Creationism: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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This article describes the creationism controversy.

Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God. The term usually refers to Christian creationism and especially to the belief that living organisms were created by God. However, not all adherents of creationism are Christian. Supporters of creationism are called creationists. Most creationists reject the modern evolutionary synthesis, the current scientific theory of evolution, because it contends that no divine intervention was necessary to create life. In this article, supporters of evolution will be referred to as evolutionists. The creationism controversy is the debate between creationists and evolutionists about the origins of life. This debate is highly controversial.

History of creationism

The creation beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all taken from the book of Genesis, part of the Bible. During the Middle Ages, Christianity and the Christian viewpoint was predominant in Europe. Most Europeans believed that God had existed and would exist eternally, and that everything else had been created by an act of God. However, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment challenged this viewpoint. New scientific discoveries, the rediscovery of old philosophical ideas, and new philosophical ideas led many to doubt the validity of these beliefs.

Charles Darwin's famous work, The Origin of Species (1859), introduced the theory of natural selection. While the concept of evolution had been introduced before, Darwin was the first person to propose a mechanism by which it might act (despite this, the first five editions of Origin did not include the word "evolution"). Darwin did not intend to oppose religious accounts of the creation of species, but rather Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of evolution by acquired characteristics. However, Darwin was well-aware of the effect that his book might have on people with strong religious views, such as his own wife, and he delayed publication of the book until he became aware that Alfred Russel Wallace was about to publish similar views.

Darwin's book ignited a furious controversy in Victorian Britain. His subsequent book The Descent of Man (1871), in which he applied his theory to humankind and proposed common descent, stoked the controversy further. Because Darwin's book contradicted the Bible, it divided people into the secular and religious, and the religious into literal and non-literal theists. One of the most famous disputes was the Oxford Debate of 1860, in which T.H. Huxley, Darwin's self-appointed "bulldog", debated evolution with "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford. Darwin's theory continued to arouse controversy, but by the 1930s, most Europeans considered it the standard explanation for the origins of life.

However, the situation in the United States was different due to the strong influence of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalist Christianity had arisen as a reaction to Modernist Christianity. The modernist approach held that some observable facts about the natural world were in contradiction to the Bible, and that therefore the Bible contained factual, but not religious, errors. Fundamentalist Christianity, reacting against modernism, codified its own belief in the plenary and inerrant inspiration of the Bible, including the creation stories of Genesis. Consequently, when Darwin's theory was introduced, fundamentalist Christianity rejected it outright.

While academic opinion in the United States was generally in favor of Darwin's theory, public and legislative opinion was strongly against it, especially in the Bible Belt. The first major clash occurred in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, when a Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution was upheld. The teaching of both creationism and evolution is still controversial in some states.

In recent times, creationists have been a driving force of the intelligent design (ID) movement. Intelligent design states that life is too complex to have evolved naturally, and that consequently life must have been designed. Advocates of intelligent design never name the designer. Their opponents state that the designer is God and that the movement is a disguised version of creationism. Though the intelligent design movement is well-organized and well-funded, it has found few endorsements.

Creationism of any variety has also made little headway against mainstream scientific opinion; the vast majority of scientists accept the modern evolutionary synthesis. However, perhaps as a result of Christian fundamentalism recently gaining converts among well-educated right-wing Americans, a small but vociferous number of academics have come out in favour of creationism.

While Christian fundamentalists are credited as the originators of the movement, there are also creationists among Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and conservatives of mainline Protestant churches, such as the Confessing Movements, as well as some Roman Catholics, Jews, and many Muslims. Many of these hold creation beliefs that have elements of both the views of Christian fundamentalists and the views of evolutionists. Consequently, "creationism" is sometimes used as an umbrella term for any creation belief that requires the existence of a creator god.

Within the broader term creationist, there is no single set of beliefs, but a few general categories do exist. One classification is based on beliefs about the age of the Earth.

• Young Earth creationists believe that the Earth was created by God around 6,000 years ago, usually as described in the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar.
• Old Earth creationists believe that the Earth is millions or billions of years old. Old Earth creationism comes in two flavors:
  • 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 unknown cataclysm.
  • 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 years of modern time).

Another classification is based on beliefs about how organisms have been created.

