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Rejection of evolution by religious groups

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The creation-evolution controversy (also called the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) is a disagreement over the origin of the universe, life, and humanity. Advocates of scientific theories such as the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution are on one side of the conflict, opposed by adherents to literal/fundamentalist interpretations of Genesis. The controversy is most prevalent and visible in the US.

The controversy developed in the late 18th century when geological discoveries indicated that the earth is much older than was suggested by the Judeo-Christian Bible. It grew further when the theory of evolution came to prominence.

The profound impact of this early debate upon the popular culture signalled an important rift between popular understanding and scientific discovery, which can also be found elsewhere, such as in the nature versus nurture debate. This rift is said to have been the direct cause for the 1857-1860 revival in Protestant religious enthusiasm, proselytization, and politicization.

The debate continues to be actively promoted and maintained by a number of creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold creationism (often "Young Earth creationism"), or a creation science as an alternative to the scientific consensus on the origins and evolution of life, which they term "mainstream". The most prominent of these groups are explicitly Christian and more than one see the debate as an opportunity to promote evangelism. Many involved in the debate see secular science and theistic religion as being diametrically opposed, despite the myriad of views which accomodate both scientific and religious interpretations of reality (see Evolutionary creationism).

Creationists typically refer to those who support science and scientific history as "evolutionists".

Common venues for debate

Conflict occurs mostly in the public arena rather than through academic channels or through scientific journals, as creationists have been unwilling or unable to publish their ideas in those places. Popular-level books and articles by creationists attacking mainstream science and by proponents of mainstream science attacking creationism have been published and numerous public debates have been put on by churches, universities, and clubs. With the advent of the Internet the battle between proponents has also been waged on-line. One of the first usenet newsgroups to be created was created to be a proving ground for the controversy. Over a 19-year history, the Talk.origins newsgroup has allowed for multiple discussions of nearly every topic and issue ever developed in the controversy. In 1994, an archive of the mainstream science responses to creationist objections was created as a website (referenced below). Various creationists followed suit with their own clearinghouses, the most famous of which are Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis and the internet pages of the Institute for Creation Research. Chatrooms, message boards, and blogs have continued to promote the controversy with many arguments printed and reprinted to the effect that, by some estimates, nearly one out of every hundred websites is in some way connected to the controversy.

Additionally many churches and denominations make statements about what is appropriate or inappropriate in terms of scientific theories. Almost every Christian denomination has made statements about the controversy. In the United States of America, many conservative Protestant denominations unapologetically promote creationism and attack evolution from the pulpits as well as sponsor lectures, and debates on the subject. Some of the denominations that have explicitly advocated for creationism and against evolution include Assemblies of God, Church of Christ, Church of Christ, Scientist, Church of the Nazarene, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Free Methodist Church, Jehovah's Witness Churches, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, Pentecostal Churches, Seventh-day Adventist Churches, Southern Baptist Convention Churches, and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Accusations of bias

Creationists contend that the scientific community systematically excludes the presentation of ideas associated with their beliefs. They claim that creationist ideas are unfairly dismissed as pseudoscience so as to stifle the debate. This claim is hotly disputed by many scientists in the relevent fields who point out that many of the creationist ideas have fundamental flaws, misconceptions, and errors as to be unworthy of inclusion in academic discussion. Creationists tend to respond at length to such criticisms sometimes to the point of responding line-by-line to anti-creationists articles.

Many creationist organizations have tried to preempt criticism from the scientific establishment by recruiting religious scientists and academics who are sympathetic to their cause. The Institute for Creation Research, the intelligent design thinktank the Discovery Institute, and Answers in Genesis all employ people with doctoral degrees in scientific or related fields. The true credentials of some of the creationist experts that rely on their doctoral degrees as an appeal to authority (notably, those of Kent Hovind) have been criticized as being fraudulent or misleading. Some creationists (for example, the Old Earth creationist astronomer Hugh Ross who believes in the age of the Earth but questions macroevolution) raise objections to scientific theories outside of their field of expertise.

Definitional conflicts inherent to the controversy

While debate on the details of scientific theories are often the most intense parts of the controversy, ultimately the conflict comes down to opposing and perhaps misapplied definitions of science, reality, and religion. Accusations of misleading definition of terms related to these concepts and inappropriate mixing of ideas are fundamental points of disagreement.

Defining Evolution

The idea that there is a dichotomy between creationism and evolution is an example of a definitional conflict. While many evolutionary biologists also believe that life was formed through natural means, evolutionary theory does not necessarily include abiogenesis, the formation of life out of non-living matter. Yet many creationists argue that since scientists can't fully explain the origin of life, 'evolution' is flawed.

