Creation–evolution controversy
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Recurring cultural, political, and
theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
rejection of
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
by religious groups (sometimes termed the creation–evolution controversy, the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) exists regarding the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. In accordance with creationism, species were once widely believed to be fixed products of divine creation, but since the mid-19th century, evolution by
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
has been established by the
scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
as an empirical scientific fact. Any such debate is universally considered religious, not scientific, by professional scientific organizations worldwide: in the scientific community, evolution is accepted as fact, and efforts to sustain the traditional view are universally regarded as
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
. Whether ID Is Science, p. 83.: "Virtually no secular scientists accepted the doctrines of creation science; but that did not deter creation scientists from advancing scientific arguments for their position." While the controversy has a long history, today it has retreated to be mainly over what constitutes good
science education Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), som ...
, Context, p. 20. with the politics of creationism primarily focusing on the teaching of creationism in public education. Among majority-Christian countries, the debate is most prominent in the United States, where it may be portrayed as part of a
culture war A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal valu ...
. Parallel controversies also exist in some other religious communities, such as the more
fundamentalist Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishi ...
branches of
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...
and Islam. In Europe and elsewhere, creationism is less widespread (notably, the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...
both accept evolution), and there is much less pressure to teach it as fact.
Christian fundamentalists Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British an ...
repudiate the evidence of common descent of humans and other animals as demonstrated in modern
paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
,
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
,
histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vi ...
and
cladistics Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived cha ...
and those other sub-disciplines which are based upon the conclusions of modern
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes ( natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life ...
,
geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
,
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
, and other related fields. They argue for the Abrahamic accounts of creation, and, in order to attempt to gain a place alongside evolutionary biology in the science classroom, have developed a rhetorical framework of "
creation science Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without ove ...
". In the landmark '' Kitzmiller v. Dover'', the purported basis of scientific creationism was judged to be a wholly religious construct without scientific merit. The
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
holds no official position on creation or evolution (see
Evolution and the Catholic Church The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church. According to ...
). However,
Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
has stated: "God is not a
demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term ''demiurge'' ...
or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life...Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve." The rules of genetic inheritance were discovered by a
Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...
, the Augustinian monk
Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel, OSA (; cs, Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn (''Brno''), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was ...
, who is known today as the founder of modern
genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
.


History

The creation–evolution controversy began in Europe and North America in the late 18th century, when new interpretations of geological evidence led to various theories of an ancient Earth, and findings of extinctions demonstrated in the
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
geological sequence In geology, a sequence is a stratigraphic unit which is bounded by an unconformity at the top and at the bottom. Definition In a more rigorous and general way a sequence is defined as a "relatively conformable .. genetically related succession ...
prompted early ideas of evolution, notably
Lamarckism Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
. In England these ideas of continuing change were at first seen as a threat to the existing "fixed" social order, and both church and state sought to repress them. Conditions gradually eased, and in 1844 Robert Chambers's controversial '' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'' popularized the idea of gradual
transmutation of species Transmutation of species and transformism are unproven 18th and 19th-century evolutionary ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a term used ...
. The scientific establishment at first dismissed it scornfully and the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
reacted with fury, but many Unitarians,
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
and Baptists—groups opposed to the privileges of the established church—favoured its ideas of
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
acting through such natural laws.


Contemporary reaction to Darwin

The publication of Darwin's ''
On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' in 1859 brought scientific credibility to evolution, and made it a respectable field of study. Despite the intense interest in the religious implications of Darwin's book, theological controversy over higher criticism set out in '' Essays and Reviews'' (1860) largely diverted the Church of England's attention. Some of the liberal Christian authors of that work expressed support for Darwin, as did many Nonconformists. The Reverend Charles Kingsley, for instance, openly supported the idea of God working through evolution. Other Christians opposed the idea, and even some of Darwin's close friends and supporters—including Charles Lyell and Asa Gray—initially expressed reservations about some of his ideas. Gray later became a staunch supporter of Darwin in America, and collected together a number of his own writings to produce an influential book, '' Darwiniana'' (1876). These essays argued for a conciliation between Darwinian evolution and the tenets of theism, at a time when many on both sides perceived the two as mutually exclusive. Gray said that investigation of physical causes was not opposed to the theological view and the study of the harmonies between mind and Nature, and thought it "most presumable that an intellectual conception realized in Nature would be realized through natural agencies."
Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...
, who strongly promoted Darwin's ideas while campaigning to end the dominance of science by the
clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
, coined the term '' agnostic'' to describe his position that God's existence is unknowable. Darwin also took this position, but prominent
atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
including
Edward Aveling Edward Bibbins Aveling (29 November 1849 – 2 August 1898) was an English comparative anatomist and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism and socialism. He was also a playwright and actor. Aveling was the author of numer ...
and Ludwig Büchner also took up evolution and it was criticized, in the words of one reviewer, as "tantamount to atheism." Following the lead of figures such as St. George Jackson Mivart and John Augustine Zahm, Roman Catholics in the United States became accepting of evolution itself while ambivalent towards
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
and stressing humanity's divinely imbued
soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
. The Catholic Church never condemned evolution, and initially the more conservative-leaning Catholic leadership in Rome held back, but gradually adopted a similar position. During the late 19th century evolutionary ideas were most strongly disputed by the
premillennialists Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the Earth (the Second Coming) before the Millennium, a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. Premillennialism is based upon a literal interpretat ...
, who held to a prophecy of the imminent return of Christ based on a form of
Biblical literalism Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of literalism: "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense", where literal mea ...
, and were convinced that the Bible would be invalidated if any error in the Scriptures was conceded. However, hardly any of the critics of evolution at that time were as concerned about geology, freely granting scientists any time they needed before the Edenic creation to account for scientific observations, such as fossils and geological findings. In the immediate post-Darwinian era, few scientists or clerics rejected the antiquity of the earth or the progressive nature of the
fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
. Likewise, few attached geological significance to the Biblical flood, unlike subsequent creationists. Evolutionary skeptics, creationist leaders and skeptical scientists were usually either willing to adopt a figurative reading of the first chapter of the
Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...
, or allowed that the six days of creation were not necessarily 24-hour days. Science professors at liberal northeastern universities almost immediately embraced the theory of evolution and introduced it to their students. However, some people in parts of the south and west of the United States, which had been influenced by the preachings of Christian fundamentalist evangelicals, rejected the theory as immoral. In the United Kingdom, Evangelical creationists were in a tiny minority. The Victoria Institute was formed in 1865 in response to ''Essays and Reviews'' and Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species''. It was not officially opposed to evolution theory, but its main founder James Reddie objected to Darwin's work as "''inharmonious''" and "utterly ''incredible''", and
Philip Henry Gosse Philip Henry Gosse FRS (; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of ma ...
, author of '' Omphalos'', was a vice-president. The institute's membership increased to 1897, then declined sharply. In the 1920s George McCready Price attended and made several presentations of his creationist views, which found little support among the members. In 1927 John Ambrose Fleming was made president; while he insisted on creation of the soul, his acceptance of divinely guided development and of
Pre-Adamite The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-Adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-Adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Ada ...
humanity meant he was thought of as a theistic evolutionist.


