creationism or creation science, belief in the biblical account of the creation of the world as described in Genesis , a characteristic especially of fundamentalist Protestantism (see fundamentalism ). Advocates of creationism have campaigned to have it taught in U.S. public schools along with the theory of evolution , which they dispute. In 1981 a federal judge ruled unconstitutional an Arkansas law requiring the teaching of creationism, holding it to be religious in nature; a similar Louisiana law was overturned in 1982. In 1999, supporters of creationism in Kansas succeeded in removing the requirement that evolution be taught as part of the state's high school biology curriculum, but after several supporters of the measure were not reelected to the state school board that decision was reversed in 2001. Fundamentalist Christians have also opposed the teaching of scientific theories concerning the formation of the universe (see cosmology ). See also intelligent design .

Bibliography: See E. C. Scott, Evolution vs. Creationism (2004); M. Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (2005).

Creationism

In the broad sense, creationism is the belief that the universe and life were created by God. Within this definition are a broad range of beliefs. At one extreme are biblical literalists who believe that all life was created in its present form, including Adam and Eve as the first humans, as described in Genesis and with little or no evolutionary change since then (special creation). At the other end are creationists who have no quarrel with evolution and believe it is God's method of creating life (theistic evolution), the view accepted today by most Christian denominations.

In the United States, the creationism controversy began in earnest with the birth of Protestant fundamentalism in the 1910s. Fundamentalists, as they began calling themselves, argued for the literal truth of every word in the Bible, and thus rejected evolution and other philosophies of "modernism." They waged a campaign to outlaw the teaching of evolution and succeeded in getting five states to pass such laws from 1923 to 1929.

In Tennessee, this resulted in the famous Scopes trial of 1925, in which teacher John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution. His fine was overturned on a technicality, but the Tennessee statute remained in effect until the legislature repealed it in 1967, both to improve the image of the state and to head off a threatened lawsuit. A similar law that had passed in 1928 in Arkansas was challenged by biology teacher Susan Epperson in 1965. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1968, stating that these anti-evolution statutes violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits an entanglement of church and state. The last anti-evolution statute was repealed in 1969.

Creationists therefore changed their strategy. Briefly, they campaigned for laws to require "equal time for Genesis" if evolution was to be taught. Tennessee was the only state to pass such a law, in 1973, but it was overturned in court in 1975.

Failing at this tactic, creationists tried to have their views recognized as an alternative scientific theory and thus taught in the science curriculum. Many called their doctrine "scientific creationism," and founded such organizations as the Creation Research Society and Institute for Creation Research to promote their views. "Scientific creationists," as they called themselves, attacked the evidence for evolution, arguing over gaps in the fossil record, questioning the validity of radiometric dating, disputing the significance of human fossil remains, arguing that statistical probability or the laws of thermodynamics make evolution impossible, and claiming that geological features such as the Grand Canyon were evidence of Noah's flood, among many other lines of attack.

The scientific community never took the claims of creationists seriously but did publish numerous books to educate the public on why the claims were fallacious and why creationism was not a science. They founded organizations such as the National Center for Science Education and state Committees of Correspondence to counter the strategies of creationists in legislatures, school boards, and the media.

Despite their failure to convince many scientists of their views, creationists were more successful at the political level. Arkansas and Louisiana passed laws requiring the teaching of "creation science" in 1981. The Arkansas law was quickly struck down in a federal district court in 1982, whereas the Louisiana case dragged out until 1987, when the law was finally struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Both courts ruled that creationism had no reason to be part of a science curriculum; they recognized that these laws represented merely fundamentalist religion in disguise and were therefore in violation of the First Amendment. Creationists continue to press their case with some success, however, in local school boards, state boards of education, and textbook adoption committees. The result is often a watering down of the curriculum to include less (often much less) about evolution.

The eminent geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky declared, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Because of the political efforts of creationists, evolution remains widely censored in biology courses today, and countless students are being kept in the dark about the facts of evolution.

see also Darwin, Charles; Evolution; Evolution, Evidence for; Natural Selection

Kenneth S. Saladin

Bibliography

Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

National Center for Science Education. <http://www.natcenscied.org>.

Strahler, Arthur N. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987.

Creationism Creationism, or what since the 1960s has tended to call itself ‘Creation Science’, is historically a product of American fundamentalist religion. Though it rejects, or is guarded about, many of the chronologies of modern science, such as those used in cosmology, the particular thrust of its disagreement with the rest of contemporary science lies in its wholesale repudiation of Darwinian biology and the theory of evolution. Creationism considers the Creation narrative presented in the first books of Genesis in the Holy Bible to be a complete and adequate account of the origins of the natural world. And in particular, Creationists find the evolution of man from lower animal forms to be especially repugnant. To most Creationists, all life, and especially mankind, was created in the Garden of Eden in a single Divine act extending over six days, traditionally dated to 4004 bc: a date derived from the genealogies of descent from Adam and Eve found in various books of the Bible. Creationists generally argue that geological fossils are not of great antiquity, but are the preserved remnants of creatures that failed to get into Noah's Ark as described in Genesis, chapter 7.