• Progressive creationism states that new kinds of organisms are constantly being created to replace extinct ancient forms.
• Intelligent design states that life is too complex to have evolved without the intervention of an (unnamed) intelligent designer. The originator of this view is biochemist Michael Behe.
• Evolutionary creationism, also called theistic evolution, states that biological evolution happens, but that God controls the apparently random events or designed the fundamental physical laws that allow evolution.
• Deism states that the universe was created by a God who then made no further intervention in its affairs. This is often expressed by the metaphor of the “Divine Watchmaker” who created a mechanism so perfect as to be self-regulating. Deists do not believe in miracles or revelations.

Part of creationist expression is the creation science movement. Advocates of creation science attempt to offer scientific explanations for religious creation scenarios. Usually these theories disagree with mainstream scientific theories of cosmology, human origins, and evolution. Not all creationists accept creation science.

Many Christian creationists believe that a creator would logically attempt to communicate with intelligent members of his creation. Jesus and the Bible are taken to be the creator's attempt at communication. However, there is strong disagreement in interpretation and in how literally the Bible is to be taken.

United States

In the United States, creationism remains popular among non-scientists. According to several evolution polls over the last decade, 60–65% of Americans believe that “God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” About 10% believe that the evolution of species occurred without any divine intervention. The latter figure is higher among the upper class, Internet users and among college graduates, higher still among scientists (about 55% believe that evolution occurred without God over millions of years according to a 1997 Gallup poll [1]), and higher still among biologists and geologists. These data have remained relatively stable over time.

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 give credence to creation science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared ‘abruptly.’” A 2000 poll by People for the American Way examined the question of popular support for evolution and creationism in schools, and showed that a majority of 83% supported the teaching of the theory of evolution [2].

The western world outside the United States

The United States fundamentalist Christian community has no real parallels (in terms of numbers, prominence, and political influence) elsewhere in the Western world (aside from possibly Canada), and because most vocal creationists are from the United States, it is generally assumed that creationist views are not as common elsewhere. Statistics are not clear on the issue.

According to a PBS documentary on evolution, Australian 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 other than the USA.

In Europe, creationism is a less well defined phenomenon, and regular polls are not available; however, the option of teaching creationism in school has not yet been seriously considered in any Western European country. In Roman Catholic-majority countries, 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[3] are actively lobbying there as well. In the United Kingdom the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (previously the Vardy Foundation), which owns two colleges in the north of England and plans to open several more, teaches that creationism and evolution are equally valid “faith positions.”

Islamic creationism

In the Islamic world the theory of evolution has generally been ignored or condemned with purely religious arguments. However, liberal movements within Islam, which are generally partial to secular scientific thought, tend to be more accepting of evolution.

In recent years, however, the arguments of “intelligent design”-style creationism have fallen on fertile ground in parts of the Islamic world and among Muslim immigrants in the Western diaspora.

The centre of the Islamic creationist movement is Turkey. Its main exponent is the writer Harun Yahya (or. Adnan Oktar, b. 1956) who uses the Internet for the propagation of his ideas. His BAV (Bilim Araştırma Vakfı/ Science Research Foundation) organizes conferences with leading American creationists. Another leading advocate of Islamic creationism is Fethullah Gülen (b. 1941).

The movement seems to have a considerable following in Indonesia and Malaysia whereas interest seems to be low in the Arabic countries and Iran. As in the Western context, the theory of evolution is held responsible for a materialist worldview that is the alleged base of all kinds of societal problems and negative political developments.

In the United States, creationists and evolutionary scientists are engaged in a long-running battle over the primary and supplementary science curriculum of public schools. The goal on both sides is to eliminate the other side's viewpoint from the public school curriculum; currently, evolutionists seem to be winning.

