Creationism

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This article is about the Abrahamic belief; creationism can also refer to origin beliefs in general or, centuries earlier, to an alternative to traducianism.

File:Dore light.jpg
"The Creation of Light" by Gustave Doré

Creationism or creation theology is the belief that humans, life, the Earth, and the universe were created by a supreme being or deity's supernatural intervention. The intervention may be seen either as an act of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) or the emergence of order from preexisting chaos.

Most who hold "creation" beliefs consider such belief to be a part of religious faith, and compatible with, or otherwise unaffected by scientific views, while others maintain the scientific data supports creationism. Proponents of theistic evolution may claim that understood scientific mechanisms are simply aspects of supreme creation. Otherwise, science-oriented believers may consider the scriptural account of creation as simply a metaphor.

Those who hold literal creation views often reject modern views of science and certain scientific theories in particular. Most notable is the rejection of evolution and its implications for current evolutionary biology. While the general idea of natural selection may fit into various particular views, the evolutionary concept of common descent —that humans are "descended from lesser creatures" — is a point of great issue with most creation believers. Some creationists may also dispute scientific accounts of the origin of life, origin of the human species, the geological history of Earth, the formation of the solar system, the origin of the physical universe, and a few even support such ideas as geocentrism.

Religious context

The term creationism is most often used to describe the belief that creation occurred literally as described in the book of Genesis or the Qur'an, for Jews and Christians, and for Muslims, respectively. Although the Hebrew Bible may be translated to implicitly deny "creation out of nothing" (creatio ex nihilo) and, according to some scholars, may even suggest differing accounts of creation, some Jews and Christians use Genesis exclusively as a support of their beliefs about origins. Refer to creation according to Genesis.

The terms creationism and creationist have become particularly associated with beliefs conflicting with the theory of evolution by natural selection. This conflict is most prevalent in the United States, where there has been sustained creation-evolution controversy in the public arena. On the other hand, many faiths, including Abrahamic denominations, which believe in divine creation accept evolution by natural selection, as well as, to a greater or lesser extent, scientific explanations of the origins and development of the universe, the Earth, and life – such beliefs have been given the name "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creationism".

In a Christian context, many creationists adopt a literal interpretation of creation narratives, and say that the Bible provides a factual account, given from the perspective of the only one who was there at the time to witness it: God. They seek to harmonize science with what they take to be an eye-witness account of the origin of things (see Young Earth Creationism, for example). However, scientific evidence as an empirical source for information on natural history is usually understood as contradictory to the Bible, if the Bible is understood as these creationists interpret it.

Almost all churches teach that God created the cosmos, but many now reject reading the Bible as though it could shed light on what the events of creation were, which they now conclude are best understood in a naturalistic way. Liberal theology assumes that Genesis is a poetic work, and that human understanding of God increases gradually over time; and just as understanding of God grows, human understanding of God's will and of the world also grows, and has grown since Biblical times.

However, many believers in a literal interpretation argue that once a poetic view of the creation account in Genesis has been adopted, it leads one to question the historicity of other central topics of that book. Furthermore, the liberal approach suggests, sometimes outright, that Jesus as seen in the New Testament, or the writers of the Bible, had a mistaken understanding of the reliability of the Bible, and erroneously believed the book of Genesis to be literal history; a proposition that, if adopted, has radical implications for Christian faith and the reliability of the Bible.

Political context

In the secular sense, "creationism" refers to a political doctrine which asserts the validity and superiority of a particular religiously-based origin belief over those of other belief systems, including those in particular espoused through secular or scientific rationale — i.e. "Creation-evolution controversy." The meaning of the term "creationism" depends upon the context wherein it is used, as it refers to a particular origin belief within a particular political culture.

In the United States, more so than in the rest of the world, creationism has become centered in political controversy, in particular over public education, and whether teaching evolution in science classes conflicts unfairly with the creationist worldview. Currently, the controversy has come in the form of whether advocates of the Intelligent Design movement who wish to "Teach the Controversy" in science classes have overstepped the boundaries of separation of church and state.


Creation science represents an attempt by creationists to legitimize religious scriptures in scientific terms, by attempting to demonstrate compatability between science and their creationist worldview. The scientific status of Creation Science, despite its name, is disputed; it is not regarded as a true science by the scientific community, because Creation Science begins with the desired answer and attempts to interpret all evidence to fit in with this predetermined conclusion, whereas, in theory, pure science works by using the scientific method to formulate theories and predictions based on solid evidence; however it would be naive to assume that individual scientist work without any personal presuppositions.

History of the concept of creation

The history of creationism is tied to the history of religions. Creationism in the West primarily had some of its earliest roots in Judaism. For example, Abraham ibn Ezra's (c. 1089–1164) commentary on Genesis is greatly esteemed in traditional rabbinical circles and he was a creationist.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, naturalists challenged the Biblical account of creation as to be in conflict with empirical observations of natural history from scientific inquiry. Creationists consider their primary source to be the ancient Hebrew text describing creation according to Genesis. While the term creationism was not in common use before the late 19th century they see themselves as being the philosophical and religious offspring of the traditions that held that text sacred. The biblical account of history, cosmology and natural history was believed by Jews, Christians and Muslims and its accuracy was unquestioned through the Medieval period. Most people in Europe, the Middle East and other areas of the Islamic world believed that a supreme being had existed and would exist eternally, and that everything else in existence had been created by this supreme being, known variously as God, Yahweh, or Allah. This belief was based on the authority of Genesis, the Qur'an, and other ancient histories, which were held to be historically accurate and no systematic or scientific inquiry was made into the validity of the text.