Creationism in theology

At the beginning of the 19th century debate had started to develop over applying historical methods to Biblical criticism, suggesting a less literal account of the Bible. Simultaneously, the developing science of geology indicated the Earth was ancient, and religious thinkers sought to accommodate this by
day-age creationism Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but are much longer period ...
or
gap creationism Gap creationism (also known as ruin-restoration creationism, restoration creationism, or "the Gap Theory") is a form of old Earth creationism that posits that the six-'' yom'' creation period, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved six li ...
. Neptunianist catastrophism, which had in the 17th and 18th centuries proposed that a
universal flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these Mythology, myths and the ...
could explain all geological features, gave way to ideas of geological gradualism (introduced in 1795 by James Hutton) based upon the erosion and depositional cycle over millions of years, which gave a better explanation of the sedimentary column.
Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
and the discovery of
extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
(first described in the 1750s and put on a firm footing by Georges Cuvier in 1796) challenged ideas of a fixed immutable Aristotelian "
great chain of being The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. The great ...
." Natural theology had earlier expected that scientific findings based on empirical evidence would help religious understanding. Emerging differences led some to increasingly regard science and
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
as concerned with different, non-competitive domains. When most scientists came to accept evolution (by around 1875), European theologians generally came to accept evolution as an instrument of God. For instance,
Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...
(in office 1878–1903) referred to longstanding Christian thought that scriptural interpretations could be reevaluated in the light of new knowledge, and Roman Catholics came around to acceptance of human evolution subject to direct creation of the soul. In the United States the development of the racist Social Darwinian
eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
movement by certain circles led a number of Catholics to reject evolution. In this enterprise they received little aid from conservative Christians in Great Britain and Europe. In Britain this has been attributed to their minority status leading to a more tolerant, less militant theological tradition. This continues to the present. In his speech at the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Pontifical Academy of Sciences ( it, Pontificia accademia delle scienze, la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a Academy of sciences, scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the ...
in 2014,
Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
declared that he accepted the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution and that God was not "a magician with a magic wand".


Development of creationism in the United States

At first in the U.S., evangelical Christians paid little attention to the developments in geology and biology, being more concerned with the rise of European higher Biblical criticism which questioned the belief in the Bible as literal truth. Those criticizing these approaches took the name "fundamentalist"—originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the
Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and which had its roots in the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy of the 1920s and 1930s. The term in a religious context generally indicates unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs. Up until the early mid-20th century, mainline Christian denominations within the United States showed little official resistance to evolution. Around the start of the 20th century some evangelical scholars had ideas accommodating evolution, such as
B. B. Warfield Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (November 5, 1851 – February 16, 1921) was professor of theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. He served as the last principal of the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1886 to 1902. After the death o ...
who saw it as a natural law expressing God's will. By then most U.S. high-school and college biology classes taught scientific evolution, but several factors, including the rise of Christian fundamentalism and social factors of changes and insecurity in more traditionalist
Bible Belt The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States in which socially conservative Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society and politics, and church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's a ...
communities, led to a backlash. The numbers of children receiving secondary education increased rapidly, and parents who had fundamentalist tendencies or who opposed social ideas of what was called " survival of the fittest" had real concerns about what their children were learning about evolution.


British creationism

The main British creationist movement in this period, the
Evolution Protest Movement The Creation Science Movement (CSM, founded in 1932 as the Evolution Protest Movement) is a British Creationist organisation which lays claim to the title "the oldest creationist movement in the world". It was a member of the Evangelical Alliance u ...
(EPM), formed in the 1930s out of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain (founded in 1865 in response to the publication of Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species'' in 1859 and of ''Essays and Reviews'' in 1860). The Victoria Institute had the stated objective of defending "the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture ... against the opposition of Science falsely so called". Although it did not officially oppose evolution, it attracted a number of scientists skeptical of Darwinism, including
John William Dawson Sir John William Dawson (1820–1899) was a Canadian geologist and university administrator. Life and work John William Dawson was born on 13 October 1820 in Pictou, Nova Scotia, where he attended and graduated from Pictou Academy. Of Scotti ...
and
Arnold Guyot Arnold Henry Guyot ( ) (September 28, 1807February 8, 1884) was a Swiss-American geologist and geographer. Early life Guyot was born on September 28, 1807, at Boudevilliers, near Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He was educated at Chaux-de-Fonds, then ...
. It reached a high point of 1,246 members in 1897, but quickly plummeted to less than one third of that figure in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Although it opposed evolution at first, the institute joined the theistic evolution camp by the 1920s, which led to the development of the Evolution Protest Movement in reaction. Amateur ornithologist Douglas Dewar, the main driving-force within the EPM, published a booklet entitled ''Man: A Special Creation'' (1936) and engaged in public speaking and debates with supporters of evolution. In the late 1930s he resisted American creationists' call for acceptance of flood geology, which later led to conflict within the organization. Despite trying to win the public endorsement of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), the most prominent
Christian apologist Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
of his day, by the mid-1950s the EPM came under control of schoolmaster/pastor Albert G. Tilney, whose dogmatic and authoritarian style ran the organization "as a one-man band", rejecting flood geology, unwaveringly promoting gap creationism, and reducing the membership to lethargic inactivity. It was renamed the Creation Science Movement (CSM) in 1980, under the chairmanship of David Rosevear, who holds a
Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in organometallic chemistry from the
University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...
. By the mid-1980s the CSM had formally incorporated flood geology into its "Deed of Trust" (which all officers had to sign) and condemned gap creationism and day-age creationism as unscriptural.


United States legal challenges and their consequences

In 1925
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
passed a statute, the
Butler Act The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of mankind's origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of man from what it referred to as lower orders of animals ...
, which prohibited the teaching of the theory of evolution in all schools in the state. Later that year
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
passed a similar law, as did
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
in 1927. In 1968 the Supreme Court of the United States struck down these "anti-monkey" laws as unconstitutional, "because they established a religious doctrine violating both the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution." In more recent times religious fundamentalists who accept creationism have struggled to get their rejection of evolution accepted as legitimate science within education institutions in the U.S. A series of important court cases have resulted.


Butler Act and the Scopes monkey trial (1925)

After 1918, in the aftermath of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy had brought a surge of opposition to the idea of evolution, and following the campaigning of
William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President ...
several states introduced legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. By 1925, such legislation was being considered in 15 states, and had passed in some states, such as Tennessee. The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
offered to defend anyone who wanted to bring a
test case In software engineering, a test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise ...
against one of these laws.
John T. Scopes John Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970) was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925, with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee schools. He was trie ...
accepted, and confessed to teaching his Tennessee class evolution in defiance of the Butler Act, using the
textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
by George William Hunter: '' A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems'' (1914). The trial, widely publicized by
H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
among others, is commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial. The court convicted Scopes, but the widespread publicity galvanized proponents of evolution. Following an appeal of the case to the
Tennessee Supreme Court The Tennessee Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial tribunal of the state of Tennessee. Roger A. Page is the Chief Justice. Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state leg ...
, the Court overturned the decision on a technicality (the judge had assessed the minimum $100 fine instead of allowing the jury to assess the fine). Although it overturned the conviction, the Court decided that the Butler Act was not in violation of the Religious Preference provisions of the Tennessee Constitution (Section 3 of Article 1), which stated "that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship". The Court, applying that state constitutional language, held: The interpretation of the
Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text ...
of the United States Constitution up to that time held that the government could not establish a particular religion as the ''State'' religion. The Tennessee Supreme Court's decision held in effect that the Butler Act was constitutional under the state Constitution's Religious Preference Clause, because the Act did not establish one religion as the "State religion". As a result of the holding, the teaching of evolution remained illegal in Tennessee, and continued campaigning succeeded in removing evolution from school textbooks throughout the United States. Context, p. 19.


