I don't pay much attention to creationism for the same reason that I don't watch much television -- it's boring. Real science, history, philosophy, theology, etc., is far more interesting than an amateurish knockoff.
My inattentiveness has meant that until now I had only a vague notion of the origins of this nonsense. That has been largely dispelled by Karl Giberson's book "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" (2008, HaperCollins), where he traces out a clear history of American Fundamentalism and its dopy offspring -- creationism.
Giberson is actually a physicist, but history heavyweights Edward Larson and Ronald Numbers have given him their blessing, so I'm fairly confident he's got his story straight (for another good succinct history see Numbers' chapter "The Creationists" in the volume "God and Nature"). While it's unsurprising to find that today's fundamentalism departs from traditional Christian roots, it is surprising to find that it departs from its own fundamentalist roots.
In 1909, a distinguished group of Protestant academics converged to articulate what they considered to be the core non-negotiables (fundamentals) of Christianity. Among the participants were such notables as C. I. Scofield of the well-known "Scofield Reference Bible," Benjamin Warfield of the Princeton Theological Seminary and George Frederick Wright of Oberlin College in Ohio. They produced a four-volume series of essays (published between 1910-15) called "The Fundamentals" -- and with it the original Fundamentalist movement was born.
The major impetus for "The Fundamentals" was not evolution, but "higher criticism" -- the critical historical and literary analysis of the New Testament. Higher criticism raised troubling questions about the historicity of the Gospels. This in turn produced a liberal theological reaction where in some Christian quarters a "Jeffersonian"-type de-supernaturalizing of Jesus was in full swing. This, in the eyes of some, threatened to gut Christianity of its very soul. Against this backdrop, evolution seemed far more manageable, as Wright tersely put it in his essay "Hume is more dangerous than Darwin" (see Giberson p. 60). Not that "The Fundamentals" entirely ignored Darwin -- about 20 percent of the essays addressed the subject. Virtually none of them, however, adopted a creationist's position as we understand it today. Instead, most "Fundamentals" authors were committed to finding ways of reconciling Genesis and science.
The most impassioned Christian voice wailing about the evils of evolution was Ellen White, the prophetess of the then quite marginal Seventh-day Adventists. One of her visions revealed that Noah's flood was a world-wide cataclysm which had entirely reshaped the earth's surface. In 1923, a self-trained Adventist geologist named George McCready Price took White's vision and turned it into a 700-page magnum opus called "The New Geology," where he set the standard for all the muddle-headed creationist pseudo-science that was to follow. Though Price's arguments and "evidence" fell easily to professional refutation, his ability to feign authority and breezy common-sense logic were convincing to many of the unwashed. Price enjoyed some initial success (helped in part by William Jennings Bryan's antievolution crusade during the 1920s), but his outsider status ensured that his impact on mainstream Protestantism would be limited. But that changed in the late '50s and early '60s, initiated, oddly enough, by someone about as far removed from the American religion scene as one could imagine -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Sputnik shocked America and forced a new emphasis on science education in public schools. As part of this push, evolution took on increased prominence as the central theoretical concept in biology. Alarm bells began ringing among some conservative Christians with long-standing but heretofore muted misgivings about Darwin. Among them was a devout Southern Baptist engineering professor named Henry Morris. Unlike Price, Morris hailed from a prominent denomination and had a solid academic pedigree -- a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, teaching positions at Rice and later Virginia Polytech, where he served as Department Head.
In 1961, Morris teamed up with conservative biblical scholar John C. Whitcomb to produce a game-changer: "The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications." In terms of "science," the book was mostly re-heated Price. But its genius was in linking supposed scientific evidence for a young earth and a global flood with an aggressive assault on liberal theology -- a lethal creation-science bullet aimed at higher criticism. In conservative Christian biblical exegesis, the literal interpretation takes precedence over more nuanced ones forced by external circumstances such as scientific findings. If "science" actually reinforced a more literal reading of the Bible, then liberal theology lost its credibility. Indeed, it lost its very reason for existing.
The result "was intellectually disastrous on two fronts," Giberson tells us (p. 138). First, it convinced many evangelicals in the existence of an alternative science that aligned neatly with Biblical literalism, thus, abruptly delegitimizing efforts of Protestant academics to reconcile evolution with scripture. Second, it made minor theological issues -- a young earth and a global flood -- essentials of genuine faith. Evolution, of course, was ruled out by both these essentials.
Morris went on to establish the Institute for Creation Research in the hopes that Creation Science would one day become respected as real science. It never happened. The ICR became a joke among practicing scientists and its more recent equivalent -- Intelligent Design's Discovery Institute -- has warp-speeded itself to the same dark closet of scientific irrelevancy.
It's been a half-century since Morris and Whitcomb recast fundamentalism as creationism -- a good time to assess its legacy. In place of science or insightful theology, creationism's primary achievement is a waist-deep rubbish pile of misrepresentation and deceit. In his decision in the infamous Kitzmiller vs. Dover intelligent design case, Judge John E. Jones openly chastised the creationist side for its "repetitious untruthful testimony" (p. 131), "flagrant and insulting falsehoods" (p. 132) and noted how the people of Dover were ill-served by creationist school board members who "staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public" only to "time and again lie to cover their tracks..." (p. 137). All this because they fear science.