Islamic scholars preserved ancient Greek texts and developed their ideas, leading to the Renaissance which brought a questioning of biblical cosmology. With the Enlightenment a variety of scientific and philosophical movements challenged traditional viewpoints in Europe and the Americas. Natural history developed with the aim of understanding God's plan, but found contradictions, which in revolutionary France were interpreted as science supporting evolution. Elsewhere, particularly in England, clerical naturalists sought explanations compatible with interpretations of biblical texts, anticipating many later creationist arguments.

While the concept of an ancient earth became widely accepted, Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection directly challenged belief in God's involvement in creating species, and in response Creationism arose as a distinct movement aiming to justify and reassert the literal accuracy of sacred texts, particularly the words of Genesis.

The history of creationism has relevance to the creation-evolution controversy. Proponents of creationism claim that it has a rich heritage grounded in ancient recorded histories and consistent with scientific observation, whereas opponents, particularly of what they regard as the pseudosciences of creation science and intelligent design, claim that those are a modern reactionary movement against science.

Types of creationism

Creationism covers a spectrum of beliefs which have been categorised into the broad types listed below. Not all creationists are in dispute with scientific theories, though very few modern scientists are creationists.

  • Young-Earth Creationism — The belief that the Earth was created by God a few thousand years ago, literally as described in Creation according to Genesis, within the approximate timeframe of the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar or somewhat more according to the interpretation of biblical genealogies. (They may or may not believe that the Universe is the same age.) As such, it rejects not only radiometric and isochron dating of the age of the Earth, arguing that they are based on debatable assumptions, but also approaches such as ice core dating and dendrochronology, which make the barest of assumptions of uniformitarianism, and which hint that the Earth is far older than the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar suggests. Instead, it interprets the geologic record largely as a result of a global flood. This view is held by many Protestant Christians in the USA, and by many Haredi Jews. For Christian groups promoting this view, see the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), El Cajon, California, USA, and the Creation Research Society (CRS), Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA.
Because Young Earth creationists believe in the literal truth of the description in Genesis of divine creation of every "kind" of plant and creature during a week about 6,000 years ago, they dispute parts of evolution (specifically Universal Common Ancestry) which describes all species developing from a common ancestor without a need for divine intervention over a much longer time. Different young-earth creationists offer different explanations for the fossil record, which gives the appearance that the Earth is much older:
  • Modern geocentrism — The view that God recently created a spherical world, and placed it in the center of the universe. The Sun, planets and everything else in the universe revolve around it. All scientific claims about the age of the Earth are lies; evolution does not occur. Very few people today maintain such a belief. See, for example, the Creation Science Association for Mid-America, in Cleveland, MO, USA.
  • God created the Earth only recently, but made it appear much older. This is the belief of a small subgroup of Young Earth creationists, which is sometimes termed the Omphalos hypothesis. This argument was first made by Philip Henry Gosse in 1857. He held that because the world operates in cycles (chicken to egg to chicken on so on), certain physical and biological processes need the appearance of age to function. It is termed the Omphalos hypothesis because it is based on the question of whether or not Adam (or Eve for that matter) had a navel (given that they were created as adults rather than born, they can be assumed to have never possessed an umbilical cord). Gosse postulated that Adam did have a navel because it is how humans are formed. So the appearance of history (the belly button) is there, even though he was just created. He likewise postulated that for the earth to work, it must have been established with the appearance of age to function correctly. While many creationists hold this view for some smaller aspects of creation, for example the existence of the fossil record, the argument has been largely superseded.
  • Flood geology — The view that God created the Earth only recently, and the fossil record is the record of the destruction of the global flood recorded in Genesis. The present diverse land animals are all descendants of the animals on Noah's Ark, having heavily diversified after the flood. A variety of mechanisms is suggested to be involved, including genomic modularity — the ability for animals to reorganize their genome in response to stress or other outside influence, heterozygous fractionation (heterozygous genes in parents can lead to speciation by having multiple homozygous genes in children), and standard evolution.
  • Old-Earth Creationism — The view that the physical universe was created by God, but that the creation event of Genesis is not to be taken strictly literally. This group generally believes that the age of the Universe and the age of the Earth are as described by astronomers and geologists, but that details of the evolutionary theory are questionable.
Old-Earth creationism itself comes in at least three types:
  • Gap creationism, also called "Restitution creationism" — The view that life was immediately created on a pre-existing old Earth. This group generally translates Genesis 1:2 as "The earth became without form and void," indicating a destruction of the original creation by some unspecified cataclysm. This was popularized in the Scofield Reference Bible, but has little support from Hebrew scholars.
  • Day-age creationism — The view that the "six days" of Genesis are not ordinary twenty-four-hour days, but rather much longer periods (for instance, each "day" could be the equivalent of millions of years of modern time). This theory often states that the Hebrew word "yôm", in the context of Genesis 1, can be properly interpreted as "age." Some adherents claim we are still living in the seventh age ("seventh day").
  • Progressive creationism — The view that species have changed or evolved in a process continuously guided by God, with various ideas as to how the process operates (often leaving room for God's direct intervention at key moments in Earth/life's history). This view accepts most of modern physical science including the age of the earth, but rejects much of modern evolutionary biology or looks to it for evidence that evolution by natural selection alone is incorrect. This view can be, and often is, held in conjunction with other Old-earth views such as Day-age creationism or framework/metaphoric/poetic views.
  • Theistic evolutionism, also known as "evolutionary creationism" — The general view that some or all classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of the scientific theory of evolution. It views evolution as a tool used by God and can synthesize with gap or day-age creationism, although most adherents deny that Genesis was meant to be interpreted as history at all. It can still be described as "creationism" in holding that divine intervention brought about the origin of life or that divine Laws govern formation of species, but in the creation-evolution controversy its proponents generally take the "evolutionist" side while disputing that some scientists' methodological assumption of materialism can be taken as ontological as well. Many creationists would deny that this is creationism at all, and should rather be called "theistic evolution", just as many scientists allow voice to their spiritual side. In particular, this view rejects the doctrine of special creation and other doctrines. For example, evolutionary theory assumes death is a natural part of life and it had an integral part in the formation of life, but the Bible teaches that only Life begets life and that death is a result of sin.
  • Intelligent Design movement — The main proponents of intelligent design have intentionally distanced themselves from other forms of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from creationism as a philosophy. One of the chief websites of the movement defines it thus: "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as [Darwinian] natural selection." Intelligent design styles itself as a philosophical approach to the origin of information and complexity within nature, and, its adherents claim publicly, is not concerned with religion, or the identity or nature, whether natural or supernatural, of any possible designer(s). Ostensibly, intelligent design does not oppose the theory of evolution. However, the leading proponents of intelligent design are Christian theists who vociferously oppose evolution and acknowledge to their constituency "our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools" and that "this (the ID movement) isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Critics cite such statements as proof that intelligent design is creationism in new clothing (see Wedge strategy).

Jewish creationism

Jewish creationism includes a continuum of views about creationism, on aspects including the origin of life and the role of evolution in the formation of species as debated in the creation-evolution controversy. In general, the major Jewish denominations, including many Orthodox Jewish groups, accept evolutionary creationism or theistic evolution. The contemporary general approach of Judaism, excepting Orthodox traditions, is to not take the Torah as a literal text, but rather as a symbolic or open-ended work. As far as Orthodox Jews, who seek to reconcile discrepancies between science and the Bible, go, the notion that science and the Bible should even be reconciled through traditional scientific means is questioned. To these groups, Science is as true as the Torah and if there seems to be a problem, our own epistemological limits are to blame for any apparent unreconcileable point. They point to various discrepancies between what is expected and what actually is (see science), to demonstrate that things are not always as they appear. They point out to the fact that the even root word for "world" in the Hebrew language — עולם (oh•luhm) — means hidden. Just as they believe God apparently created man and trees and the light on its way from the stars in their adult state, so too can they believe that the world was created in its "adult" state, with the understanding that there are, and can be, no physical ways to verify this. This belief has been advanced by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb, former philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins University. Also, relatively old Kabbalistic sources from well before the scientifically apparent age of the universe was first determined are in close concord with modern scientific estimates of the age of the universe, according to Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Other interesting parallels are brought down from, among other sources, Nachmanides, who expounds exegetically that there was a Neanderthal-like species with which Adam mated (he did this long before Neanderthals had even been discovered scientifically).

Christian God as absolute origin

All denominations of Christianity assert that God is the origin, the first cause. The Roman Catholic Church holds as an unchangeable tenet of Christian faith, that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Here, clearly, creation is described as an absolute beginning, which includes the assertion that the very existence of the universe is contingent upon a necessary higher being, a God who is not himself created. Therefore the doctrine of biblical creation places the knowledge of God central in the pursuit of the knowledge of anything, for everything comes from God. Nevertheless, this view does not mandate the concept of special creation; it says nothing about the mechanism by which any thing was created.

Although phrased differently, this doctrine of creation is common in many branches of other religions. The strictness to which adherents are required to accept these views, and the sense in which these definitions are official, vary widely.

Prevalence of creationism

United States

According to a 2001 Gallup poll on the origins of humans, they estimate that 72% of Americans believe in some form of creationism (as defined above). They also estimate that about 45% of Americans concurred with the statement that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

In 1987, Newsweek reported: "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who ascribed to Biblically literal creationism."

In 2000, a People for the American Way poll estimated that:

20% of Americans believe public schools should teach evolution only;
17% of Americans believe that only evolution should be taught in science classes — religious explanations should be taught in another class;
29% of Americans believe that Creationism should be discussed in science class as a 'belief,' not a scientific theory;
13% of Americans believe that Creationism and evolution should be taught as 'scientific theories' in science class;
16% of Americans believe that only Creationism should be taught;

Less-direct anecdotal evidence of the popularity of creationism is reflected in the response of IMAX theaters to the availability of Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, an IMAX film which makes a connection between human DNA and microbes inside undersea volcanoes. The film's distributor reported that the only U.S. states with theaters which chose not to show the film were Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina:

We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said the director of an IMAX theater in Charleston that is not showing the movie. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution." [1]

The western world outside the United States

Most vocal creationists are from the United States, and creationist views are much less common elsewhere in the Western World.

According to a PBS documentary on evolution, Australian Young Earth Creationists claimed that "five percent of the Australian population now believe that Earth is thousands, rather than billions, of years old." The documentary further states that "Australia is a particular stronghold of the creationist movement." Taking these claims at face value, Young Earth Creationism is very much a minority position in Western countries.

In Europe, creationism is a less well-defined phenomenon, and regular polls are not available. However, evolution is taught as scientific fact in most schools. In countries with a Roman Catholic majority, papal acceptance of evolution as worthy of study has essentially ended debate on the matter for many people. Nevertheless, creationist groups such as the German Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen (Study group 'word and knowledge')[2] are actively lobbying in Germany. In the United Kingdom the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (previously the Vardy Foundation), which runs two government-funded high schools in the north of England (out of several thousand in the country) and plans to open several more, teaches that creationism and evolution are equally valid "faith positions". In Italy, the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi wanted to retire evolution from schools in the middle level; after one week of massive protests, he reversed his opinion. [3]

Of particular note for Eastern Europe, Serbia suspended the teaching of evolution for one week in 2004, under education minister Ljiljana Čolić, only allowing schools to reintroduce evolution into the curriculum if they also taught creationism. [4] "After a deluge of protest from scientists, teachers and opposition parties," says the BBC report, Ms Čolić's deputy made the statement, "I have come here to confirm Charles Darwin is still alive," and announced that the decision was reversed. [5] Ms. Čolić resigned after the government said that she had caused "problems that had started to reflect on the work of the entire government". [6]

Criticism of creationism

Scientific critique of creationism

Creationism was never based primarily upon scientific findings or upon a scientific approach to uncovering the origins of life. Many modern forms of creationism, particularly Young Earth Christian creationism, were created to defend the literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation in genesis, when evolution started to become scientific orthodoxy. Many modern creationists are widely regarded as 'anti evolutionists' rather than as people putting forward an honest alternative to explain the origins of life. Indeed, virtually all creationist arguments take the form of attacks on evolutionary theories.

Creationists sometimes minimize the explanatory power and validity of evolution theory by criticizing it as being "just a theory" implying that the word "theory" is synonymous with "conjecture" or "speculation", instead of the technical, scientifically accepted use of the word "theory" to mean a model of the world (or some portion of it) from which falsifiable hypotheses can be generated and verified through empirical observation. In this sense, evolution is a very powerful theory.

Critics charge that Creationism is not a theory that has come about through a similar systematic accumulation of evidence. It is based on a literal interpretation of religious scripture and the emphasis of scripture over other sources of knowledge. Young Earth Creationism also fails the criteria of falsifiability and parsimony. While the hypothesis that the Earth is only a few thousand years old allows many predictions, evidence which refutes these predictions cannot invalidate creationism, because creationism itself is a belief and not a scientific theory. The belief can persist in spite of evidence to the contrary.

There is a fundamental difference between the scientific approach and the approach used by creationist advocates. The scientific approach uses the scientific method as a means of discovering information about the natural world. Scientists use observations, hypotheses and deductions to propose explanations for natural phenomena in the form of theories. Predictions from these theories are tested by experiment. If a prediction turns out to be correct, the theory survives. This is a meritocratic form of systematic enquiry, where the best ideas supported by evidence and positive experimental results survive. Science does not seek answers that fit a certain pre-determined conclusion, but rather works to construct viable, testable, and provable theories based on a solid evidential foundation. Creationism works in the opposite direction: creating the conclusion first and working backwards to 'discover' corresponding evidence. This is fundamentally unscientific, and a hallmark of pseudoscience.

All scientific theories are falsifiable; that is, if evidence that contradicts any given theory comes to light, or if the theory is proven to no longer fit with the evidence, the theory itself is shown to be invalid and is either modified to be consistent with all the evidence or is discarded. Evolution is a theory that fits in with all known biological evidence, fits in with all known genetic evidence, and is backed up by overwhelming evidence in the fossil record. Contrary to frequent claims by Christian and Islamic opponents of evolutionism, transitional fossils exist which show a gradual change from one species to another. Moreover, evolutionary selection has been observed in living species (for instance, "tuskless elephants"—see elephant). Because of this and other evidence, there is little debate within scientific circles as to whether evolution is a fact or not, and none of it suggests creationism as a viable alternative. It is worth pointing out that even if evolution as biologists currently understand it turned out to be false, this would not automatically mean that special creation was true (such a binary view being a logical fallacy). It is exclusively in the public sphere, where young Earth creationists (especially in the US) have fought for recognition of their world view, that the debate about creationism and evolution rages.

In addition to that, no conclusive proof for Creationism or Intelligent Design has been ever brought forward. Because both styles of Creationism presume the actions of a supernatural being (God or the "Designer"), any person capable of proving either of the theories is eligible for the sum of $1,000,000 (see James Randi's offer).

The Christian critique of creationism

Many professing Christians support evolutionary creationism rather than young earth creationism. This is because, in the view of many creationists, science has more or less explained the development of the universe. However, science could never explain the existence of the universe. In "Intelligent Design as a Theological Problem," George Murphy argues against the common view that life on Earth in all its forms is direct evidence of God's act of creation (Murphy quotes Phillip Johnson's claim that he is speaking "of a God who acted openly and left his fingerprints on all the evidence."). Murphy argues that this view of God is incompatible with the Christian understanding of God as "the one revealed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus." The basis of this theology is Isaiah 45:15, "Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior." This verse inspired Pascal to write, "What meets our eyes denotes neither a total absence nor a manifest presence of the divine, but the presence of a God who conceals himself." In the Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther referred to the same Biblical verse to propose his "theology of the cross": "That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened ... He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross."

Luther opposes his theology of the cross to what he called the "theology of glory":

A theologian of glory does not recognize, along with the Apostle, the crucified and hidden God alone [I Cor. 2:2]. He sees and speaks of God's glorious manifestation among the heathen, how his invisible nature can be known from the things which are visible [Cf. Rom. 1:20] and how he is present and powerful in all things everywhere.

For Murphy, Creationists are modern-day theologians of glory. Following Luther, Murphy argues that a true Christian cannot discover God from clues in creation, but only from the crucified Christ. However, Luther also defended the notion of creation in six normal-length days about 6,000 years ago, and a global flood.

Murphy observes that the execution of a Jewish carpenter by Roman authorities is in and of itself an ordinary event and did not require Divine action. On the contrary, for the crucifixion to occur, God had to limit or "empty" Himself. It was for this reason that Paul wrote, in Philippians 2:5-8,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Murphy concludes that,

Just as the son of God limited himself by taking human form and dying on the cross, God limits divine action in the world to be in accord with rational laws God has chosen. This enables us to understand the world on its own terms, but it also means that natural processes hide God from scientific observation.