''Epperson v. Arkansas'' (1968)

In 1968 the United States Supreme Court invalidated a forty-year-old Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the public schools. A
Little Rock, Arkansas ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...
, high-school-biology teacher, Susan Epperson, filed suit, charging that the law violated the federal constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion as set forth in the Establishment Clause. The Little Rock Ministerial Association supported Epperson's challenge, declaring, "to use the Bible to support an irrational and an archaic concept of static and undeveloping creation is not only to misunderstand the meaning of the Book of Genesis, but to do God and religion a disservice by making both enemies of scientific advancement and academic freedom". The Court held that the United States Constitution prohibits a state from requiring, in the words of the majority opinion, "that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma". But the Supreme Court decision also suggested that creationism could be taught in addition to evolution.


''Daniel v. Waters'' (1975)

''Daniel v. Waters'' was a 1975 legal case in which the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...
struck down Tennessee's law regarding the teaching of "equal time" of evolution and creationism in public-school science classes because it violated the Establishment Clause. Following this ruling, creationism was stripped of overt biblical references and rebranded "Creation Science", and several states passed legislative acts requiring that this be given equal time with the teaching of evolution.


Creation science

As
biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
s grew more and more confident in evolution as the central defining principle of biology, American membership in churches favoring increasingly literal interpretations of scripture also rose, with the Southern Baptist Convention and Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod outpacing all other denominations. With growth and increased finances, these churches became better equipped to promulgate a creationist message, with their own colleges, schools, publishing houses, and broadcast media. In 1961 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing released the first major modern creationist book: John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris' influential '' The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications''. The authors argued that creation was literally 6 days long, that humans lived concurrently with dinosaurs, and that God created each "kind" of life individually. On the strength of this, Morris became a popular speaker, spreading anti-evolutionary ideas at fundamentalist churches, colleges, and conferences. Morris' Creation Science Research Center (CSRC) rushed publication of biology textbooks that promoted creationism. Ultimately, the CSRC broke up over a divide between sensationalism and a more intellectual approach, and Morris founded the
Institute for Creation Research The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas, that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical ev ...
, which was promised to be controlled and operated by scientists. During this time, Morris and others who supported flood geology adopted the terms "scientific creationism" and "creation science". The "flood geology" theory effectively co-opted "the generic creationist label for their hyperliteralist views."


Court cases


=''McLean v. Arkansas''

= In 1982, another case in Arkansas ruled that the Arkansas "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act" (Act 590) was unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause. Much of the transcript of the case was lost, including evidence from Francisco Ayala.


=''Edwards v. Aguillard''

= In the early 1980s, the
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
legislature passed a law titled the "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act". The act did not require teaching either evolution or creationism as such, but did require that when evolutionary science was taught, creation science had to be taught as well. Creationists had lobbied aggressively for the law, arguing that the act was about academic freedom for teachers, an argument adopted by the state in support of the act. Lower courts ruled that the State's actual purpose was to promote the religious doctrine of creation science, but the State appealed to the Supreme Court. In the similar case of ''McLean v. Arkansas'' (see above) the federal trial court had also decided against creationism. ''Mclean v. Arkansas'' was not appealed to the federal Circuit Court of Appeals, creationists instead thinking that they had better chances with ''Edwards v. Aguillard''. In 1987 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana act was also unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. At the same time, it stated its opinion that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction", leaving open the door for a handful of proponents of creation science to evolve their arguments into the iteration of creationism that later came to be known as
intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...
. Introduction, pp. 7–9.


Intelligent design

In response to '' Edwards v. Aguillard'', the neo-creationist
intelligent design movement The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the pseudoscientific Article available froUniversiteit Gent/ref> idea of intelligent design (ID), which ...
was formed around the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. It makes the claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It has been viewed as a "scientific" approach to creationism by creationists, but is widely rejected as
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
by the science community—primarily because intelligent design cannot be tested and rejected like scientific hypotheses (see for example, List of scientific bodies explicitly rejecting intelligent design).


Kansas evolution hearings

In the push by intelligent design advocates to introduce intelligent design in public school science classrooms, the hub of the intelligent design movement, the Discovery Institute, arranged to conduct hearings to review the evidence for evolution in the light of its
Critical Analysis of Evolution The Discovery Institute has conducted a series of related public relations campaigns which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism." The Discovery Institute prom ...
lesson plans. The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in
Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central U ...
, May 5 to May 12, 2005. The
Kansas State Board of Education Kansas State Department Board of Education (KSDE) is Kansas's Board of Education, headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, Topeka.Welcome to KS ...
eventually adopted the institute's Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans over objections of the State Board Science Hearing Committee, and electioneering on behalf of conservative Republican Party candidates for the Board. On August 1, 2006, four of the six conservative Republicans who approved the Critical Analysis of Evolution classroom standards lost their seats in a primary election. The moderate Republican and Democrats gaining seats vowed to overturn the 2005 school science standards and adopt those recommended by a State Board Science Hearing Committee that were rejected by the previous board, and on February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005. The definition of science was once again limited to "the search for natural explanations for what is observed in the universe."


Dover trial

Following the '' Edwards v. Aguillard'' decision by the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court held that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools whenever evolution was taught was unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion, creationists renewed their efforts to introduce creationism into public school science classes. This effort resulted in intelligent design, which sought to avoid legal prohibitions by leaving the source of creation to an unnamed and undefined intelligent designer, as opposed to God. This ultimately resulted in the "Dover Trial," ''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', which went to trial on 26 September 2005 and was decided on 20 December 2005 in favor of the plaintiffs, who charged that a mandate that intelligent design be taught in public school science classrooms was an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The ''Kitzmiller v. Dover'' decision held that intelligent design was not a subject of legitimate scientific research, and that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and hence religious, antecedents." Curriculum, Conclusion, p. 136. The December 2005 ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial supported the viewpoint of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and other science and education professional organizations who say that proponents of Teach the Controversy seek to undermine the teaching of evolution Disclaimer, p. 49: "In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forgo scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere." while promoting intelligent design, and to advance an education policy for U.S. public schools that introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula. Whether ID Is Science, p. 89, support the view that "ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the ''controversy'', but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." Curriculum, Conclusion, p. 134.


Texas Board of Education support for intelligent design

On March 27, 2009, the Texas Board of Education, by a vote of 13 to 2, voted that at least in Texas, textbooks must teach intelligent design alongside evolution, and question the validity of the fossil record. Don McLeroy, a dentist and chair of the board, said, "I think the new standards are wonderful ... dogmatism about evolution as sappedAmerica's scientific soul." According to ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
'' magazine, "Because Texas is the second-largest textbook market in the United States, publishers have a strong incentive to be certified by the board as 'conforming 100% to the state's standards'." The 2009 Texas Board of Education hearings were chronicled in the 2012 documentary '' The Revisionaries''.


