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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creation science | 4/8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:18:20.205476+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Intelligent design splits off === In 1984, The Mystery of Life's Origin was first published. It was co-authored by chemist and creationist Charles B. Thaxton with Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, the foreword written by Dean H. Kenyon, and sponsored by the Christian-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE). The work presented scientific arguments against current theories of abiogenesis and offered a hypothesis of special creation instead. While the focus of creation science had until that time centered primarily on the criticism of the fossil evidence for evolution and validation of the creation myth of the Bible, this new work posed the question whether science reveals that even the simplest living systems were far too complex to have developed by natural, unguided processes. Kenyon later co-wrote with creationist Percival Davis a book intended as a "scientific brief for creationism" to use as a supplement to public high school biology textbooks. Thaxton was enlisted as the book's editor, and the book received publishing support from the FTE. Prior to its release, the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard barred the teaching of creation science and creationism in public school classrooms. The book, originally titled Biology and Creation but renamed Of Pandas and People, was released in 1989 and became the first published work to promote the anti-evolutionist design argument under the name intelligent design. The contents of the book later became a focus of evidence in the federal court case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, when a group of parents filed suit to halt the teaching of intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania, public schools. School board officials there had attempted to include Of Pandas and People in their biology classrooms and testimony given during the trial revealed the book was originally written as a creationist text but following the adverse decision in the Supreme Court it underwent simple cosmetic editing to remove the explicit allusions to "creation" or "creator," and replace them instead with references to "design" or "designer." By the mid-1990s, intelligent design had become a separate movement. The creation science movement is distinguished from the intelligent design movement, or neo-creationism, because most advocates of creation science accept scripture as a literal and inerrant historical account, and their primary goal is to corroborate the scriptural account through the use of science. In contrast, as a matter of principle, neo-creationism eschews references to scripture altogether in its polemics and stated goals (see Wedge strategy). By so doing, intelligent design proponents have attempted to succeed where creation science has failed in securing a place in public school science curricula. Carefully avoiding any reference to the identity of the intelligent designer as God in their public arguments, intelligent design proponents sought to reintroduce the creationist ideas into science classrooms while sidestepping the First Amendment's prohibition against religious infringement. However, the intelligent design curriculum was struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the judge in the case ruled "that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism." Today, creation science as an organized movement is primarily centered within the United States. Creation science organizations are also known in other countries, most notably Creation Ministries International which was founded (under the name Creation Science Foundation) in Australia. Proponents are usually aligned with a Christian denomination, primarily with those characterized as evangelical, conservative, or fundamentalist. While creationist movements also exist in Islam and Judaism, these movements do not use the phrase creation science to describe their beliefs.
== Issues == Creation science has its roots in the work of young Earth creationist George McCready Price disputing modern science's account of natural history, focusing particularly on geology and its concept of uniformitarianism, and his efforts instead to furnish an alternative empirical explanation of observable phenomena which was compatible with strict Biblical literalism. Price's work was later discovered by civil engineer Henry M. Morris, who is now considered to be the father of creation science. Morris and later creationists expanded the scope with attacks against the broad spectrum scientific findings that point to the antiquity of the Universe and common ancestry among species, including growing body of evidence from the fossil record, absolute dating techniques, and cosmogony. The proponents of creation science often say that they are concerned with religious and moral questions as well as natural observations and predictive hypotheses. Many state that their opposition to scientific evolution is primarily based on religion. The overwhelming majority of scientists are in agreement that the claims of science are necessarily limited to those that develop from natural observations and experiments which can be replicated and substantiated by other scientists, and that claims made by creation science do not meet those criteria. Duane Gish, a prominent creation science proponent, has similarly claimed, "We do not know how the creator created, what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator." But he also makes the same claim against science's evolutionary theory, maintaining that on the subject of origins, scientific evolution is a religious theory which cannot be validated by science.