For Murphy, a theology of the cross requires that Christians accept a methodological naturalism, meaning that one cannot invoke God to explain natural phenomena, while recognizing that such acceptance does not require one to accept a metaphysical naturalism, which proposes that nature is all that there is.

According to Emil Brunner, "God does not wish to occupy the whole of space Himself, but that He wills to make room for other forms of existence ... In so doing, He limits Himself." It is where God has limited Himself that humans must use their own intelligence to understand the world — to understand the laws of gravity as well as evolution – without relying on God as an explanation. It is only through the cross and the resurrection that one may find God.

Plea to reject nonsense

In his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim), Saint Augustine (354-430), embarrassed by Christians who would not accept this implication of the Doctrine of Creation, wrote against them. This translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, [..] and this knowledge he holds as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?" [1 Timothy 1.7]

Creationism and naturalism

Creationists believe that a divine power created life, sometimes believing that every "kind" of living thing was separately "created", while naturalists believe life came into being or developed into different species through natural means. This spectrum of opposing views has led to the debate commonly known as the creation evolution debate.

Creation Science

Creation science is a part of the creationist movement that claims to offer scientific evidence compatible with creation according to Genesis. Creation science disputes the theory of the common descent of all life via biological evolution and argues in favour of creation biology. It also departs from the uniformitarian model of geology, in favor of flood geology, arguing for the historical accuracy of the global flood of Noah's ark.

Advocates are generally involved in the creation-evolution controversy. Some have spent many years arguing for inclusion of creation science in the science curriculum of U.S. public schools. Following a number of court decisions in the U.S. that deemed teaching the idea unconstitutional many adherents of creation science now argue for the teaching of intelligent design. The allied Teach the controversy movement argues that intelligent design is on par with the scientific theory of evolution and therefore that both should be taught in schools as equally worthy of consideration.

The United States' National Academy of Sciences states that "creation science is in fact not science and should not be presented as such." [7] According to 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". [8]

History and organization

File:Creation vs evolution debate.jpg
Creation Magazine is a publication supporting young-earth creationist beliefs. This issue examines whether dinosaurs perished in Noah's flood.

Within the history of creationism, creationism was originally based purely on theology. The vast majority of Church Fathers and Reformers accepted Genesis straightforwardly, and even the few who did not, such as Origen and Augustine, defended an earth that was on the order of thousands of years old.

When geologists revised the age of the Earth to millions of years, some writers looked to studying geology within the Biblical timeframe detailed in the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the leaders were the scriptural geologists in Britain. About a century later, the Canadian George McCready Price wrote extensively on the subject. However, the concept only revived during the 1960s following the publication of The Genesis Flood by Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb.

Subsequently, creation science has expanded into biology and cosmology. However, efforts to have it legislated to be taught in schools in the United States were eventually halted by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the First amendment in Edwards v. Aguillard 1987[9].

Creation science as an organized movement is primarily centered within the United States, although creation science organizations are known in other countries. For example, Answers in Genesis was founded in Australia. Proponents are found primarily among various denominations of Christianity described as evangelical, conservative, or fundamentalist. While creationist movements also exist in the Bahá'í Faith, Islam, and Judaism, these movements do not use the phrase creation science to describe their beliefs.

Issues in creation science

Creation science has its roots in the ongoing effort by young-earth creationists to critique modern science's description of natural history (particularly biological evolution, but also geology and physical cosmology) while attempting to offer an alternative explanation of observable phenomena—an explanation they also describe as "science"—compatible with the Biblical account.

The proponents of creation science typically agree with mainstream science that the Biblical account cannot be scientifically verified or falsified. [10] [11] Its adherents do, however, often argue that many observable phenomena fit more easily into the Biblical account than with the naturalistic worldview.[12] [13] The vast majority of mainstream scientists argue that this premise runs counter to the core principles of coherent scientific methodology.[14]

Creation science advocates argue that mainstream scientific theories of the origins of the universe, the earth, and life are rooted in an assumption of methodological naturalism that is unfalsifiable, and uniformitarianism that is disputed, and that, therefore, it is a matter of faith to decide whether one proceeds under the assumption that the Biblical account describes actual historical events, or under other assumptions.[15] However, in other areas of science, for example chemistry, meteorology, or medicine, the assumptions of a naturalistic universe and uniformitarianism are not considered problematic to most creation science proponents.

Science and religion

Creation science has been considered by some [16][17] to be religious, rather than scientific, because it stems from the Bible, a religious book. Acceptance of creation is thus by faith, and not by the application of the scientific method. For example, the National Academy of Sciences wrote, "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."[18] Creation science does not necessarily disagree that their oppositional stance is based on religion. Duane Gish has argued, "We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator." [19] Creationists partly attribute what they perceive as a conflict to varying philosophical presuppositions which, they argue, affect a scientist's interpretation of the evidence, in particular there is a distrust of the methodological naturalism inherent to the scientific method as realized by most of mainstream science.

Intelligent design advocates have tellingly relied on similar kinds of justification for its goals. The two views differ in that intelligent design proponents claim to not make any theological assumptions, they do not posit Genesis to be an accurate scientific account of origins from first principles, and they do not necessarily oppose evolution (evolutionary creationism). Critics note that the intelligent design movement was started (by many of the same individuals previously campaigning for creationism) after attempts to have creation science taught in public schools met major opposition due to church-state separation issues in the United States.

