysmic
flood which completely covered the entire Earth.
[11] As a result, creation science also challenges the commonly accepted
geologic and
astrophysical theories for the age and origins of the Earth and
Universe, which creationists acknowledge are irreconcilable to the account in the Book of Genesis.
[9] Creation science proponents often refer to the theory of evolution as "
Darwinism" or as "Darwinian evolution."
The creation science texts and curricula that first emerged in the 1960s focused upon concepts derived from a
literal interpretation of the Bible and were overtly religious in nature, most notably linking
Noah's flood in the Biblical Genesis account to the geological and
fossil record in a system termed "
flood geology." These works attracted little notice beyond the schools and congregations of conservative fundamental and
Evangelical Christians until the 1970s when its followers
challenged the teaching of evolution in the
public schools
and other venues in the United States, bringing it to the attention of
the public-at-large and the scientific community. Many school boards and
lawmakers were persuaded to include the teaching of creation science
alongside evolution in the science curriculum.
[12] Creation science texts and curricula used in churches and Christian schools were revised to eliminate their Biblical and
theological references, and less explicitly sectarian versions of creation science education were introduced in public schools in
Louisiana,
Arkansas, and other regions in the United States.
[12]
The 1982 ruling in
McLean v. Arkansas
found that creation science fails to meet the essential characteristics
of science and that its chief intent is to advance a particular
religious view.
[14] The teaching of creation science in public schools in the United States effectively ended in 1987 following the
United States Supreme Court decision in
Edwards v. Aguillard.
[9]
The court affirmed that a statute requiring the teaching of creation
science alongside evolution when evolution is taught in Louisiana public
schools was
unconstitutional because its sole true purpose was to
advance a particular religious belief.
[14] In response to this ruling, drafts of the creation science school textbook
Of Pandas and People were edited to change references of creation to
intelligent design before its publication in 1989. The
intelligent design movement
promoted this version, then teaching intelligent design in public
school science classes was found to be unconstitutional in the 2005
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District federal court case.
Beliefs and activities
Religious basis
Creation science is based largely upon chapters 1–11 of the Book of
Genesis. These describe how God calls the world into existence through
the power of speech ("And God said, Let there be light," etc.) in six
days, calls all the animals and plants into existence, and molds the
first man from clay and the first woman from a rib taken from the man's
side; a world-wide flood destroys all life except for
Noah
and his family and representatives of the animals, and Noah becomes the
ancestor of the 70 "nations" of the world; the nations live together
and speak one language until the incident of the
Tower of Babel,
when God disperses them and gives them their different languages.
Creation science rarely goes beyond biblical stories in its study, and
attempts to explain history and science within the span of
Biblical chronology, which places the initial act of creation some six thousand years ago.
Modern religious affiliations
Most creation science proponents hold fundamentalist or Evangelical
Christian beliefs in Biblical literalism or Biblical inerrancy, as
opposed to the
higher criticism supported by
Liberal Christianity in the
Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy. However, there are also examples of
Islamic and
Jewish scientific creationism that conform to the accounts of creation as recorded in their religious doctrines.
[15][16]
The
Seventh-day Adventist Church has a history of support for creation science. This dates back to
George McCready Price, an active Seventh-day Adventist who developed views of flood geology,
[17] which formed the basis of creation science.
[18] This work was continued by the
Geoscience Research Institute, an official institute of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, located on its
Loma Linda University campus in California.
[19][20]
Creation science is generally rejected by the
Church of England as well as the
Roman Catholic Church. The
Pontifical Gregorian University
has officially discussed intelligent design as a "cultural phenomenon"
without scientific elements. The Church of England's official website
cites Charles Darwin's local work assisting people in his religious
parish.
[21]
Views on science
Creation science rejects evolution's theory of the
common descent of all living things on the Earth.
[22] Instead, it asserts that the field of
evolutionary biology is itself
pseudoscientific[23] or even a religion.