What a far cry from Christianity's intellectual heritage! Augustine and Aquinas never stooped to churlish antics when faced with scholarly challenges. Theirs was an expansive, muscular Christianity that eyed pagan knowledge head-on. How pathetically puny creationists are in their shadow. However noble the creationists may perceive their ends to be, their shameful means remain unjustified.
History of creationism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History of the creation–evolution controversy - Wikipedia, the ...
Brief History of Creationism | NCSE
Creationism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Scientific Creationism - What is Creationism? Is Creationism ...
Beliefnet FAQ: What Is Creationism? Christian beliefs about the ...
BBC - Religions - Christianity: Creationism and intelligent design
Isn't it amazing that all the other creatures who co-existed with these living fossils felt the pressure to evolve due to environmental changes or disturbances...yet, some didn't! That takes a grandiose leap of faith. For the shark to survive the oceans had to remain a constant in temperature, etc.. Yet, thousands of creatures which they fed on for millions of years felt the pressure to change. Now, that's a fairytale if I have ever heard one.
Evolution has five major problems: 1.) evolution has never been observed; 2.) evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics; 3.) there are no transitional fossils; 4.) the theory of evolution states that life originated, and proceeds by random chance; 5.) due to its own entropy has never been proven. I could list dozens of more problems associated with evolution starting with chirality of dna, etc. but it is wasted. Casting pearls before swine.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
Hey, how convenient. Your list is identical to the list that gets disproved here!
Acknowledgement that differing species, even within the same environment, are affected by different reproductive selective pressures requires no "faith", as such a fact is demonstrable.
Your assertion is demonstrably false; the process of evolution has been directly observed. Speciation resulting from evolution has been observed also.
Please substantiate this assertion. Identify the scope of the relevant closed system or system reasonably approximated to close and demonstrate that the process of evolution necessarily results in a condition within the system where the inequality dS/dt ≥ 0 is not satisfied.
You are not the first individual whom I have observed assert that the process of evolution would necessarily violate the second law of thermodynamics; thus far, however, I have observed no validation of such a claim through demonstration that the above inequality, which is the mathematical expression of the second law of thermodynamics, would be unsatisfied.
Your assertion is demonstrably false. Transitional fossils are known to exist: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Your assertion is incorrect; the theory of evolution has never addressed the origin of life, and explains the emergence of biodiversity as being a combination of random and nonrandom mechanisms that, as a consequence, compose a non-random process.
Scientific theories are never proven. Noting that a specific scientific theory has not been proven is not meaningful.
The "problems" that you claim to have listed thus fare are all demonstrably false; consequently, your claim is not credible. Additionally, your attempt to justify your refusal to substantiate your claims is itself intellectually dishonest, and is not logically equivalent to a validation of your claim.
There comes a point where everyone comes to a crossroad in their life. The choice we make could mean the difference between life and destruction. I am sure Darwin never imagined how many billions would be affected by his choice.
the choice darwin had was, to tell the truth, as he had come to see it, or push more religious lies on the populace.
darwin made the right choice.
not everything that he thought was true, turned out to be true, but he spoke the truth as he knew it, and that is by far better than hiding behind fear.
i am sure darwin did know how many would be effected by his ideas: all but the few tiny few who see ignorance as a badge of honor.
Still those who scoff at the flood in Genesis should realize that the story is told in other traditions. Just where it took place and how extensive is not really known. But for creationists to give it credit for the modern coastline is ridiculous.
The thing is, I don't think this is particularly surprising. Floods happen a lot! Just look at recent history. Natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, storms etc are regular occurances all over the world. It's hardly surprising that they're woven into the fabric of our cultures and mythologies.
Then there's the fact that ALSO about 10,000 years ago we see that the population of humans on the Earth bottlenecked... In fact, according to scientists, it's estimated that there were less than a few thousand left on the planet. If they were all living close together and saw one of those floods, then spread out across the globe, they SURELY would have taken that story with them!
Don't you find it interesting how Darwin attempts to slip in components of design without actually citing a designer. Even Darwin could not get around the obvious - there is evidence of design everywhere you look. As an apostate, he could not bring himself to credit God. So he did the next best thing in his mind - disquise the design with convoluted language, and in the process, confuse the entire world. Sadly, it appears the entire world has fallen for it.
And, most of the proponents for evolution here in this newsgroup are atheists. I venture to say that they are like the chicken and the egg debate. I believe that they were atheists first and then they sought out reasons, scientific ones, which supported their beliefs. Naturally, they will deny this last statement due to the fact that they want the rest of us to believe that it was their superior education which brought them to their atheistic conclusions. However, it is easy to tell from reading their posts that most of them were only average students at best.