Science and the supernatural

Creation science is closely linked to the issue of whether scientific endeavor permits the recognition of supernatural phenomena. The normal definition of supernatural events[20] is anything not existing or observable in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws or not physical or material. Science does not consider supernatural phenomena as evidence because it takes as a primary tenet of science that nature, being widely observable, provides the only objective standard from which to evaluate evidence. By definition supernatural phenomena supercede or lie beyond natural laws, and are therefore inherently unfalsifiable and unscientific. The supernatural is not ruled out a priori; when supernatural claims produce observable results that can be studied scientifically they have been considered and studied [21] [22].

Adherents to creation science and proponents of intelligent design hold a different position. According to Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski, the proper application of science permits positing supernatural events, because supernatural phenomena should not be seen as violating the laws of nature, but instead as events reflecting a deeper, more fundamental physical reality than that which we understand. As with the cargo cults of World War II, many phenomena that appear in one perspective to be magical can, from another, be quite natural. This effectively redefines the supernatural to account for the natural, and most scientists would consider such an adjustment to be inappropriate (as do many fideists).

In the context of Genesis, creationists believe that Creation according to Genesis is a historically accurate account of the origins of the Earth, and that the physical evidence today is more consistent with that account than with the scientific theories of origins. The fact that the recorded events defy much of our current scientific knowledge is seen as an opportunity to explore and understand the spectacular events recorded in Genesis in order to expand our knowledge of science and history, rather than a reason to deny those events occurred at all. This is asserted to be contrary to the principle of falsification, where proponents of a given explanation are obliged to find independent empirical evidence that could potentially disprove it, rather than interpret existing data in a way likely to verify it.

From the perspective of mainstream science there is no useful definition of the term supernatural. In most definitions, anything having an effect on nature renders it a part of nature itself, the same point made by William Dembski. It follows that any explanation for something observable and verifiable occurring in nature would be considered natural by definition. Since nothing truly supernatural could be observed, the only way science could reach a supernatural explanation is to eliminate all natural explanations; but it is impossible to ever know that all possibilities have been eliminated since this involves a degree of counterfactual reasoning. Even if scientists were to conclude that a supernatural explanation is correct, it would be impossible even in principle to distinguish between one supernatural explanation and another since the number of potential explanations that are not limited by natural laws is by definition infinite. Thus, determining the correct supernatural explanation among many, without recourse to independently valid criteria, is again impossible. It is primarily for this reason that science came to adopt naturalism as a cornerstone of the scientific method. The main quandary is that it is impossible to utilise science to justify a particular supernatural explanation over any other potential scientific or religious interpretation when it is factually unverifiable.

Religious criticisms of creation science

Fideists criticize creation science on the grounds either that religious faith, alone, should be a sufficient basis for belief, or that efforts to prove the Genesis account of creation on scientific grounds are inherently futile, arguing that faith is a necessary component of divine salvation.

Many Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic[23], Anglican, and Lutheran faiths, have either rejected creation science outright or are ambivalent to it, since much of Christian theology, including Liberal Christianity, considers the Genesis narrative primarily a poetic and allegorical work and not a literal history. Supporters of Young Earth creationism argue that Genesis has the style of a historical narrative and none of the earmarks of Hebrew poetry.[24]

Scientific criticisms of creation science

The United States' National Academy of Sciences has said that "creation science is in fact not science and should not be presented as such."[25] According to the NAS, "the claims of creation science lack empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested." [26]

Creationists often claim that creationism, and more specifically creation science, is not only scientific, but that it is more scientific than evolution.

For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:

  • consistent (internally and externally)
  • parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations)
  • useful (describes and explains observed phenomena)
  • empirically testable and falsifiable
  • based upon controlled, repeatable experiments
  • correctable and dynamic (changes are made as new data is discovered)
  • progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
  • tentative (admits that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

For any hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet at least most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer which are matched, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a couple or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any useful sense of the word. On these points, the National Academy of Sciences said:

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 U.S. Supreme Court ruled that creationism is religion, not science, and cannot be advocated in public school classrooms. [27] And most major religious groups have concluded that the concept of evolution is not at odds with their descriptions of creation and human origins. [28]

A summary of the objections to creation science by mainstream scientists:

  • Creationism is not falsifiable. Theism is not falsifiable, since the existence of God is typically asserted without sufficient conditions to allow a falsifying observation. God being a transcendental being, beyond the realm of the observable, claims about his existence can neither be supported nor undermined by observation, hence making creationism, the argument from design and other arguments for the existence of God a posteriori arguments. (See also the section on falsifiability, below)
  • Creationism violates the principle of parsimony. Creationism fails to pass Occam's razor. Adding supernatural entities to the equation is not strictly necessary to explain events.
  • Creationism is not empirically testable. That creationism is not empirically testable stems from the fact that creationism violates a basic premise of science, naturalism.
  • Creationism is not based upon controlled, repeatable experiments. That Creationism is not based upon controlled, repeatable experiments stems not from the theory itself, but from the phenomenon that it tries to explain.
  • Creationism is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive. Creationism professes to adhere to the absolute Truth, the word of God, not a provisional assessment of data which can change when new information is discovered. Once it is claimed that the Truth has been established, there is simply no possibility of future correction. The idea of the progressive growth of scientific ideas is required to explain previous data and any previously unexplainable data as well as any future data. It is often given as a justification for the naturalistic basis of science. In any practical sense of the concept, creationism is not progressive: it does not explain or expand upon what went before it and is not consistent with established ancillary theories.

Its lack of adherence to the standards of the scientific method mean that Creationism, and specifically Creation Science, cannot be said to be scientific, at least not in the way that science is conventionally understood and utilized.