Recent developments

The scientific consensus on the origins and evolution of life continues to be challenged by creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold some form of creationism (usually Young Earth creationism, creation science,
Old Earth creationism Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolutionism. Broadly ...
or intelligent design) as an alternative. Most of these groups are literalist Christians who believe the biblical account is inerrant, and more than one sees the debate as part of the Christian mandate to
evangelize In Christianity, evangelism (or witnessing) is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are in ...
. Some groups see science and religion as being diametrically opposed views that cannot be reconciled. More accommodating viewpoints, held by many mainstream churches and many scientists, consider science and religion to be separate categories of thought ( non-overlapping magisteria), which ask fundamentally different questions about reality and posit different avenues for investigating it. This idea has received criticism from both the non-religious, like the zoologist, evolutionary biologist and religion critic Richard Dawkins, and fundamentalists, who see the idea as both underestimating the ability of methodological naturalism to result in moral conclusions and ignorant or downplaying of the fact claims of religions and scriptures. Studies on the religious beliefs of scientists does support the evidence of a rift between traditional literal fundamentalist religion and experimental science. Three studies of scientific attitudes since 1904 have shown that over 80% of scientists do not believe in a traditional god or the traditional belief in immortality, with disbelief stronger amongst biological scientists than physical scientists. Amongst those not registering such attitudes a high percentage indicated a preference for adhering to a belief concerning mystery than any dogmatic or faith based view. But only 10% of scientists stated that they saw a fundamental clash between science and religion. This study of trends over time suggests that the ''"
culture wars A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal value ...
"'' between creationism and evolution, are held more strongly by religious literalists than by scientists themselves and are likely to continue, fostering anti-scientific or pseudoscientific attitudes amongst fundamentalist believers. More recently, the intelligent design movement has attempted an anti-evolution position that avoids any direct appeal to religion. Scientists have argued that intelligent design is pseudoscience and does not represent any research program within the mainstream scientific community, and is still essentially creationism. Its leading proponent, the Discovery Institute, made widely publicized claims that it was a new science, although the only paper arguing for it published in a scientific journal was accepted in questionable circumstances and quickly disavowed in the Sternberg peer review controversy, with the Biological Society of Washington stating that it did not meet the journal's scientific standards, was a "significant departure" from the journal's normal subject area and was published at the former editor's sole discretion, "contrary to typical editorial practices." On August 1, 2005, U.S. president George W. Bush commented endorsing the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about."


Viewpoints

In the controversy a number of divergent opinions have crystallized regarding both the acceptance of scientific theories and religious doctrine and practice.


Young-Earth creationism

Young-Earth creationism (YEC) involves the religiously-based belief that God created the Earth within the last 10,000 years, literally as described in Genesis, within the approximate timeframe of biblical genealogies (detailed - for example - in the
Ussher chronology The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Old Testament by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. The chronology is sometimes associated ...
). Young-Earth creationists often believe that the
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...
has a similar age to that of the Earth. Creationist cosmologies result from attempts by some creationists to assign the universe an age consistent with the Ussher chronology and other Young-Earth timeframes based on the genealogies. This belief generally has a basis in
biblical literalism Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of literalism: "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense", where literal mea ...
and completely rejects the scientific methodology of evolutionary biology.
Creation science Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without ove ...
is agreed by the scientific community to be a
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
that attempts to prove that Young Earth creationism is consistent with science.


Old-Earth creationism

Old-Earth creationism holds that God created the physical universe, but that one should not take the creation event of Genesis within 6 days strictly literally. This group generally accepts the
age of the Universe In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang. Astronomers have derived two different measurements of the age of the universe: a measurement based on direct observations of an early state of the universe, ...
and the age of the Earth as described by
astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...
s and
geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
s, but regards details of the
evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
as questionable. Old-Earth creationists interpret the Genesis creation-narrative in a number of ways, each differing from the six, consecutive, 24-hour day creation of the Young-Earth creationist view.


Neo-creationism and "intelligent design"

Neo-creationists intentionally distance themselves from other forms of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from creationism as a philosophy. They wish to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture, and to bring the debate before the public. Neo-creationists may be either Young Earth or Old Earth creationists, and hold a range of underlying theological viewpoints (e.g. on the interpretation of the Bible). , neo-creationism underlies the intelligent-design movement, which has a "big tent" strategy making it inclusive of many Young-Earth creationists (such as Paul Nelson and Percival Davis) and some sympathetic Old-Earth creationists.


Theistic evolution

Theistic evolution takes the general view that, instead of faith being in opposition to biological evolution, some or all classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of modern scientific theory, including, specifically, evolution. It generally views evolution as a tool used by a creator god, who is both the first cause and immanent sustainer/upholder of the universe; it is therefore well-accepted by people of strong
theistic Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred t ...
(as opposed to deistic) convictions. Theistic evolution can synthesize with the day-age interpretation of the Genesis creation myth; most adherents consider that the first chapters of Genesis should not be interpreted as a "literal" description, but rather as a literary framework or allegory. This position generally accepts the viewpoint of methodological naturalism, a long-standing convention of the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...
in science. Many mainline/liberal denominations have long accepted evolution, and it is increasingly finding acceptance among evangelical Christians, who strive to keep traditional Christian theology intact. Theistic evolutionists have frequently been prominent in opposing creationism (including intelligent design). Notable examples have included biologist Kenneth R. Miller and theologian John F. Haught, who testified for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in 2005. Another example is the Clergy Letter Project, which has compiled and maintains statements - signed by American Christian and non-Christian clergy of different denominations - rejecting creationism, with specific reference to points raised by intelligent-design proponents. Theistic evolutionists have also been active in Citizens Alliances for Science that oppose the introduction of creationism into public-school science classes (one example being evangelical Christian geologist Keith B. Miller, who is a prominent board member of Kansas Citizens for Science).


Agnostic evolution

Agnostic evolution is the position of acceptance of biological evolution, combined with the belief that it is not important whether God is, was, or will have been involved.


Materialistic evolution

Materialistic evolution is the acceptance of biological evolution, combined with the position that if the supernatural exists, it has little to no influence on the material world (a position common to philosophical naturalists, humanists and
atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
). The New Atheists champion this view; they argue strongly that the creationist viewpoint is not only dangerous, but is completely rejected by science.


Arguments relating to the definition and limits of science

Critiques such as those based on the distinction between theory and fact are often leveled against unifying concepts within scientific disciplines. Principles such as
uniformitarianism Uniformitarianism, also known as the Doctrine of Uniformity or the Uniformitarian Principle, is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in ...
, Occam's razor or parsimony, and the Copernican principle are claimed to be the result of a
bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...
within science toward
philosophical naturalism In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a m ...
, which is equated by many creationists with atheism. In countering this claim,
philosophers of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
use the term methodological naturalism to refer to the long-standing convention in science of the scientific method. The
methodological In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
assumption is that
observable In physics, an observable is a physical quantity that can be measured. Examples include position and momentum. In systems governed by classical mechanics, it is a real-valued "function" on the set of all possible system states. In quantum phy ...
events in
nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
are explained only by natural causes, without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural, and therefore supernatural explanations for such events are outside the realm of science. Creationists claim that supernatural explanations should not be excluded and that scientific work is paradigmatically close-minded. Because modern science tries to rely on the minimization of '' a priori'' assumptions, error, and subjectivity, as well as on avoidance of Baconian idols, it remains neutral on subjects such as
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
or
morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
. Mainstream proponents accuse the creationists of conflating the two in a form of
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
.


