6.3 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creation science | 2/8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:18:20.205476+00:00 | kb-cron |
Creation science began in the 1960s, as a fundamentalist Christian effort in the United States to prove Biblical inerrancy and nullify the scientific evidence for evolution. It has since developed a sizable religious following in the United States, with creation science ministries branching worldwide. The main ideas in creation science are: the belief in creation ex nihilo (Latin: out of nothing); the conviction that the Earth was created within the last 6,000–10,000 years; the belief that humans and other life on Earth were created as distinct fixed "baraminological" kinds; and "flood geology" or the idea that fossils found in geological strata were deposited during a cataclysmic flood which completely covered the entire Earth. As a result, creationists also challenge the geologic and astrophysical measurements of the age of the Earth and the universe along with their origins, which creationists believe are irreconcilable with the account in the Book of Genesis. Creation science proponents often refer to the theory of evolution as "Darwinism" or as "Darwinian evolution." The creation science texts and curricula that first emerged in the 1960s focused upon concepts derived from a literal interpretation of the Bible and were overtly religious in nature, most notably proposing Noah's flood in the Biblical Genesis account as an explanation for the geological and fossil record. These works attracted little notice beyond the schools and congregations of conservative fundamental and Evangelical Christians until the 1970s, when its followers challenged the teaching of evolution in the public schools and other venues in the United States, bringing it to the attention of the public-at-large and the scientific community. Many school boards and lawmakers were persuaded to include the teaching of creation science alongside evolution in the science curriculum. Creation science texts and curricula used in churches and Christian schools were revised to eliminate their Biblical and theological references, and less explicitly sectarian versions of creation science education were introduced in public schools in Louisiana, Arkansas, and other regions in the United States. The 1982 ruling in McLean v. Arkansas found that creation science fails to meet the essential characteristics of science and that its chief intent is to advance a particular religious view. The teaching of creation science in public schools in the United States effectively ended in 1987 following the United States Supreme Court decision in Edwards v. Aguillard. The court affirmed that a statute requiring the teaching of creation science alongside evolution when evolution is taught in Louisiana public schools was unconstitutional because its sole true purpose was to advance a particular religious belief. In response to this ruling, drafts of the creation science school textbook Of Pandas and People were edited to change references of creation to intelligent design before its publication in 1989. The intelligent design movement promoted this version. Requiring intelligent design to be taught in public school science classes was found to be unconstitutional in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District federal court case.
=== Before 1960s === The teaching of evolution was gradually introduced into more and more public high school textbooks in the United States after 1900, but in the aftermath of the First World War the growth of fundamentalist Christianity gave rise to a creationist opposition to such teaching. Legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution was passed in certain regions, most notably Tennessee's Butler Act of 1925. The Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 sparked national concern that the science education in public schools was outdated. In 1958, the United States passed National Defense Education Act which introduced new education guidelines for science instruction. With federal grant funding, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) drafted new standards for the public schools' science textbooks which included the teaching of evolution. Almost half the nation's high schools were using textbooks based on the guidelines of the BSCS soon after they were published in 1963. The Tennessee legislature did not repeal the Butler Act until 1967. Creation science (dubbed "scientific creationism" at the time) emerged as an organized movement during the 1960s. It was strongly influenced by the earlier work of armchair geologist George McCready Price who wrote works such as Illogical Geology: The Weakest Point in the Evolution Theory (1906) and The New Geology (1923) to advance what he termed "new catastrophism" and dispute the current geological time frames and explanations of geologic history. Price was cited at the Scopes Trial of 1925, but his writings had no credence among geologists and other scientists. Price's "new catastrophism" was also disputed by most other creationists until its revival with the 1961 publication of The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, a work which quickly became an important text on the issue to fundamentalist Christians and expanded the field of creation science beyond critiques of geology into biology and cosmology as well. Soon after its publication, a movement was underway to have the subject taught in United States' public schools.
=== Court determinations ===
The various state laws prohibiting teaching of evolution were overturned in 1968 when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas such laws violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This ruling inspired a new creationist movement to promote laws requiring that schools give balanced treatment to creation science when evolution is taught. The 1981 Arkansas Act 590 was one such law that carefully detailed the principles of creation science that were to receive equal time in public schools alongside evolutionary principles. The act defined creation science as follows: "'Creation-science' means the scientific evidences for creation and inferences from those evidences. Creation-science includes the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate: