Home > Blurbs > Creationism

Creationism

Statement

William Blake's watercolor of 1794, for the frontispiece of Europe, a prophecy Creationism or "creation-science" is a term applied by the advocates of a strictly literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation. It denounces the theory of evolution and claims to represent authentic religion and science. Actually, it represents neither. Spokespersons for the mainstream religions, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish have officially come out against the creationist viewpoint as being not in agreement with modern biblical scholarship. Scientists also reject the so-called science claimed to back up the creationist views. All bills introduced into courts to insist on the teaching of the Creationist platform in public schools have been thrown out as unacceptable. The movement shows little regard for scientific discovery or for scholarly study of the bible or the literature on creation. The federal courts have pointed out that those persons who have appeared to project the Creationist point of view have no standing in at all in theological or scientific circles. The movement represents a "do-it-yourself" approach to both scientific and religious subjects.

Since knowledge is a seamless web, most of modern science would have to be abandoned for the pseudo-science of creationism to have any validity. This applies not only to biological evolution, but to related fields of genetics and molecular biology. Contradicted would be most aspects of geology and geophysics including plate tectonics and our views of the origin of coal and oil. Human evolution and physical anthropology are other fields denied. Nuclear physics and magnetism used to date earth ages are denied. Even astronomy and its insights about the age of the universe could not stand. In short, religious creationists deny the whole of accepted scientific insight.

Sources

Creationism - Skeptic's Dictionary
Arthur N. Strahler, Science and Earth History - The Evolution/Creation Controversy (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1987)
Strahler, an experienced earth scientist, discusses the wide spectrum of scientific findings which are contradicted by "creation science".
Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists (New York: Knopf-Random House, 1992)
A thorough history of creationist thought starting in the nineteenth century and its revival in the twentieth. Numbers is a professional historian who has sympathy with the creationists' religious dilemmas, but does not accept their scientific claims.
The National Center for Science Education, P.O. Box 9477, Berkeley, CA 94709, is a national organization of science teachers devoted to keeping this pseudo-science out of public class rooms. NCSE publishes a newsletter, NCSE Reports, and a journal, Creation/Evolution, devoted entirely to this problem. NCSE also maintains a hotline at (800) 290-6006 for citizens under pressure.
Ashley Montagu, Scientific Creationism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)
A collection of essays dealing with various aspects of creationism. Essayists include Isaac Asimov, Kenneth Boulding, Stephen Jay Gould, Garret Hardin, Gunther Stent, and others.
Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982)
Kitcher is a philosopher of science, and devotes much of the book to explaining the methods of science while showing that creationism does not meet these standards.
Web links