Theory vs. fact

The argument that evolution is a
theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...
, not a fact, has often been made against the exclusive teaching of evolution. The argument is related to a common misconception about the technical meaning of "theory" that is used by scientists. In common usage, "theory" often refers to conjectures, hypotheses, and unproven assumptions. In science, "theory" usually means "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." NAS 1999
p. 2
/ref> For comparison, the National Academy of Sciences defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true'." It notes, however, that "truth in science ... is never final, and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow." Exploring this issue,
paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Stephen Jay Gould wrote: Marston has argued that, although the creationism argument (that because evolution is "merely" a theory, it therefore cannot also be a fact) reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts, the scientific countering of the creationist position by the simple stipulation that evolution is a fact may be counterproductive; a better approach, according to Marston, is for scientists to present evolution not as a stipulated fact but as the "best explanation" for the development of life on earth. This approach, Marston argues, is less likely to end discussion of the topic and is more readily and effectively defended, in part by reducing the burden of proof standards required for assertions of "fact" and by shifting the burden of proof to those who claim that creationism is a better explanation.


Falsifiability

Philosopher of science A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
Karl R. Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...
set out the concept of
falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a s ...
as a way to distinguish science and pseudoscience: testable theories are scientific, but those that are untestable are not. In ''Unended Quest'', Popper declared "I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a ''metaphysical research programme'', a possible framework for testable scientific theories," while pointing out it had "scientific character." In what one sociologist derisively called "Popper-chopping," opponents of evolution seized upon Popper's definition to claim evolution was not a science, and claimed creationism was an equally valid metaphysical research program. For example,
Duane Gish Duane Tolbert Gish (February 17, 1921 – March 5, 2013) was an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement. A young Earth creationist, Gish was a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR ...
, a leading Creationist proponent, wrote in a letter to '' Discover'' magazine (July 1981): "Stephen Jay Gould states that creationists claim creation is a scientific theory. This is a false accusation. Creationists have repeatedly stated that neither creation nor evolution is a scientific theory (and each is equally religious)." Popper responded to news that his conclusions were being used by anti-evolutionary forces by affirming that evolutionary theories regarding the origins of life on earth were
scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
because "their hypotheses can in many cases be ''tested''." Creationists claimed that a key evolutionary concept, that all life on Earth is descended from a single common ancestor, was not mentioned as testable by Popper, and claimed it never would be. In fact, Popper wrote admiringly of the value of Darwin's theory. Only a few years later, Popper wrote, "I have in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological' ... I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation." His conclusion, later in the article is "The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true." Debate among some scientists and philosophers of science on the applicability of falsifiability in science continues. Simple falsifiability tests for common descent have been offered by some scientists: for instance, biologist and prominent critic of creationism Richard Dawkins and J. B. S. Haldane both pointed out that if fossil rabbits were found in the Precambrian era, a time before most similarly complex lifeforms had evolved, "that would completely blow evolution out of the water." Falsifiability has caused problems for creationists: in his 1982 decision '' McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education'', Judge William R. Overton used falsifiability as one basis for his ruling against the teaching of creation science in the public schools, ultimately declaring it "simply not science."


Conflation of science and religion

Creationists commonly argue against evolution on the grounds that "evolution is a religion; it is not a science," in order to undermine the higher ground biologists claim in debating creationists, and to reframe the debate from being between science (evolution) and religion (creationism) to being between two equally religious beliefs—or even to argue that evolution is religious while intelligent design is not. Those that oppose evolution frequently refer to those who accept evolution as "
evolutionists Evolutionism is a term used (often derogatorily) to denote the theory of evolution. Its exact meaning has changed over time as the study of evolution has progressed. In the 19th century, it was used to describe the belief that organisms deliberate ...
" or " Darwinists." This is generally argued by analogy, by arguing that evolution and religion have one or more things in common, and that therefore evolution is a religion. Examples of claims made in such arguments are statements that evolution is based on
faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people ofte ...
, that supporters of evolution revere Darwin as a prophet and
dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Isla ...
tically reject alternative suggestions out-of-hand. These claims have become more popular in recent years as the neocreationist movement has sought to distance itself from religion, thus giving it more reason to make use of a seemingly anti-religious analogy. In biology, no scientist's claims, including Darwin's, are treated as sacrosanct, as shown by the aspects of Darwin's theory that have been rejected or revised by scientists over the years, to form first
neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Dar ...
and later the modern evolutionary synthesis.


Appeal to consequences

A number of creationists have blurred the boundaries between their disputes over the truth of the underlying facts, and explanatory theories, of evolution, with their purported philosophical and moral consequences. This type of argument is known as an
appeal to consequences Appeal to consequences, also known as ''argumentum ad consequentiam'' ( Latin for "argument to the consequence"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to des ...
, and is a
logical fallacy In philosophy, a formal fallacy, deductive fallacy, logical fallacy or non sequitur (; Latin for " tdoes not follow") is a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in its logical structure that can neatly be expressed in a standard logic syst ...
. Examples of these arguments include those of prominent creationists such as
Ken Ham Kenneth Alfred Ham (born 20 October 1951) is an Australian Christian fundamentalist, young Earth creationist and apologist, living in the United States. He is the founder, CEO, and former president of Answers in Genesis (AiG), a Christian apolo ...
and Henry M. Morris.


Disputes relating to science

Many creationists strongly oppose certain scientific theories in a number of ways, including opposition to specific applications of scientific processes, accusations of bias within the scientific community, and claims that discussions within the scientific community reveal or imply a crisis. In response to perceived crises in modern science, creationists claim to have an alternative, typically based on faith, creation science, or intelligent design. The scientific community has responded by pointing out that their conversations are frequently misrepresented (e.g. by
quote mining Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Contextomies may be either intentional o ...
) in order to create the impression of a deeper controversy or crisis, and that the creationists' alternatives are generally pseudoscientific.


Biology

Disputes relating to evolutionary biology are central to the controversy between creationists and the scientific community. The aspects of evolutionary biology disputed include common descent (and particularly human evolution from common ancestors with other members of the
great apes The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
),
macroevolution Macroevolution usually means the evolution of large-scale structures and traits that go significantly beyond the intraspecific variation found in microevolution (including speciation). In other words, macroevolution is the evolution of taxa abov ...
, and the existence of
transitional fossil A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross a ...
s.