Can you imagine how God feels when He examines their arrogance that He must prove Himself to them. That is the epitomy of blasphemy. When Adam and Eve, after they had eaten the forbidden fruit, heard the voice of God they tried to hide themselves in the Garden. Where in the universe can an atheist hide himself from God?
Evolutionary biology is a huge evolving (ha ha) subject. As in all such subjects there is extensive open debate about all kinds of things. You seem to do the same thing that many people do - pick a particular part of the debate, misrepresent or misunderstand it, and then claim that it demolishes a whole scientific edifice for which you have a particular dislike.
As has already been pointed out, if an organism is already well suited to its environment there is little evolutionary pressure for it to change.
You say that it is scientists, not the armchair debaters, who pointed out this interesting problem. You imply that you have the knowledge to interpret the science and report it to the world. If so, can you not allow that other people have that knowledge and ability too? Is it only you that has the right to interpret the words of evolutionary biologists?
But if you have spotted interesting unexplained bits of biology, submit them for peer review. It happens all the time. That's how knowledge progresses. Everybody would be genuinely interested and if you've discovered something genuinely important you would receive great acclaim.
I read far more writings and watch far more documentaries with an evolutionary slant than I experience the intriguing challenging accounts of the creationists.
You, not I, are more likely to be reading only one side of the argument.
Go do some research of some material for yourselves. Do you think the Israelites made up their 'exodus' stories? Go and check out some archaeological work of the Swedish expedition that followed the Old Testament record to track the path of the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh's army; guess what, they found chariots on the Red Seabed.
But my faith is not dependent on such proofs: acceptance of Christ is all that I needed to do, and any important gaps will be filled in from time to time. I have a relationship with Jesus, and that's all I need for this life and the next. God the creator, through Jesus Christ has revealed Himself to me and others in my flock.
If in doubt, you will probably have to play the "No God" card, which you are usually playing, anyway?
It is by faith that you believe there are mountains of evidence proving evolution. It is by faith that you believe DNA alone proves evolution. I seriously doubt you've got a good handle on either of those.
It is by faith that you assume your belief in atheism is correct. It is by faith that you believe others will believe your posts to be accurate. You are using the "faith card" yourself. When you can prove to me that you have at least a single thread of credibility then I will have more faith in your posts.
What area of science education beyond an introductory level do you have? Do you have any real expertise or credentials to back your talk? I, personally, have 7.5 years of college and some degrees. You talk the talk...but, have you ever done the walk?
if you'd like to research creationism, look at what the Bush appointed judge ruled in the Dover, PA case.
For hundreds of years creationist have held the floor with their theory "by faith" and in the last 100 years evolutionists with "their great leap of faith" been banging on about this subject and getting nowhere!!.It is time to search in other locations to find "the missing link".
The EPIC OF GILGAMESH supplies enough evidence to indicate that both the Torah and Koran are secondary in importance and both have used as their base the writings from Sumerian and Babylonian literature.Scholars and scientists and in the last century, evolutionist-have been endeavoring to prove their theories,completely ignoring the archaeological findings of 1920.
29:19-20 (Have they not seen how God originates creation, then brings it back again? Surely that is an easy matter for God. Say: Journey in the land, then behold how He originated creation; then God causes the second growth to grow; God is powerful over everything. Gracious Qur’an
#1 First sentence: "I don't pay much attention to creationism for the same reason that I don't watch much television -- it's boring."
You didn't need to be the arrogant "so much better than those people who watch tv" guy to make your point. The sentence could have read: "I don't pay much attention to creationism because it's boring."
#2 Last sentence in the 6th paragraph followed by first sentence in the 7th paragraph: "But that changed in the late '50s and early '60s, initiated, oddly enough, by someone about as far removed from the American religion scene as one could imagine -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin."
"Sputnik shocked America and forced a new emphasis on science education in public schools."
Sputnik was the Russian programme that put the first satellite in space (1957) while Yuri Gagarin, as the first human in space in 1961, was part of the Russion programme known as Vostok. The way you wrote this implied that Yuri Gagarin had something to do with Sputnik. That would be like linking NASA's Explorer programme (for satellites) with their Mercury programme (for astronauts). Bad history, dude. By the way I know that information because I watched a documentary on the history of space travel ON TELEVISION!
— Christopher Hitchens
Science doesn't resort to explanations of God because of Occam's razor. We can explain how things work without reliance on God as an explanation and so we leave God out. However, if we wanted to include God in our explanations we would still have to come up with a means of testing whether God truly was involved. How can we set up both a positive and negative control that would allow us to guarantee that in our controls God did or did not intervene to make the experiment come out a particular way? And even if we could do that, how could we confirm that God did or didn't intervene in the actual experiment?
If we have to count on a potentially capricious God interfering in our experiments science would never have gotten off the ground. It was by ignoring the possibility of God that science has been able to achieve what it has.
As usual you have elegantly expressed the point. I would make one comment however, I don't believe that ignore is what most scientists, especially when viewed throughout history, have done/do. I think setting aside the possibility of god would be more accurate description.