In the early 20th century, William Jennings Bryan and his followers passed or introduced legislation in several states prohibiting the teaching of evolution. By 1925, such legislation was being considered in 15 states. 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 taught his Tennessee class evolution in defiance of the Butler Act. The result was the widely publicized Scopes Monkey Trial. H. L. Mencken, in his widely-distributed newspaper reports of the trial, wrote, "The Scopes trial, from the start, has been carried on in a manner exactly fitted to the anti-evolution law and the simian imbecility under it. There hasn't been the slightest pretense to decorum." Evolutionists say that his and other reports turned public opinion against creationism, and for this reason they consider the Scopes trial a victory. When the case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Court overturned the decision on a technicality, then dismissed the case. Consequently, the teaching of evolution remained illegal in Tennessee. In 1967, the Tennessee public schools were threatened with another lawsuit over the Butler Act's constitutionality, and, fearing of public reprisal, Tennessee's legislature repealed the Butler Act. In the following year, 1968, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas that Arkansas's law prohibiting the teaching of evolution was in violation of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court stated that the First Amendment prohibits public schools from teaching religious beliefs as facts, and it has consistently ruled that creationism is a religious belief.

Creationists say that this position does not consider the possibility that creationism is true. Creationists also say that this prohibits classroom discussion by students who believe in creationism. Evolutionists say that creationism is a non-scientific belief which is inappropriate in a science class. Some evolutionists also say that the teaching of evolution is not necessarily incompatible with the belief that God is the creator of the universe and of all life.

More recently, creationists have proposed that public schools teach creation science and that public schools should give "equal time" to non-evolutionary theories of origin. The Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard that creation science is a religious belief, and as such it is inadmissible in public education. Proponents of intelligent design say that because intelligent design is scientific, not religious, it should be included in any well-balanced discussion of origins. In 2002, proponents of intelligent design asked the Ohio Board of Education to adopt intelligent design as part of its standard biology curriculum. In December 2002, the Board adopted a proposal that permitted, but did not require, the teaching of intelligent design.

In the United Kingdom, one of the few countries in which teaching religion in state schools is a legal requirement, there is an agreed syllabus for religious education with the right of parents to withdraw their children from these lessons.[4]

Most creationists reject the theory of gradualism, that life gradually evolved over millions of years from simple to increasingly complex forms only by means of mutation and natural selection. Evolutionists hold that, on the contrary, there is abundant evidence in favour of evolution over time from sciences such as geology, paleontology and physics. The disagreement between the two parties is the source of the debate.

Creationism has shifted over the past century as the advance of scientific knowledge and growing judicial strictness in the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution have squeezed out the more overtly religious or unscientific creationist forays into the classroom.

Creationism and the origins of life

To scientists, the question of the origin of life is separate from the question of how different species came to be. The former question is known as the problem of abiogenesis, and there are currently several different theories for how it occurs. While there have been attempts to experimentally verify these theories, so far none of them have widespread support among scientists. In contrast, most scientists are evolutionists, and they consider the latter question solved by the modern evolutionary synthesis. Since abiogenesis and evolution are considered separate subjects, scientists do not think that the current lack of results in abiogenesis invalidates evolution.

Creationists usually answer both questions by stating that God created all life, and is thus responsible for both its origins and for the different species. Creationists often state that because neither abiogenesis nor the totality of human evolution have been observed, the two questions are outside of the scope of empirical science and are part of philosophy, forensic science or historical science. As such, they say, other options such as creationism should be considered equally valid. Evolutionists reject such arguments because divine intervention cannot be disproved and is thus unscientific.

Creation science

Some creationists posit that certain assumptions, procedures, theories, and findings of science, particularly the theory of evolution through natural selection, are scientifically incorrect. Creation science is a modern movement that attacks these ideas on scientific grounds and proposes alternative theories that are more compatible with creationism. This article uses the term creation scientist to mean a scientist who believes in creation science. Because creation science is not accepted by most scientists, this article uses the term mainstream scientist to mean a scientist who does not believe in creation science.

The term "creation science" covers a broad range of beliefs. There are many different creation scientific theories, each of which has its own supporters and detractors, both within and without the creation science community. Additionally, there are differing interpretations of what creation science is among those who consider themselves creation scientists. Some creation scientists do not seek to challenge mainstream scientists. Others deny the applicability of the scientific method and Occam's razor to their religiously-inspired beliefs about the physical world.

Not all creationists are creation scientists. Some creationists view scientific truth as separate from spiritual truth and are unconcerned by apparent contradictions between the two. Others do not believe that neither mainstream science nor creation science is appropriate, and prefer to be guided by revelation alone.

Creation science has been criticized by many mainstream scientists for making scientific errors. Consequently most mainstream scientists regard creation science as, at best, a pseudoscience. (Specific arguments and rebuttals are listed below.)

Many critics of creation science believe that all creation scientists attempt to falsely disguise the Biblical story of creation as science (Arthur, 1996). United States federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have been receptive to this argument, and have overturned various state laws seeking to give creation science equal time with the theory of evolution in public schools. See, for example, Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) and McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F.Supp. 1255 (1982); also Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 US 602 (1971).

Intelligent design

Main article: Intelligent design

The intelligent design (ID) movement denies natural selection as a probable mechanism for evolution. Instead, intelligent design advocates state that living organisms must have been designed by an intelligent agent. Intelligent design is often associated with claims of irreducible complexity, the assertion that certain biological structures are so complex that they could not have arisen naturally.

Macroevolution vs. microevolution

Main article: Creationism and macroevolution

Macroevolution is evolution above the level of a species, whereas microevolution is evolution below the level of a species. Creationists reject the possibility of macroevolution and usually accept the possibility of microevolution. Evolutionists accept both.

Thermodynamics

Some creationists have said that because the second law of thermodynamics prevents the universe from spontaneously ordering itself, life could not have spontaneously arisen. However, the second law of thermodynamics does allow entropy to diminish (i.e. order to grow) provided energy is contributed to the system; in the case of the Earth, energy has constantly been provided by the Sun for billions of years, so this perticular argument is disputable.

Rock strata

Rock strata are apparently out of order in some places. Creationists say that this contradicts the idea that the depth of a stratum indicates the age of the rock. Geologists say they expect the strata to be out of order in places. They are sometimes visibly folded or overthrust, with adjacent layers remaining adjacent in all but the border zones.

Creationists have also suggested that the existence of strata and fossils mean they were laid down catastrophically. This is the basis of flood geology. Paleontologists say that is highly improbable that fossils were laid out catastrophically, since fossils of different types occur only in specific strata, with almost no exceptions among billions of samples.

Inaccuracy of radiometric dating

Creationists say that calculating the date of crystallization of a rock from the concentration of a decay product, such as argon, will be unreliable because some of the decay product may have been in the melt from which the rock crystallized. Chemists say that when rocks are heated to the melting point, any argon contained in them is released into the atmosphere. When the rock recrystallizes, it becomes impermeable to gases again. As the potassium K-40 in the rock decays into argon A-40, the gas is trapped in the rock and accumulates until the time the chemist measures its concentration. [5]

Creationists say that radiocarbon dating makes assumptions about the conditions present in and around an object throughout history. Chemists say that the dating techniques have been confirmed extensively on artifacts from known times in history, and have shown a high degree of success.

Creationists claim that the speed of light may have changed over time, thus changing the speed of radioactive decay. While there is some recent, controversial evidence that the speed of light might have changed in the very early universe, physicists say that the possible change is too small to create the claimed effects.

Relativity and time measurement

The theory of relativity implies that the passage of time on Earth may have been different from the passage of time in the wider universe. Creationists state that while a few thousand years elapsed on earth, millions of years may have elapsed in the wider universe. Physicists say that for time to be warped on Earth enough to cause such an effect would cause a gravitational distortion large enough to destroy the planet.

Certain tenets of creationism are opposed to philosophical naturalism and materialism:

1. There was an origin of the universe for which the direct intervention of God was required.
2. The origin of life required the direct intervention of God.
3. Sentience, perception, self-awareness, and the capacities for knowledge and understanding, are not reducible to physical processes alone, but were granted to living and intelligent creatures by the direct intervention of God.
4. These capacities, and more basically life itself, are not possible to describe in terms of physics alone.

A general response to the modern creationism controversy has been articulated by creationist Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, who argues that the entire issue of biological origins has been framed in terms of naturalism, and that natural science per se is not identical with naturalism. According to him, the statement, “Science has nothing to say about whether or not there exists a supernatural realm,” is true and based on the fact that rigorous physical science is naturalistic, but the statement, “Science holds that there is no supernatural realm,” is false because it is beyond the scope of natural science to make such an assertion, but is instead a philosophical position. According to Johnson, this distinction opens the possibility of natural science and creationism being non-contradictory. However, such an assertion is problematic when trying to reconcile natural science with certain types of creationism that do make specific claims about the natural realm.