Another point of contention is that Young Earth Creationists, such as Kent Hovind, say that there are six different aspects to evolution. These aspects, as defined by Hovind, are:

  1. Cosmic evolution — the origin of time, space and matter. Essentially the Big Bang.
  2. Chemical evolution — the origin of higher elements from hydrogen.
  3. Stellar and planetary evolution — Origin of stars and planets.
  4. Organic evolution — Origin of life from inanimate matter.
  5. Macroevolution — Origin of major kinds.
  6. Microevolution — Variations within kinds.

His opponents retort that the first four of the above definitions are taken from many disparate fields of science, including cosmology, astronomy, geology, and chemistry, and have little to do with their more restrictive definition of evolution as per the modern synthesis pertaining to biological or organic evolution. They also dispute that there is any meaningful difference between the last two, noting that microevolution over a longer span of time is macroevolution.

Theory vs. Fact

An often contentious definitional conflict that occurs in the context of the controversy is the accusation by creationists that proponents of mainstream science inappropriately conflate scientific theory with fact. While certain creationist organizations have distanced themselves from this accusation, various levels of incredulity about scientific conclusions is a nearly universal component of creationist argumentation. In particular, creationists are very wary about scientific arguments involving events that happened in the distant past. Some creationists have even called into question whether it is philosophically tenable to make any claims about the past at all. Oftentimes, these critiques are leveled against unifying concepts within scientific disciplines such as uniformitarianism, Ockham's razor, the Copernican principle, and parsimony that are claimed to be the result of a bias within science toward philosophical naturalism. The paradigmatic nature of scientific work is also criticized by the creationists as being too closeminded.

Mainstream proponents who respond to these criticisms tend to criticize the creationists' understanding of the scientific method and the nature of scientific investigation. A theory is not, as it is considered to be in colloquial usage, a guess or conjecture, but rather the strongest type of statement that can be made about the natural world. Since science itself is a dynamic process that allows for self-correction and falsification, scientists rely on all the empirical observations ever made to create and refine scientific theories. The principles that allow for investigation of natural phenomenon also provide for the scientific community's rigorous vetting process for ideas, widely considered to be the most effective measured safeguard against dogmatism and falsehood. The proponents of mainstream science contrast this with creationism and posit that the kinds of creationism that contradict basic scientific observations can be considered neither theory nor fact.

Because modern science tries to rely on the minimization of a priori assumptions, error, subjectivity, and the Baconian idols it ultimately remains neutral on highly personal subjects such as religion or morality. Mainstream proponents accuse the creationists of conflating the two in a form of pseudoscience.

Conflation of science and religion

 
The Darwin fish is a parody of the ichthus, a symbol often used to self-identify Christians and sometimes creationists.
File:Truth fish.JPG
The Truth fish, made popular in response to the Darwin fish.
File:T-Rex 200.jpg
T-Rex eating the icthyus, motivated by the challenge posed by scientific facts to literal interpretations of the Bible.

The creation-evolution controversy involves the conflation of science and religion. Following are some examples of well known participants in the debate who conflate science and religion:

  • Henry Morris, a young earth creationist, says: "Divine revelation from the Creator of the world states that He did it all in six days, several thousand years ago. The Bible is a book of science! It contains all the basic principles upon which true science is built".
  • Julian Huxley, a British biologist and author, says: "The truth will set us free. Evolutionary truth frees us from subserviant fear of the unknown and supernatural, and exhorts us to face this new freedom. It shows us our destiny and our duty. The evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern the outline of the new religion that will arise to serve the needs of the coming era".

A popular accusation among creationists is that evolution is itself a religion based on secular humanism, scientific materialism, or philosophical naturalism. Creationsts argue that there is an atheist bias in the scientific community that systematically discriminates against their religious views. Creationists involved in the controversy do not believe distinction can be made between science and religion, and hold that the modern philosophy of science is informed inappropriately by rejection of a deity. They also balk at skepticism aimed at claims of supernatural events or miracles.

In the nineteenth century there was a movement by certain scientists and intellectuals to form a quasi-religion out of scientism. Since that time, most members of the scientific community have moved to maintain a pragmatic separation between scientific theories and religious faith, but creationist participants in the controversy continue to charge that there is a conspiratorial movement on the part of evolutionists to maintain paradigmatic hegemony over all aspects of culture (see, for example the Wedge strategy which is an attempt to combat the perceived attack on religious thought). Additionally, many atheists involved in the controversy extrapolate from science to declare that religious faith is falsified.