Scientists note that Creation Science differs from mainstream science in that it begins with an assumption, then attempts to find evidence to support that assumption. Conversely, science sets out to learn about the world through the collection of empirical evidence and the use of the scientific method.

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, he portrayed the entire history of scientific development as a war against religion. This presentation of history was propagated further by such followers as Andrew Dickson White in his essay A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. However, their conclusions have been disputed.[29]

Some opponents consider Creation Science to be an ideologically and politically motivated propaganda tool, akin to a cult, the purpose of which is to promote the creationist agenda in society. They allege that the term "Creation Science" was chosen to purposely blur the distinction between science and religion.

Subjects within creation science

Subjects within creation science can be into split into three broad categories, each covering a different area of origins research; creationist cosmologies, flood geology, and creation biology.

Creation biology

Creation biology centers around 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. Creationists who involve themselves in this endeavor believe that observable speciation took place through inbreeding and harmful mutations during an alleged population bottleneck after the great flood of Noah's ark, which they claim was an actual historical event that happened in a manner consistent with its description in the Bible. Mainstream scientists argue that there is no physical evidence for a global flood event that is consistent with the methods and standards of scientific evidence (see below).

Creation biology disagrees with biological evolution (see creation-evolution controversy). Creationists contend that there is no empirical evidence that a new plant or animal species has ever originated as a result of the gradual accumulation of DNA through natural selection, producing new beneficial type(s) of structure(s) and function(s) which are totally lacking in the ancestral species, and which are not deleterious to the life-functions of the species. Popular arguments against evolution have changed over the years since the publishing of Henry M. Morris's first book on the subject, Scientific Creationism, but themes often arise: missing links as an indication that evolution is incomplete, arguments based on entropy, complexity, and information theory, arguments claiming that natural selection is an impossible mechanism, and general criticism of the conclusions drawn from historical sciences as lacking experimental basis. The origin of the human species is particularly hotly contested; the fossil remains of hominid ancestors are not considered by advocates of creation biology to be evidence for a speciation event involving Homo sapiens.

Defending evolution in the face of gaps in the fossil records, Richard Dawkins, biologist and professor at Oxford university, states "that's like a detective complaining that they can't account for every minute of a crime, a very ancient one, based on what they found at the scene. ... You have to make inferences from footprints and other types of evidence". Dawkins states there is a huge amount of evidence of evolution in fossil records.[30] Biologist J.B.S. Haldane when asked what would disprove evolution in exchange for a creationist concept replied "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era", a period more than 540 million years ago, a time when evolutionists claim that life on Earth consisted largely of bacteria, algea, and plankton. Richard Dawkins explains that evolution "is 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. ... 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."[31]

Flood geology

Flood geology is an idea based on the belief that many of Earth's geological formations were created by the global flood described in the story of Noah's ark. Fossils and fossil fuels are believed by its followers to have formed from animal and plant matter which was buried rapidly during this flood, while submarine canyon extensions are explained as having formed during a rapid runoff from the continents after the seafloors dropped. Sedimentary strata are described as sediments predominantly laid down after Noah's flood.

Mainstream geologists conclude that no such flood is seen in the preserved rock layers and moreover that the flood itself represents a physical impossibility. Nevertheless, there continue to be many creationists who argue that the flood can explain the fossil record and the evidence from geology and paleontology that are often used to dispute creationists' claims. In addition to the above ideas that are in opposition to the principles of geology, advocates of flood geology reject uniformitarianism and the findings of radiometric dating. The Creation Research Society argues "uniformitarianism is wishful thinking". [32]

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.

Cosmology is not as widely discussed as creation biology or flood geology, for several reasons. First, many creationists, particularly old earth creationists and intelligent design creationists do not dispute that the universe may be billions of years old. Also, some creationists who believe that the Earth was created in the timeframe described in a literal interpretation of Genesis believe that Genesis describes only the creation of the Earth, rather than the creation of the entire universe, allowing for both a young Earth and an old universe. Finally, the technical nature of the discipline of physical cosmology and its ties to mathematical physics prevent those without significant technical knowledge from understanding the full details of how the observations and theories behind the current models work, let alone a critique of such work.


Creation Biology

Creation biology is the attempt by certain creationists to study biology from a young earth creationist perspective. According to its proponents, it is a synthesis of science and religion, as it attempts to draw from both sources in developing its ideas. It is meant to be in contrast with mainstream evolutionary biology, as many creationists see that scientific paradigm as conflicting with their worldview. Creation biology represents a very limited research program and is not considered a part of mainstream science, having been described with the rest of creation science as a pseudoscience by skeptics and many outspoken members of the scientific community (see Creation-evolution controversy).

Creation biology is based on the assumption that God created all life on the planet as described in the Genesis account of Creation, in a finite number of discrete created kinds or baramin. Creationists who use creation biology as a support for their claims assert that, while these forms of life were given by God the ability to vary, and even undergo speciation, the kinds can only appear by the action of the divine, cannot interbreed, and cannot increase in genetic complexity.

Creation biology therefore differs from mainstream biology mainly in its rejection of the modern synthesis and universal common descent. Since creation biology is concerned almost exclusively with the origins of living things, its advocates actually accept most of mainstream biology regarding physiology, cell structure, the genomic basis of life, microevolution, and speciation.

Elements of Creation Biology

Creation organizations advocating a number of ideas ranging from Young Earth Creationism to Intelligent Design have proposed a number of ideas, which differ significantly from evolutionary biology.