Yet orthodox science, even when practised by ordained scientists, had come to question the literalist calculation of the 4004 bc date long before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. William Buckland in Oxford and Adam Sedgwick in Cambridge—who were professors of geology in their respective universities, and canons of English cathedrals—had come to accept by 1820 that, while Adam and Eve might have been created in 4004 bc, the universe, the globe, and the geological strata, rich as they were in extinct fossil forms, were immeasurably older. The Victorian geologists argued that the Bible never mentioned extinct forms because ichthyosauri and similar creatures did not possess immortal souls, and were not therefore of interest to the writer of Genesis, which is pre-eminently concerned with the spiritual history of mankind. Some twentieth-century Creationists, such as John William Dawson and George Frederick Wright, have however been willing to countenance variations on these ideas, in which an ancient and possibly cataclysmic Earth history pre-dated Adam and Eve.

Although the descent of the human race from lower forms, which Darwin had implied in his Origin and discussed explicitly in his Descent of Man (1871), undoubtedly challenged the historical and spiritual status of Adam and Eve, many devout scientists, such as Asa Grey of Harvard from the 1860s, were able to develop a reconciliation between the new sciences of geology and orthodox Christian theology. Evolution, after all, indicated an active God who had formed a universe of vastly greater wonder than that resulting from a single flat of creation.

It must further be remembered that Creationists refused to recognize not only much of late nineteenth-century science, but also the ‘higher criticism’ of Biblical texts developed by contemporary philologists and textual scholars, mainly in Germany. This new scholarship, while in no way denying the divine truth and inspiration behind the Bible, none the less acknowledged that the book itself was to some extent a human literary composition, containing textual contradictions along with mythological and allegorical components.

It was The Fundamentals, initiated by the preacher A. C. Dixon, a series of twelve booklets published in America between 1905 and 1915, which fired the first popular salvos against both higher criticism, Darwinism, and a non-literalist understanding of Genesis. The heartland of Creationist influence for most of the twentieth century was, and has remained, the staunchly Protestant American South, Mid-West, and West. Creationism is, moreover, very much of a product of a movement within Protestant Christianity which draws its spiritual authority not from apostolic or sacramental traditions within the historical church, but solely from the Bible as expounded by a preaching ministry. Consequently, anything which challenges the literal authority of Scripture strikes to the very heart of the faith. Roman Catholics and Orthodox, Anglican, and other Christian denominations which are not based wholly on a literal understanding of the Scriptures are therefore relatively untouched by Creationism.

Fundamentalism and Creationism also grew out of an American radical political tradition which aimed to change society by legislation: abolition of slavery, prohibition of alcohol, and, after 1919, against evolution. This tradition was exemplified in the notorious Scopes trial at Dayton, Tennessee, USA, in 1926, in which the radical fundamentalist politician and lawyer William Jennings Bryan used the force of law to attempt to prevent the teaching of evolution in state schools. Indeed, much of the Creationist controversy in America since 1919 has focused on attempts to control what was taught in public schools and colleges.

In spite of its strict Biblical base, Creationism has none the less never lacked diversity of opinion within its own ranks. In 1954, for instance, Bernard Ramm's The Christian View of Science and Scripture advocated a less rigid understanding of the Genesis creation narrative in which God had developed and perfected the pre-human globe over millions of years, only to provoke John C. Whitcombe's and Henry M. Morris's The Genesis Flood (1961), which reasserted the young Earth and the Biblical deluge as a primary geological agent.

In the early 1960s the Creation Research Society came into being, and figures like Whitcombe, Morris, Walter E. Lammerts, and Duane Gish attempted to develop a ‘creation science’, much of which was, and still is, aimed at discrediting evolution and demonstrating the historical reality of Noah's Flood.

Although now possessing considerable media resources, and always trying to assert its scientific credentials, Creationism remains culturally linked to American fundamentalism. Its theology is still overwhelmingly concerned with preserving the literal authority of Genesis, while its geology and biology cannot run where the evidence leads, but must always be capable of a precise reconciliation with the Bible. And although Creationism has tried to put down roots in Canada, Australasia, Great Britain, and other Protestant countries, it is rejected not only by modern scientists, but also by the generality of present-day Christians, to whom the literal accuracy of the ancient Genesis narrative is not necessarily an article of faith.

Allan Chapman

Bibliography

Rupke, N. A. (1983) The great chain of history: William Buckland and the English school of geology. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Larson, E. J. (1989) Trial and error: the American controversy over evolution and creation. Oxford University Press, New York.
Numbers, R. L. (1993) The Creationists. The evolution of scientific creationism. University of California Press, Berkeley.