[24]
Creationists argue instead for a system called baraminology, which
considers the living world to be descended from uniquely created kinds
or "baramins."
[25]
Creation science incorporates the concept of
catastrophism
to reconcile current landforms and fossil distributions with Biblical
interpretations, proposing the remains resulted from successive
cataclysmic events, such as a world-wide flood and subsequent
ice age.
[26] It rejects one of the
fundamental principles of modern geology (and of
modern science generally),
uniformitarianism, which applies the same physical and geological laws observed on the Earth today to interpret the Earth's geological history.
[27]
Sometimes creationists attack other scientific concepts, like the
Big Bang cosmological model or methods of scientific dating which measure
radioactive decay.
Young Earth creationists also reject current estimates of the
age of the universe and the
age of the Earth, arguing for creationist cosmologies with timescales much shorter than those determined by modern
physical cosmology and
geological science, typically less than 10,000 years.
The scientific community has overwhelmingly rejected the ideas put
forth in creation science as lying outside the boundaries of a
legitimate science.
[5][28][29]
The foundational premises underlying scientific creationism disqualify
it as a science because the answers to all inquiry therein are
preordained to conform to Bible doctrine, and because that inquiry is
constructed upon theories which are not empirically testable in nature.
Scientists also deem creation science's attacks against biological
evolution to be without scientific merit. Those views of the scientific
community were accepted in two significant court decisions in the 1980s
which found the field of creation science to be a religious mode of
inquiry, not a scientific one.
History
The teaching of evolution was gradually introduced into more and more
public high school textbooks in the United States after 1900,
[30]
but in the aftermath of the First World War the growth of
fundamentalist Christianity gave rise to a creationist opposition to
such teaching. Legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution was
passed in certain regions, most notably Tennessee's
Butler Act of 1925.
[31] The Soviet Union's successful launch of
Sputnik 1 in 1957 sparked national concern that the science education in public schools was outdated. In 1958, the United States passed
National Defense Education Act which introduced new education guidelines for science instruction. With federal grant funding, the
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
(BSCS) drafted new standards for the public schools' science textbooks
which included the teaching of evolution. Almost half the nation's high
schools were using textbooks based on the guidelines of the BSCS soon
after they were published in 1963.
[32] The Tennessee legislature did not repeal the Butler Act until 1967.
[33]
Creation science (dubbed "scientific creationism" at the time)
emerged as an organized movement during the 1960s. It was strongly
influenced by the earlier work of armchair geologist George McCready
Price who wrote works such as
The New Geology (1923) to advance what he termed "new catastrophism" and dispute the current geological time frames and explanations of
geologic history. Price's work was cited at the
Scopes Trial
of 1925, yet although he frequently solicited feedback from geologists
and other scientists, they consistently disparaged his work.
[34] Price's "new catastrophism" also went largely unnoticed by other creationists until its revival with the 1961 publication of
The Genesis Flood by
John C. Whitcomb and
Henry M. Morris, a work which quickly became an important text on the issue to fundamentalist Christians
[9] and expanded the field of creation science beyond critiques of geology into
biology
and cosmology as well. Soon after its publication, a movement was
underway to have the subject taught in United States' public schools.
Court determinations
The various state laws prohibiting teaching of evolution were overturned in 1968 when the United States Supreme Court ruled in
Epperson v. Arkansas such laws violated the
Establishment Clause of the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
This ruling inspired a new creationist movement to promote laws
requiring that schools give balanced treatment to creation science when
evolution is taught. The 1981 Arkansas Act 590 was one such law that
carefully detailed the principles of creation science that were to
receive equal time in public schools alongside evolutionary principles.
[35] The act defined creation science as follows:
"'Creation-science' means the scientific evidences for creation and
inferences from those evidences. Creation-science includes the
scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate:
- Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing;
- The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism;
- Changes only with fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals;
- Separate ancestry for man and apes;
- Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of worldwide flood; and
- A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds."
