The TalkOrigins Archive is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of

young-earth Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespre ...

, old-earth, and "

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 ...

" creationists. With sections on

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 ...

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

and

hominid evolution Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of ''Homo sapiens'' as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of ...

, the web site provides broad coverage of

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 ...

and the socio-political antievolution movement.

Origins and history

The TalkOrigins Archive began in 1994 when Brett J. Vickers collected several separately posted FAQs from the

talk.origins talk.origins (often capitalised to Talk.Origins or abbreviated as t.o.) is a moderated Usenet discussion forum concerning the origins of life, and evolution. It remains a major venue for debate in the creation–evolution controversy, and its of ...

newsgroup and made them available from a single anonymous FTP site. In 1995, Vickers, then a computer science graduate student at the University of California at Irvine, created the TalkOrigins Archive web site. In 2001, Vickers transferred the TalkOrigins Archive to Wesley R. Elsberry, who organized a group of volunteers to handle the maintenance of the Archive. In 2004, Kenneth Fair incorporated the TalkOrigins Foundation as a Texas

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...

non-profit organization. The Foundation's purposes include funding and maintaining the TalkOrigins Archive and holding copyrights to Archive articles, thereby simplifying the process of reprinting and updating those articles. The

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

issue has posed a particular problem since the FAQs started off as a small collection with little thought given to copyright but have since mushroomed. In 2005, the Foundation was granted tax-exempt status by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

Features

The FAQs and FRAs (Frequently Rebutted Assertions) on the TalkOrigins Archive cover a wide range of topics associated with evolutionary biology and creationism. These include Mark Isaak's Index to Creationist Claims, a list of creationist positions on various issues, rebuttals, and links to primary source material. The TalkDesign site fulfills a similar role with the

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 ...

movement. Also hosted is Jim Foley's Fossil Hominids sub-site which studies the evidence for

human evolution Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of '' Homo sapiens'' as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual developmen ...

and has an extensive list of links to websites on both evolutionary biology and creationism. Lastly, the Quote Mine Project examines the use of Quote miningtaking quotes out of contextby creationists. The feedback system collects reader comments and posts a compilation, along with responses, each month. The archive maintains a sister site which addresses Intelligent Design arguments.

Awards and recognition

Talkorigins.org has gained awards and recognition over the years: * In 1999, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called TalkOrigins a "good antidote" to the plethora of creationist websites that had sprung up. * The webpages of the National Academy of Sciences,

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

Leakey Foundation Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...

, the National Center for Science Education and other organizations recommend Talkorigins.org. * In August 2002, ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' recognized Talkorigins.org for its "detailed discussions (some of which may be too sophisticated for casual readers) and bibliographies relating to virtually any objection to evolution that creationists might raise." * In October 2006, ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

'' awarded it Web Site of the Week. The Archive is also referenced in college-level textbooks and has had material from the archive incorporated into over 20 college or university courses.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Talkorigins Archive Internet properties established in 1994 Biology websites Evolutionary biology literature Online archives of the United States Criticism of creationism

Origins and history

Features

Awards and recognition

See also

References

External links