Common descent

A group of
organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and ...
s is said to have common descent if they have a common ancestor. A theory of universal common descent based on evolutionary principles was proposed by Charles Darwin and is now generally accepted by biologists. The most recent common ancestor of all living organisms is believed to have appeared about 3.9 billion years ago. With a few exceptions (e.g.
Michael Behe Michael Joseph Behe ( ; born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist and author, widely known as an advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (ID). He serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsy ...
) the vast majority of creationists rejected this theory in favor of the belief that a common design suggests a common designer (God). Many of these same creationists through the beginning of the 21st century also held that modern species were perpetually fixed from creation. However, now a large amount of creationists allow evolution of species, in the face of undeniable evidence for speciation. They contend, however, that it was specific "kinds" or baramin that were created initially, from which all present-day species arose. Thus all bear species may have developed from a common ancestor that was separately created to establish a bear-like baramin, by this type of creationism. This type of creationism often acknowledges the existence of evolutionary processes but denies that they demonstrate common ancestry or that evolutionary processes would have produced the diversity of contemporary life. Evidence of common descent includes evidence from genetics, fossil records, comparative anatomy, geographical distribution of species, comparative physiology and comparative biochemistry.


=Human evolution

= Human evolution is the study of the biological evolution of humans as a distinct
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
from its common ancestors with other animals. Analysis of fossil evidence and
genetic distance Genetic distance is a measure of the genetic divergence between species or between populations within a species, whether the distance measures time from common ancestor or degree of differentiation. Populations with many similar alleles have s ...
are two of the means by which scientists understand this evolutionary history. Fossil evidence suggests that humans' earliest hominid ancestors may have split from other primates as early as the late Oligocene, circa 26 to 24 Ma, and that by the early
Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
, the adaptive radiation of many different hominoid forms was well underway. Evidence from the molecular dating of genetic differences indicates that the gibbon lineage (family Hylobatidae) diverged between 18 and 12 Ma, and the
orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genu ...
lineage (subfamily
Ponginae Ponginae , also known as the Asian hominids, is a subfamily in the family Hominidae. Once a diverse lineage of Eurasian apes, the subfamily has only one extant genus, '' Pongo'' (orangutans), which contains three extant species; the Sumatran oran ...
) diverged about 12 Ma. While there is no fossil evidence thus far clearly documenting the early ancestry of gibbons, fossil proto-orangutans may be represented by ''
Sivapithecus ''Sivapithecus'' () (syn: ''Ramapithecus)'' is a genus of extinct apes. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills of the I ...
'' from India and '' Griphopithecus'' from
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, dated to around 10 Ma. Molecular evidence further suggests that between 8 and 4 Ma, first the
gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...
s, and then the chimpanzee (genus ''Pan'') split from the line leading to the humans. We have no fossil record of this divergence, but distinctively hominid fossils have been found dating to 3.2 Ma (see
Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Lu ...
) and possibly even earlier, at 6 or 7 Ma (see Toumaï). Comparisons of DNA show that 99.4 percent of the coding regions are identical in chimpanzees and humans (95–96% overall), which is taken as strong evidence of recent common ancestry. * Today, only one distinct human species survives, but many earlier species have been found in the fossil record, including '' Homo erectus'', '' Homo habilis'', and ''
Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
''. Creationists dispute there is evidence of shared ancestry in the fossil evidence, and argue either that these are misassigned
ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...
fossils (e.g. that Java Man was a gibbon) or too similar to modern humans to designate them as distinct or transitional forms. Creationists frequently disagree where the dividing lines would be. Creation myths (such as the Book of Genesis) frequently posit a first man ( Adam, in the case of Genesis), which has been advocated by creationists as underlying an alternative viewpoint to the scientific account. All these claims and objections are subsequently refuted. Creationists also dispute the scientific community's interpretation of genetic evidence in the study of human evolution. They argue that it is a "dubious assumption" that genetic similarities between various animals imply a common ancestral relationship, and that scientists are coming to this interpretation only because they have preconceived notions that such shared relationships exist. Creationists also argue that genetic mutations are strong evidence against evolutionary theory because, they assert, the mutations required for major changes to occur would almost certainly be detrimental. However, most mutations are
neutral Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...
, and the minority of mutations which are beneficial or harmful are often situational; a mutation that is harmful in one environment may be helpful in another.


Macroevolution

In biology, macroevolution refers to evolution at and above the species level, including most of fossil history and much of systematics. Microevolution refers to the process in evolution within populations, including adaptive and neutral evolution. However, there is no fundamental distinction between these processes; small changes compound over time and eventually lead to speciation. Creationists argue that a finite number of discrete ''kinds'' were created, as described in the Book of Genesis, and these kinds determine the limits of variation. Early Creationists equated kinds with species, but most now accept that speciation can occur: not only is the evidence overwhelming for speciation, but the millions of species now in existence could not have fit in Noah's Ark, as depicted in Genesis. ''Created kinds'' identified by creationists are more generally on the level of the
family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
(for example, Canidae), but the genus ''
Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus '' Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relat ...
'' is a separate kind. A Creationist systematics called Baraminology builds on the idea of created kind, calling it a ''baramin''. While evolutionary systematics is used to explore relationships between organisms by descent, baraminology attempts to find discontinuities between groups of organisms. It employs many of the tools of evolutionary systematics, but Biblical criteria for taxonomy take precedence over all other criteria. This undermines their claim to objectivity: they accept evidence for the common ancestry of cats or dogs but not analogous evidence for the common ancestry of apes and humans. Recent arguments against macroevolution (in the Creationist sense) include the intelligent design (ID) arguments of
irreducible complexity Irreducible complexity (IC) is the argument that certain biological systems with multiple interacting parts would not function if one of the parts was removed, so supposedly could not have evolved by successive small modifications from earlier l ...
and specified complexity. Neither argument has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and both arguments have been rejected by the scientific community as pseudoscience. When taken to court in an attempt to introduce ID into the classroom, the judge wrote "The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."


Transitional fossils

It is commonly stated by critics of evolution that there are no known transitional fossils. This position is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of what represents a transitional feature. A common creationist argument is that no fossils are found with partially functional features. It is plausible that a complex feature with one function can adapt a different function through evolution. The precursor to, for example, a wing, might originally have only been used for gliding, trapping flying prey, or mating display. Today, wings can still have all of these functions, but they are also used in active flight. As another example, Alan Hayward stated in ''Creation and Evolution'' (1985) that "Darwinists rarely mention the whale because it presents them with one of their most insoluble problems. They believe that somehow a whale must have evolved from an ordinary land-dwelling animal, which took to the sea and lost its legs ... A land mammal that was in the process of becoming a whale would fall between two stools—it would not be fitted for life on land or at sea, and would have no hope for survival." The evolution of whales has been documented in considerable detail, with ''
Ambulocetus ''Ambulocetus'' (Latin ''ambulare'' "to walk" + ''cetus'' "whale") is a genus of early amphibious cetacean from the Kuldana Formation in Pakistan, roughly 48 or 47 million years ago during the Early Eocene (Lutetian). It contains one species, ' ...
'', described as looking like a three-metre long mammalian crocodile, as one of the transitional fossils. The hippopotamus, the whale's closest living ancestor, exemplifies how an animal might be well-suited for both land and water. Although transitional fossils elucidate the evolutionary transition of one life-form to another, they only exemplify snapshots of this process. Due to the special circumstances required for preservation of living beings, only a very small percentage of all life-forms that ever have existed can be expected to be discovered. Thus, the transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, but it will never be known in detail. Progressing research and discovery managed to fill in several gaps and continues to do so. Critics of evolution often cite this argument as being a convenient way to explain off the lack of 'snapshot' fossils that show crucial steps between species. The theory of punctuated equilibrium developed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge is often mistakenly drawn into the discussion of transitional fossils. This theory pertains only to well-documented transitions within taxa or between closely related taxa over a geologically short period. These transitions, usually traceable in the same geological outcrop, often show small jumps in morphology between periods of morphological stability. To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of rapid evolution. For example, the change from a creature the size of a mouse, to one the size of an elephant, could be accomplished over 60,000 years, with a rate of change too small to be noticed over any human lifetime. 60,000 years is too small a gap to be identified or identifiable in the fossil record. Experts in evolutionary theory have pointed out that even if it were possible for enough fossils to survive to show a close transitional change critics will never be satisfied, as the discovery of one "missing link" itself creates two more so-called "missing links" on either side of the discovery. Richard Dawkins says that the reason for this "losing battle" is that many of these critics are theists who "simply don't want to see the truth."