This legislation was examined in
McLean v. Arkansas, and the
ruling handed down on January 5, 1982, concluded that creation-science
as defined in the act "is simply not science". The judgement defined the
following as essential characteristics of science:
- It is guided by natural law;
- It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;
- It is testable against the empirical world;
- Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and
- It is falsifiable.
The court ruled that creation science failed to meet these essential
characteristics and identified specific reasons. After examining the key
concepts from creation science, the court found:
- Sudden creation "from nothing" calls upon a supernatural intervention, not natural law, and is neither testable nor falsifiable
- Objections in creation science that mutation and natural selection
are insufficient to explain common origins was an incomplete negative
generalization
- 'Kinds' are not scientific classifications, and creation science's
claims of an outer limit to the evolutionary change possible of species
are not explained scientifically or by natural law
- Separate ancestry of man and apes is an assertion rather than
scientific explanation, and did not derive from any scientific fact or
theory
- Catastrophism, including its identification of the worldwide flood, failed as a science
- "Relatively recent inception" was the product of religious readings
and had no scientific meaning, and was neither the product of, nor
explainable by, natural law; nor is it tentative
The court further noted that no recognized
scientific journal
had published any article espousing the creation science theory as
described in the Arkansas law, and stated that the testimony presented
by defense attributing the absence to censorship was not credible.
In its ruling, the court wrote that for any theory to qualify as
scientific, the theory must be tentative, and open to revision or
abandonment as new facts come to light. It wrote that any methodology
which begins with an immutable conclusion which cannot be revised or
rejected, regardless of the evidence, is not a scientific theory. The
court found that creation science does not culminate in conclusions
formed from scientific inquiry, but instead begins with the conclusion,
one taken from a literal wording of the Book of Genesis, and seeks only
scientific evidence to support it.
The law in Arkansas adopted the same two-model approach as that put forward by the
Institute for Creation Research,
one allowing only two possible explanations for the origins of life and
existence of man, plants and animals: it was either the work of a
creator or it was not. Scientific evidence that failed to support the
theory of evolution was posed as necessarily scientific evidence in
support of creationism, but in its judgment the court ruled this
approach to be no more than a "
contrived dualism which has not scientific factual basis or legitimate educational purpose."
[36]
The judge concluded that "Act 590 is a religious crusade, coupled
with a desire to conceal this fact," and that it violated the First
Amendment's Establishment Clause.
[36]
The decision was not appealed to a
higher court, but had a powerful influence on subsequent rulings.
[37] Louisiana's 1982 Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, authored by
State Senator Bill P. Keith, judged in the 1987 United States Supreme Court case
Edwards v. Aguillard,
and was handed a similar ruling. It found the law to require the
balanced teaching of creation science with evolution had a particular
religious purpose and was therefore unconstitutional.
[38]
Intelligent design splits off
In 1984,
The Mystery of Life's Origin was first published. It was co-authored by
chemist and creationist
Charles B. Thaxton with
Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, the foreword written by
Dean H. Kenyon, and sponsored by the Christian based
Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The work presented scientific arguments against current theories of
abiogenesis and offered an hypothesis of
special creation
instead. While the focus of creation science had until that time
centered primarily on the criticism of the fossil evidence for evolution
and validation of the
creation myth
of the Bible, this new work posed the question whether science reveals
that even the simplest living systems were far too complex to have
developed by natural, unguided processes.
[39][40]
Kenyon later co-wrote with creationist
Percival Davis a book intended as a "scientific brief for creationism"
[41]
to use as a supplement to public high school biology textbooks. Thaxton
was enlisted as the book's editor, and the book received publishing
support from the FTE. Prior to its release, the 1987 Supreme Court
ruling in
Edwards v. Aguillard barred the teaching of creation science and creationism in public school classrooms. The book, originally titled
Biology and Creation but renamed
Of Pandas and People,
was released in 1989 and became the first published work to promote the
anti-evolutionist design argument under the name intelligent design.