  • Biogenesis as a rejection of abiogenesis and other naturalistic explanations for the origin of life is seen as a counterargument to mainstream science. Life is assumed to have been created as described in sacred scripture, and many creationists believe that there is observable evidence for this, counter to the claims of the vast majority of research scientists.
  • Teleology, that is, the idea that God designed life with intricate and interconnected components for a purpose, and then determined that they were "good." This runs contrary to the empirical model of modern science which claims that, by definition, there can be no empirically observed instance of supernatural influences in nature, nor is there any universalist evaluative norm by which life can be described as either "good" or "bad".
  • Created kinds or Baraminology, that is, the idea that life was originally created in a finite number of discrete "kinds" or "baramin", and that while these kinds had the ability to vary significantly within their kind, one kind cannot interbreed with another kind, and new kinds cannot arise spontaneously. This runs contrary to evolutionary biology's account of universal common ancestry and its phylogenetic tree, that is, that all life on the planet is related via macroevolution.
  • Irreducible complexity, that is, the claim made by Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University, that there exists systems in life that are composed of interdependent components where the absence of one would cause the entire system to fail. Its advocates claim that these systems are essentially interdependent, and it is therefore more reasonable to believe they were designed and assembled together for a purpose. Such argumentation is roundly rejected by evolutionary biologists who offer counterevidence to the idea often in, for example, accounts of the evolution of the eye.
  • Specified complexity, that is, the claim made by William Dembski, a mathematician and senior fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, that genetic information is "complex specified information" (CSI), that natural processes can reduce and change CSI, but can never increase it, and that it is therefore more reasonable to infer that such information was created through the intervention of an intelligent designer rather than being the sole product of evolutionary processes.

Criticism

The elements of creation biology often face fierce resistance from established biologists and their supporters, who generally regard them as pseudoscience, or religion disguised as science. For example,

  • The law of biogenesis is rejected as being a false absolute. Since life itself is poorly defined, there is no acceptable scientific consensus on how it must "always" come about. In a real sense, there is always integration of "non-living" substances into living beings; this occurrence does not require "agency" of life, since much of the integration occurs by the laws of chemistry which are completely independent from the definition of life.
  • Creation biology presents a teleological view of biology no empirical result could disprove: a violation of the falsifiability requirement of the scientific method.
  • The introduction of supernatural elements in describing the origin and development of life is regarded to be incompatible with the scientific method, the explicit purpose of which is to investigate the empirical realm of nature.
  • The creationist definition of "kind" is regarded as either too vague or needlessly divergent from the well-explained models of phylogenetics. The reluctance of creationists to come up with a suitable system of "kinds" also raises doubts about the falsifiability of the concept.
  • The description of macroevolution as an iterated process of microevolutionary steps is too causally rejected, often by ignoring the plethora of citations regarding microevolutionary pathways to arrive at particular macroevolutionary transitions.
  • The concept of "irreducible complexity" is rejected as an argument from ignorance or a non sequitur of the form "There is no obvious predecessor state; thus, there are no predecessor states." Evolutionary biologists insist they consider the possibility of non-obvious predecessor and intermediate states in evolution; for example, if neither the genetic features "A" nor "B" can exist alone, and "AB" is found in an organism, there are many other imaginable intermediate states, namely "C" to "AC" to "ABC" to "AB", where "C" is a feature that behaves somewhat like "B" but has the ability to stand on its own, as well as some evolutionary merit.
  • "Specified complexity" is rejected as an argument from ignorance. Critics say that specified complexity takes something that natural evolutionists do not have a complete step-by-step explanation for (such as how the human eye came about) and attempts to calculate a probability of that structure evolving naturally. Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology explains "We cannot calculate the probability that an eye came about. We don't have the information to make the calculation"[33]


Creationism in Popular Culture

Many products across several forms of media feature elements of Creationism, like humans and dinosaurs living together. These examples may or may not be intentional.

  • After Eden
  • B.C. (comic)
  • The Flintstones
  • One Million Years B.C.E.
  • When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
  • The Lost World

Etymology

The word creation comes from the Latin word, creatio.

See also

  • Evolution
  • Existence
  • Intelligent design
  • Irreducible complexity
  • Larry Booher
  • List of famous young-earth Creationists
  • Lysenkoism
  • Myth
  • Origin belief
  • Starlight problem
  • Theism
  • Timeline of the Universe
  • Tzimtzum
  • Ultimate fate of the Universe

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

References (historical)

  • Gosse, Henry Philip, 1857. Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. J. Van Voorst, London

References (Christian)

  • Murphy, George L., 2002, "Intelligent Design as a Theological Problem," in Covalence: the Bulletin of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Alliance for Faith, Science, and Technology 4(2)

References (Jewish)

  • Aviezer, Nathan. In the Beginning: Biblical Creation and Science. Ktav, 1990. Hardcover. ISBN 0-881253-28-6
  • Carmell, Aryeh and Domb, Cyril, eds. Challenge: Torah Views on Science New York: Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists/Feldheim Publishers, 1976. ISBN 0873061748
  • Aryeh Kaplan, Immortality, Resurrection, and the Age of the Universe: A Kabbalistic View, Ktav, NJ, in association with the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, NY, 1993
  • Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams In a Beginning...: Quantum Cosmology and Kabbalah, Tikkun, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 66-73
  • Schroeder, Gerald L. The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom Broadway Books, 1998, ISBN 0-767903-03-X
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Genesis, Science, and "Scientific Creationism", Conservative Judaism, Vol. 40(2), Winter 1987/1988, p.20-27, The Rabbinical Assembly

External links

Organisations

talk.origins maintains an extensive list of general links relevent to creationism and a full list of creationist websites. The following are links to the main organisations espousing a variety of viewpoints:

Young Earth Creationism

Old Earth Creationism

Intelligent design

Evolutionary creationism

Evolution


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