Geology

Many believers in Young Earth creationism—a position held by the majority of proponents of 'flood geology'—accept biblical ''chronogenealogies'' (such as the Ussher chronology, which in turn is based on the Masoretic version of the
Genealogies of Genesis The genealogies of Genesis provide the framework around which the Book of Genesis is structured. Beginning with Adam, genealogical material in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 22, 25, 29–30, 35–36, and 46 moves the narrative forward from the creation to ...
). They believe that God created the universe approximately 6,000 years ago, in the space of six days. Much of creation geology is devoted to debunking the dating methods used in
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, geology, and planetary science that give ages in conflict with the young Earth idea. In particular, creationists dispute the reliability of
radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...
and
isochron In the mathematical theory of dynamical systems, an isochron is a set of initial conditions for the system that all lead to the same long-term behaviour. Mathematical isochron An introductory example Consider the ordinary differential equation ...
analysis, both of which are central to mainstream geological theories of the age of the Earth. They usually dispute these methods based on uncertainties concerning initial concentrations of individually considered species and the associated measurement uncertainties caused by
diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemica ...
of the parent and daughter isotopes. A full critique of the entire parameter-fitting analysis, which relies on dozens of radionuclei parent and daughter pairs and gives essentially identical or near identical readings, has not been done by creationists hoping to cast doubt on the technique. The consensus of professional scientific organizations worldwide is that no scientific evidence contradicts the age of approximately 4.5 billion years. Young Earth creationists reject these ages on the grounds of what they regard as being tenuous and untestable assumptions in the methodology. They have often quoted apparently inconsistent radiometric dates to cast doubt on the utility and accuracy of the method. Mainstream proponents who get involved in this debate point out that dating methods only rely on the assumptions that the physical laws governing radioactive decay have not been violated since the sample was formed (harking back to Lyell's doctrine of uniformitarianism). They also point out that the "problems" that creationists publicly mentioned can be shown to either not be problems at all, are issues with known contamination, or simply the result of incorrectly evaluating legitimate data.


Other sciences


Cosmology

While Young Earth creationists believe that the
Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...
was created by the Judeo-Christian God approximately 6000 years ago, the current scientific consensus is that the Universe as we know it emerged from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The recent science of nucleocosmochronology is extending the approaches used for carbon-14 and other
radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...
to the dating of astronomical features. For example, based upon this emerging science, the Galactic thin disk of the Milky Way galaxy is estimated to have been formed 8.3 ± 1.8 billion years ago.


Nuclear physics

Creationists point to experiments they have performed, which they claim demonstrate that 1.5 billion years of nuclear decay took place over a short period, from which they infer that "billion-fold speed-ups of nuclear decay" have occurred, a massive violation of the principle that radioactive decay, radioisotope decay rates are constant, a core principle underlying nuclear physics generally, and
radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...
in particular. The scientific community points to numerous flaws in these experiments, to the fact that their results have not been accepted for publication by any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and to the fact that the creationist scientists conducting them were untrained in experimental geochronology. In refutation of Young Earth claims of inconstant decay-rates affecting the reliability of radiometric dating, Roger C. Wiens, a physicist specializing in isotope dating states:


Misrepresentations of the scientific community

The Discovery Institute has a "formal declaration" titled "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" which has many evangelicals, people from fields irrelevant to biology and geology and few biologists. Many of the biologists who signed have fields not directly related to evolution. In response, there has been an analogous declaration humorously upholding the consensus, Project Steve, which emphasizes the large amount of scientists supporting the consensus.


Quote mining

As a means to criticize mainstream science, creationists sometimes quote scientists who ostensibly support the mainstream theories, but appear to acknowledge criticisms similar to those of creationists. These have very often been shown to be quote mining, quote mines that do not accurately reflect the evidence for evolution or the mainstream scientific community's opinion of it, or are highly out-of-date. Many of the same quotes used by creationists have appeared so frequently in Internet discussions due to the availability of Cut, copy, and paste, cut and paste functions, that the TalkOrigins Archive has created "The Quote Mine Project" for quick reference to the original context of these quotations. Creationists often quote mine Darwin, especially with regard to the seeming improbability of the evolution of the eye, to give support to their views.


Public policy issues

The creation–evolution controversy has grown in importance in recent years, interfacing with other contemporary political issues, primarily those in the United States that involve the Christian right.


Science education

Creationists promoted the idea that evolution is a theory in crisis with scientists criticizing evolution and claim that fairness and equal time requires educating students about the alleged scientific controversy. Opponents, being the overwhelming majority of the scientific community and science education organizations, ''See'': * List of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design * Whether ID Is Science, p. 83. * The Discovery Institute's ''A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism'' petition begun in 2001 has been signed by "over 700 scientists" as of August 20, 2006. The four-day ''A Scientific Support for Darwinism'' petition gained 7,733 signatories from scientists opposing ID. * #AAAS 2002, AAAS 2002. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID. * More than 70,000 Australian scientists "...urge all Australian governments and educators not to permit the teaching or promulgation of ID as science." * National Center for Science Education]: List of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism in the sciences. reply that there is no scientific controversy and that the controversy exists solely in terms of religion and politics. George Mason University Biology Department introduced a course on the creation/evolution controversy, and apparently as students learn more about biology, they find objections to evolution less convincing, suggesting that "teaching the controversy" rightly as a separate elective course on philosophy or history of science, or "politics of science and religion," would undermine creationists' criticisms, and that the scientific community's resistance to this approach was bad public relations.


Freedom of speech

Creationists have claimed that preventing them from teaching creationism violates their right of freedom of speech. Court cases (such as ''Webster v. New Lenox School District'' (1990) and ''Bishop v. Aronov'' (1991)) have upheld school districts' and universities' right to restrict teaching to a specified curriculum.