The contents of the book later became a focus of evidence in the federal
court case,
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, when a group of parents filed suit to halt the teaching of intelligent design in
Dover, Pennsylvania, public schools. School board officials there had attempted to include
Of Pandas and People
in their biology classrooms and testimony given during the trial
revealed the book was originally written as a creationist text but
following the adverse decision in the Supreme Court it underwent simple
cosmetic editing to remove the explicit allusions to "creation" or
"creator," and replace them instead with references to "design" or
"designer."
[42]
By the mid-1990s, intelligent design had become a separate movement.
[42] The creation science movement is distinguished from the intelligent design movement, or
neo-creationism,
because most advocates of creation science accept scripture as a
literal and inerrant historical account, and their primary goal is to
corroborate the scriptural account through the use of science. In
contrast, as a matter of principle, neo-creationism eschews references
to scripture altogether in its
polemics and stated goals (see
Wedge strategy).
By so doing, intelligent design proponents have attempted to succeed
where creation science has failed in securing a place in public school
science curricula. Carefully avoiding any reference to the identity of
the
intelligent designer
as God in their public arguments, intelligent design proponents sought
to reintroduce the creationist ideas into science classrooms while
sidestepping the First Amendment's prohibition against religious
infringement.
[43][44] However, the intelligent design curriculum was struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause in
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the judge in the case ruling "that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism."
[45]
Today, creation science as an organized movement is primarily
centered within the United States. Creation science organizations are
also known in other countries, most notably
Creation Ministries International which was founded (under the name Creation Science Foundation) in Australia.
Proponents are usually aligned with a Christian denomination,
primarily with those characterized as evangelical, conservative, or
fundamentalist. While creationist movements also exist in
Islam and
Judaism, these movements do not use the phrase
creation science to describe their beliefs.
Issues
Creation science has its roots in the work of young Earth creationist
George McCready Price disputing modern science's account of
natural history,
focusing particularly on geology and its concept of uniformitarianism,
and his efforts instead to furnish an alternative empirical explanation
of observable phenomena which was compatible with strict Biblical
literalism.
[46] Price's work was later discovered by civil engineer Henry M. Morris,
[47] who is now considered to be the father of creation science.
[48]
Morris and later creationists expanded the scope with attacks against
the broad spectrum scientific findings that point to the antiquity of
the Universe and common ancestry among species, including growing body
of evidence from the fossil record,
absolute dating techniques, and
cosmogony.
[31]
The proponents of creation science often say that they are concerned
with religious and moral questions as well as natural observations and
predictive hypotheses.
[49][50] Many state that their opposition to scientific evolution is primarily based on religion.
The overwhelming majority of scientists are in agreement that the
claims of science are necessarily limited to those that develop from
natural observations and experiments which can be replicated and
substantiated by other scientists, and that claims made by creation
science do not meet those criteria.
[28] Duane Gish,
a prominent creation science proponent, has similarly claimed, "We do
not know how the creator created, what processes He used,
for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe.
This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot
discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative
processes used by the Creator." But he also makes the same claim against
science's evolutionary theory, maintaining that on the subject of
origins, scientific evolution is a religious theory which cannot be
validated by science.
[51]
Metaphysical assumptions
Creation science makes the
a priori
metaphysical assumption that there exists a creator of the life whose
origin is being examined. Christian creation science holds that the
description of creation is given in the Bible, that the Bible is
inerrant in this description (and elsewhere), and therefore empirical
scientific evidence must correspond with that description. Creationists
also view the preclusion of all supernatural explanations within the
sciences as a doctrinaire commitment to exclude the supreme being and
miracles. They claim this to be the motivating factor in science's
acceptance of Darwinism, a term used in creation science to refer to
evolutionary biology which is also often used as a disparagement.
Critics argue that creation science is religious rather than scientific
because it stems from
faith in a religious text rather than by the application of the
scientific method.
[36] The United States
National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) has stated unequivocally, "Evolution pervades all biological
phenomena. To ignore that it occurred or to classify it as a form of
dogma is to deprive the student of the most fundamental organizational
concept in the biological sciences. No other biological concept has been
more extensively tested and more thoroughly corroborated than the
evolutionary history of organisms."
[16] Anthropologist Eugenie Scott
has noted further, "Religious opposition to evolution propels
antievolutionism. Although antievolutionists pay lip service to supposed
scientific problems with evolution, what motivates them to battle its
teaching is apprehension over the implications of evolution for
religion."
[16]
Creation science advocates argue that
scientific theories of the origins of the Universe, Earth, and life are rooted in
a priori presumptions of
methodological naturalism and uniformitarianism, each of which is disputed. In some areas of science such as
chemistry,
meteorology
or medicine, creation science proponents do not challenge the
application of naturalistic or uniformitarian assumptions.
Traditionally, creation science advocates have singled out those
scientific theories judged to be in conflict with held religious
beliefs, and it is against those theories that they concentrate their
efforts.
Religious criticism
Some mainstream Christian churches
[52][53]
criticize creation science on theological grounds, asserting either
that religious faith alone should be a sufficient basis for belief in
the truth of creation, or that efforts to prove the Genesis account of
creation on scientific grounds are inherently futile because reason is
subordinate to faith and cannot thus be used to prove it.
[citation needed]
Many
Christian theologies, including Liberal Christianity, consider the Genesis creation myth to be a poetic and
allegorical work rather than a literal history, and many Christian churches—including the Roman Catholic,
[54] Anglican and the more liberal denominations of the
Lutheran,
Methodist,
Congregationalist and
Presbyterian
faiths—have either rejected creation science outright or are ambivalent
to it. Belief in non-literal interpretations of Genesis is often cited
as going back to
Saint Augustine.
Theistic evolution
and evolutionary creationism are theologies that reconcile belief in a
creator with biological evolution. Each holds the view that there is a
creator but that this creator has employed the natural force of
evolution to unfold a divine plan.
[55]
Religious representatives from faiths compatible with theistic
evolution and evolutionary creationism have challenged the growing
perception that belief in a creator is inconsistent with the acceptance
of evolutionary theory.
[56][57]
Spokespersons from the Catholic Church have specifically criticized
biblical creationism for relying upon literal interpretations of
biblical scripture as the basis for determining scientific fact.
[57]
Scientific criticism
The National Academy of Sciences states that "the claims of creation
science lack empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested" and
that "creation science is in fact not science and should not be
presented as such in science classes."
[28] According to Joyce Arthur writing for
Skeptic
magazine, the "creation 'science' movement gains much of its strength
through the use of distortion and scientifically unethical tactics" and
"seriously misrepresents the theory of evolution."
[58]
Scientists have considered the hypotheses proposed by creation
science and have rejected them because of a lack of evidence.
Furthermore, the claims of creation science do not refer to natural
causes and cannot be subject to meaningful tests, so they do not qualify
as scientific hypotheses. In 1987, the United States Supreme Court
ruled that creationism is religion, not science, and cannot be advocated
in public school classrooms.
[59]
Most mainline Christian denominations have concluded that the concept
of evolution is not at odds with their descriptions of creation and
human origins.
[60]
A summary of the objections to creation science by scientists follows:
- Creation science is not falsifiable: The act of creation as
defined in creation science is not falsifiable because no testable
bounds can be imposed on the creator. In creation science, the creator
is defined as limitless, with the capacity to create (or not), through
fiat alone, infinite universes, not just one, and endow each one with
its own unique, unimaginable and incomparable character. It is
impossible to disprove a claim when that claim as defined encompasses
every conceivable contingency.[61]
- Creation science violates the principle of parsimony: Parsimony favours those explanations which rely on the fewest assumptions[citation needed].