Issues relating to religion


Religion and historical scientists

Creationists often argue that Christianity and literal belief in the Bible are either foundationally significant or directly responsible for scientific progress. To that end, Institute for Creation Research founder Henry M. Morris has enumerated scientists such as astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei, mathematician and theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, geneticist monk
Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel, OSA (; cs, Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn (''Brno''), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was ...
, and Isaac Newton as believers in a biblical creation narrative. This argument usually involves scientists who were no longer alive when evolution was proposed or whose field of study did not include evolution. The argument is generally rejected as specious by those who oppose creationism. Many of the scientists in question did some early work on the mechanisms of evolution, e.g., the modern evolutionary synthesis combines Darwin's theory of evolution with Gregor Mendel, Mendel's theories of inheritance and genetics. Though biological evolution of some sort had become the primary mode of discussing speciation within science by the late-19th century, it was not until the mid-20th century that evolutionary theories stabilized into the modern synthesis. Geneticist and evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, called the Father of the Modern Synthesis, argued that "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," and saw no conflict between evolutionary and his religious beliefs. Nevertheless, some of the historical scientists marshalled by creationists were dealing with quite different issues than any are engaged with today: Louis Pasteur, for example, opposed the theory of spontaneous generation with biogenesis, an advocacy some creationists describe as a critique on molecular evolution, chemical evolution and abiogenesis. Pasteur accepted that some form of evolution had occurred and that the Earth was millions of years old. The relationship between religion and science was not portrayed in antagonistic terms until the late-19th century, and even then there have been many examples of the two being reconcilable for evolutionary scientists. Many historical scientists wrote books explaining how pursuit of science was seen by them as fulfillment of spiritual duty in line with their religious beliefs. Even so, such professions of faith were not insurance against dogmatic opposition by certain religious people.


Forums


Debates

Many creationists and scientists engage in frequent public debates regarding the origin of human life, hosted by a variety of institutions. However, some scientists disagree with this tactic, arguing that by openly debating supporters of supernatural origin explanations (creationism and intelligent design), scientists are lending credibility and unwarranted publicity to creationists, which could foster an inaccurate public perception and obscure the factual merits of the debate. For example, in May 2004 Michael Shermer debated creationist Kent Hovind in front of a predominantly creationist audience. In Shermer's online reflection while he was explaining that he won the debate with intellectual and scientific evidence he felt it was "not an intellectual exercise," but rather it was "an emotional drama," with scientists arguing from "an impregnable fortress of evidence that converges to an unmistakable conclusion," while for creationists it is "a spiritual war." While receiving positive responses from creationist observers, Shermer concluded "Unless there is a subject that is truly debatable (evolution v. creation is not), with a format that is fair, in a forum that is balanced, it only serves to belittle both the magisterium of science and the magisterium of religion." (see Non-overlapping magisteria). Others, like evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci, have debated Hovind, and have expressed surprise to hear Hovind try "to convince the audience that evolutionists believe humans came from rocks" and at Hovind's assertion that biologists believe humans "evolved from bananas." In September 2012, educator and television personality Bill Nye of ''Bill Nye the Science Guy'' fame spoke with the Associated Press and aired his fears about acceptance of creationist theory, believing that teaching children that creationism is the only true answer and without letting them understand the way science works will prevent any future innovation in the world of science. In February 2014, Nye defended evolution in the classroom in a Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate, debate with creationist Ken Ham on the topic of whether creation is a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools, claimed debates are not the sort of arena to promote science to creationists. Scott says that "Evolution is not on trial in the world of science," and "the topic of the discussion should not be the scientific legitimacy of evolution" but rather should be on the lack of evidence in creationism. Stephen Jay Gould adopted a similar position, explaining:


Political lobbying

On both sides of the controversy a wide range of organizations are involved at a number of levels in lobbying in an attempt to influence political decisions relating to the teaching of evolution. These include the Discovery Institute, the National Center for Science Education, the National Science Teachers Association, state Citizens Alliances for Science, and numerous national science associations and state academies of science.


Media coverage

The controversy has been discussed in numerous newspaper articles, reports, Editorial, op-eds and letters to the editor, as well as a number of radio and television programmes (including the PBS series, Evolution (TV series), ''Evolution'' (2001) and D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries' D. James Kennedy#Apologetics and views, ''Darwin's Deadly Legacy'' (2006)). This has led some commentators to express a concern at what they see as a highly inaccurate and biased understanding of evolution among the general public. Edward Humes states:


Outside the United States

While the controversy has been prominent in the United States, it has flared up in other countries as well.


Europe

Europeans have often regarded the creation–evolution controversy as an American matter. In recent years the conflict has become an issue in other countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
and Serbia. On September 17, 2007, the Committee on Culture, Science and Education of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) issued a report on the attempt by American-inspired creationists to promote creationism in European schools. It concludes "If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights which are a key concern of the Council of Europe... The war on the theory of evolution and on its proponents most often originates in forms of religious extremism which are closely allied to extreme right-wing political movements... some advocates of strict creationism are out to replace democracy by theocracy." The Council of Europe firmly rejected creationism.


Australia

Under the former Queensland state government of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, in the 1980s Queensland allowed the teaching of creationism in secondary schools. In 2010, the Queensland state government introduced the topic of creationism into school classes within the "ancient history" subject where its origins and nature are discussed as a significant controversy. Public lectures have been given in rented rooms at universities, by visiting American speakers. One of the most acrimonious aspects of the Australian debate was featured on the science television program ''Quantum (TV series), Quantum'', about a long-running and ultimately unsuccessful court case by Ian Plimer, Professor of Geology at the University of Melbourne, against an ordained minister, Allen Roberts, who had claimed that there were remnants of Noah's Ark in eastern Turkey. Although the court found that Roberts had made false and misleading claims, they were not made in the course of trade or commerce, so the case failed.


Islamic countries

In recent times, the controversy has become more prominent in Islamic countries. In Egypt, evolution is currently taught in schools, but Saudi Arabia and Sudan have both banned the teaching of evolution in schools. Creation science has also been heavily promoted in Turkey and in immigrant communities in Western Europe, primarily by Adnan Oktar, Harun Yahya. In Iran, traditional practice of Shia Islam isn't preoccupied with Qur'anic literalism as in case of Saudi Wahhabi movement, Wahhabism but ''ijtihad'', many influential Iranian Shi'ite scholars, including several who were closely involved in Iranian Revolution, are not opposed to evolutionary ideas in general, disagreeing that evolution necessarily conflicts with the Muslim mainstream. Iranian pupils since 5th grade of elementary school learn only about evolution, thus portraying geologists and scientists in general as an authoritative voice of scientific knowledge.


Asia


South Korea

In South Korea, most opposition to teaching evolution comes from the local evangelical community. As part of these efforts, the Korean Association for Creation Research (KACR) was established in 1981 by evangelical pastors Kim Yŏnggil and Ch'oe Yŏngsang. In South Korea, according to a 2009 survey, about 30 percent of the population believe in creation science while opposing the teaching of evolution.


See also

* Acceptance of evolution by religious groups * Anti-intellectualism * Clergy Letter Project * Evolutionary origin of religions * Objections to evolution * Project Steve * Relationship between religion and science * TalkOrigins * Theology of creationism and evolution


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

;Books * * * * * * * * * * * * * An International Union of Biological Sciences Symposium, August 1967. * ;Journals * * * * * ;Web * *


External links


"Ten Major Court Cases about Evolution and Creationism"
– by Molleen Matsumura and Louise Mead, National Center for Science Education {{DEFAULTSORT:Creation-Evolution Controversy Creationism Evolution and religion Denialism Philosophy controversies