Scientists prefer explanations which are consistent with known and
supported facts and evidence and require the fewest assumptions to fill
remaining gaps. Many of the alternative claims made in creation science
retreat from simpler scientific explanations and introduce more
complications and conjecture into the equation.
- Creation science is not, and cannot be, empirically or experimentally tested:
Creationism posits supernatural causes which lie outside the realm of
methodological naturalism and scientific experiment. Science can only
test empirical, natural claims.
- Creation science is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive:
Creation science adheres to a fixed and unchanging premise or "absolute
truth," the "word of God," which is not open to change. Any evidence
that runs contrary to that truth must be disregarded.[63]
In science, all claims are tentative, they are forever open to
challenge, and must be discarded or adjusted when the weight of evidence
demands it.
By invoking claims of "abrupt appearance" of species as a miraculous
act, creation science is unsuited for the tools and methods demanded by
science, and it cannot be considered scientific in the way that the term
"science" is currently defined.
[64] Scientists and science writers commonly characterize creation science as a pseudoscience.
[6][7]
Historical, philosophical, and sociological criticism
Historically, the debate of whether creationism is compatible with
science can be traced back to 1874, the year science historian
John William Draper published his
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science.
In it Draper portrayed the entire history of scientific development as a
war against religion. This presentation of history was propagated
further by followers such as
Andrew Dickson White in his two-volume
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Their conclusions have been disputed.
[67]
In the United States, the principal focus of creation science
advocates is on the government-supported public school systems, which
are prohibited by the Establishment Clause from promoting specific
religions. Historical communities have argued that
Biblical translations contain many
translation errors and errata, and therefore that the use of biblical literalism in creation science is self-contradictory.
Areas of study
Subjects within creation science correspond to the scientific disciplines of biology,
earth sciences and
astronomy.
Creationist biology
Main article:
Baraminology
Creationist biology centers on an idea derived from Genesis that
states that life was created by God, in a finite number of "created
kinds," rather than through biological evolution from a common ancestor.
Creationists consider that any observable
speciation descends from these distinctly created kinds through inbreeding, deleterious mutations and other genetic mechanisms.
[70] Whereas evolutionary biologists and creationists share similar views of
microevolution, creationists disagree that the process of
macroevolution can explain common ancestry among organisms far beyond the level of common species.
[31]
Creationists contend that there is no empirical evidence for new plant
or animal species, and deny fossil evidence has ever been found
documenting the process.
[71]
Popular arguments against evolution have changed since the publishing of Henry M. Morris' first book on the subject,
Scientific Creationism (1974), but some consistent themes remain: that
missing links
or gaps in the fossil record are proof against evolution; that the
increased complexity of organisms over time through evolution is not
possible due to the law of increasing
entropy;
that it is impossible that the mechanism of natural selection could
account for common ancestry; and that evolutionary theory is untestable.
The
origin of the human species is particularly hotly contested; the fossil remains of purported
hominid ancestors are not considered by advocates of creation biology to be evidence for a speciation event involving
Homo sapiens.
[72] Creationists also assert that early hominids, are either apes, or humans.
[73]
Richard Dawkins
has explained evolution as "a theory of gradual, incremental change
over millions of years, which starts with something very simple and
works up along slow, gradual gradients to greater complexity," and
described the existing fossil record as entirely consistent with that
process. Biologists emphasize that transitional gaps between those
fossils recovered are to be expected, that the existence of any such
gaps cannot be invoked to disprove evolution, and that instead the
fossil evidence that could be used to disprove the theory would be those
fossils which are found and which are entirely inconsistent with what
can be predicted or anticipated by the evolutionary model. One example
given by Dawkins was, "If there were a single
hippo or
rabbit in the Precambrian, that would completely blow evolution out of the water. None have ever been found."
[74]
Earth sciences and geophysics
Flood geology
Main article:
Flood geology
Flood geology is a concept based on the belief that most of Earth's geological record was formed by the
Great Flood described in the story of
Noah's Ark. Fossils and
fossil fuels are believed to have formed from animal and plant matter which was buried rapidly during this flood, while
submarine canyons are explained as having formed during a rapid runoff from the continents at the end of the flood.
Sedimentary strata are also claimed to have been predominantly laid down during or after Noah's flood
[75] and
orogeny.
[76]
Flood geology is a variant of catastrophism and is contrasted with
geological science in that it rejects standard geological principles
such as uniformitarianism and radiometric dating. For example, the
Creation Research Society argues that "uniformitarianism is wishful thinking."
[77]
Geologists conclude that no evidence for such a flood is observed in
the preserved rock layers and moreover that such a flood is physically
impossible, given the current layout of land masses. For instance, since
Mount Everest currently is approximately 8.8 kilometres in elevation and the Earth's surface area is 510,065,600 km
2, the volume of water required to cover Mount Everest to a depth of 15
cubits
(6.8 m), as indicated by Genesis 7:20, would be 4.6 billion cubic
kilometres. Measurements of the amount of precipitable water vapor in
the atmosphere have yielded results indicating that condensing all water
vapor in a column of atmosphere would produce liquid water with a depth
ranging between zero and approximately 70mm, depending on the date and
the location of the column.
[78]
Nevertheless, there continue to be many adherents to flood geology, and
in recent years new theories have been introduced such as
catastrophic plate tectonics and
catastrophic orogeny.
[75][79]
Radiometric dating
Creationists point to experiments they have performed, which they claim demonstrate that 1.5 billion years of
nuclear decay
took place over a short period of time, from which they infer that
"billion-fold speed-ups of nuclear decay" have occurred, a massive
violation of the principle that radioisotope decay rates are constant, a
core principle underlying
nuclear physics generally, and radiometric dating in particular.
[80]
The scientific community points to numerous flaws in the
creationists' experiments, to the fact that their results have not been
accepted for publication by any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and to
the fact that the creationist scientists conducting them were untrained
in experimental
geochronology.
[81][82]
The constancy of the decay rates of
isotopes
is well supported in science. Evidence for this constancy includes the
correspondences of date estimates taken from different radioactive
isotopes as well as correspondences with non-radiometric dating
techniques such as
dendrochronology,
ice core dating, and historical records. Although scientists have noted
slight increases in the decay rate for isotopes subject to extreme
pressures, those differences were too small to significantly impact date
estimates. The constancy of the decay rates is also governed by first
principles in
quantum mechanics,
wherein any deviation in the rate would require a change in the
fundamental constants. According to these principles, a change in the
fundamental constants could not influence different elements uniformly,
and a comparison between each of the elements' resulting unique
chronological timescales would then give inconsistent time estimates.
[83]
In refutation of young Earth claims of inconstant decay rates
affecting the reliability of radiometric dating, Roger C. Wiens, a
physicist specializing in isotope dating states:
There are only three quite technical instances where a half-life changes, and these do not affect the dating methods:[84]
- Only one technical exception occurs under terrestrial conditions,
and this is not for an isotope used for dating. ... The
artificially-produced isotope, beryllium-7 has been shown to change by
up to 1.5%, depending on its chemical environment. ... [H]eavier atoms
are even less subject to these minute changes, so the dates of rocks
made by electron-capture decays would only be off by at most a few
hundredths of a percent.
- ... Another case is material inside of stars, which is in a plasma
state where electrons are not bound to atoms. In the extremely hot
stellar environment, a completely different kind of decay can occur.
'Bound-state beta decay' occurs when the nucleus emits an electron into a
bound electronic state close to the nucleus. ... All normal matter,
such as everything on Earth, the Moon, meteorites, etc. has electrons in
normal positions, so these instances never apply to rocks, or anything
colder than several hundred thousand degrees. ...
- The last case also involves very fast-moving matter. It has been demonstrated by atomic clocks
in very fast spacecraft. These atomic clocks slow down very slightly
(only a second or so per year) as predicted by Einstein's theory of
relativity. No rocks in our solar system are going fast enough to make a
noticeable change in their dates.
Radiohaloes
In the 1970s, young Earth creationist
Robert V. Gentry
proposed that radiohaloes in certain granites represented evidence for
the Earth being created instantaneously rather than gradually. This idea
has been criticized by physicists and geologists on many grounds
including that the rocks Gentry studied were not primordial and that the
radionuclides in question need not have been in the rocks initially.
Thomas A. Baillieul, a geologist and retired senior environmental scientist with the
United States Department of Energy,
disputed Gentry's claims in an article entitled, "'Polonium Haloes'
Refuted: A Review of 'Radioactive Halos in a Radio-Chronological and
Cosmological Perspective' by Robert V. Gentry."
[86]
Baillieul noted that Gentry was a physicist with no background in
geology and given the absence of this background, Gentry had
misrepresented the geological context from which the specimens were
collected. Additionally, he noted that Gentry relied on research from
the beginning of the 20th century, long before radioisotopes were
thoroughly understood; that his assumption that a
polonium
isotope caused the rings was speculative; and that Gentry falsely
argued that the half-life of radioactive elements varies with time.
Gentry claimed that Baillieul could not publish his criticisms in a
reputable scientific journal,
[87] although some of Baillieul's criticisms rested on work previously published in reputable scientific journals.
[86]
Astronomy and cosmology
Creationist cosmologies
Several attempts have been made by creationists to construct a
cosmology consistent with a young Universe rather than the standard
cosmological age of the universe, based on the belief that Genesis
describes the creation of the Universe as well as the Earth. The primary
challenge for young-universe cosmologies is that the accepted distances
in the Universe require millions or billions of years for
light to travel to Earth (the "
starlight problem").
An older creationist idea, proposed by creationist astronomer Barry
Setterfield, is that the speed of light has decayed in the
history of the Universe.
[88] More recently, creationist physicist
Russell Humphreys has proposed a hypothesis called "white hole cosmology" which suggests that the Universe expanded out of a
white hole less than 10,000 years ago; the apparent age of the universe results from
relativistic effects. Humphreys' theory is advocated by creationist organisations such as
Answers in Genesis;
however because the predictions of Humphreys' cosmology conflict with
current well-established observations, it is not accepted by the
scientific community.
[90][91]
Planetology
Various claims are made by creationists concerning alleged evidence that the age of the
Solar System is of the order of thousands of years, in contrast to the scientifically accepted age of 4.6 billion years.
[92] It is commonly argued that the number of
comets
in the Solar System is much higher than would be expected given its
supposed age. Creationist astronomers express scepticism about the
existence of the
Kuiper belt and
Oort cloud.
[93][94]
Creationists also argue that the recession of the Moon from the Earth
is incompatible with either the Moon or the Earth being billions of
years old.
[95] These claims have been refuted by planetologists.
[96][97]
In response to increasing evidence suggesting that
Mars
once possessed a wetter climate, some creationists have proposed that
the global flood affected not only the Earth but also Mars and other
planets. People who support this claim include creationist astronomer
Wayne Spencer and Russell Humphreys.
[98]
An ongoing problem for creationists is the presence of
impact craters
on nearly all Solar System objects, which is consistent with scientific
explanations of solar system origins but creates insuperable problems
for young Earth claims.
[99] Creationists Harold Slusher and Richard Mandock, along with Glenn Morton (who later repudiated this claim
[100]) asserted that impact craters on the Moon are subject to rock flow,
[101] and so cannot be more than a few thousand years old.
[102]
While some creationist astronomers assert that different phases of
meteoritic bombardment of the Solar System occurred during creation week
and during the subsequent Great Flood, others regard this as
unsupported by the evidence and call for further research.
[103][104]
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