Origin beliefs beyond the false dichotomy

Main article: Origin belief

As creation and evolution are not jointly exaustive the choice between them is a false dichotomy. The following list gives an idea of the many diverse views on origins beyond the creation-evolution dichotomy:

  • With Zen, everything and nothing are all interconnected, inseparable, a made whole. Zen denies that the person is the first cause.
  • Theogony by Hesiod is a poetic rendering of the Greek myth that the Cosmos was created through sexual intercourse.
  • Panspermia is a theory explaining the existence of life on the Earth as a result of fertilization by germs coming from outer space.
  • Norse mythology says that Odin and his brothers used the body of Ymir, the giant, to create the world.

Even the two alternative points of view, creation and evolution are not black and white options. There is a spectrum of views on these topics ranging from a belief in young earth creationism and disbelief in evolution to a belief in both atheism and evolution. Neither are these views necessarily mutually exclusive as shown by the belief in evolutionary creationism.

Spectrum of creationist beliefs

Creationism covers a spectrum of beliefs which have been categorised into the broad types listed below. Not all creationists dispute various scientific theories. Some are opposed to the theory of evolution and some are not. Belief in creation exists in many forms:

  • Flat Earth creationism — God created the world with a flat surface 6,000 years ago. All that modern science says about shape, size, and age of the Earth is wrong, and evolution does not occur. Very few people today maintain such a belief.
  • Modern geocentrism — God recently created a spherical world, and placed it in the center of the universe. The Sun, planets and everything else in the universe revolve around it. All scientific claims about the age of the Earth are lies; evolution does not occur. Very few people today maintain such a belief. See, for example, the Creation Science Association for Mid-America, in Cleveland, MO, USA.
  • God created the Earth only recently, but made it appear much older. This is the belief of a subgroup of Young Earth creationists, which is sometimes termed the Omphalos argument. This argument was first made by Philip Henry Gosse in 1857. He held that the universe is only about 6,000 years old, but that God faked the appearance of the world, and planted fake fossils, to fool humans into believing that the world is really much older. This, in his view, was done as a test of faith. This view is popular among some Ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Protestant Christian young earth creationists.
Old-Earth creationism itself comes in at least three types:
  • Gap creationism, also called Restitution creationism — the view that life was immediately created on a pre-existing old Earth. This group generally translates Genesis 1:2 as "The earth became without form and void," indicating a destruction of the original creation by some unspecified cataclysm. This was popularized in the Scofield Reference Bible, but has little support from Hebrew scholars.
  • Day-age creationism — the view that the "six days" of Genesis are not ordinary twenty-four-hour days, but rather much longer periods (for instance, each "day" could be the equivalent of millions of years of modern time). Another theory states that the Hebrew word was mistranslated, and it's supposed to be seven ages. Some adherents claim we are still living in the seventh age ("seventh day"), while opponents say that the seventh day of creation must be the same type of day as the Sabbath for the Sabbath command to make sense.
  • Progressive creationism — the view that species have changed or evolved in a process continuously guided by God, with various ideas as to how the process operates. This accepts most of modern physical science including the age of the earth, but rejects much of modern biology or looks to it for evidence that evolution by natural selection is incorrect.
  • Evolutionary creationism/Theistic evolutionism — the general belief that some or all classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of the scientific theory of evolution, It views evolution as a tool used by God and can synthesize with gap or day-age creationism, although most adherents deny that Genesis was meant to be interpreted as history at all. It can still be described as "creationism" in holding that divine intervention brought about the origin of life or that divine Laws govern formation of species, but in the creation-evolution controversy its proponents generally take the "evolutionist" side while disputing that some scientists' methodological assumption of materialism can be taken as ontological as well. Many creationists would deny that this is creationism at all, and should rather be called "theistic evolution", just as many scientists allow voice to their spiritual side.
  • Intelligent Design movement — The main proponents of Intelligent Design have intentionally distanced themselves from other forms of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from creationism as a philosophy. Rather they claim to support an uncritical look at origins as a means to discover the inherent supernatural design of the natural and biological worlds. As this necessarily relies on a supernatural explanation for natural events, opponents claim it is another form of creationism redressed for a public relations show (see Wedge strategy).

Creationists and their opponents

File:Henry M Morris.jpg
Henry M. Morris

Henry Morris and John Whitcomb in the early 1960s co-authored The Genesis Flood, the book credited with reviving interest in creation as an alternative to evolution. Dr. Morris is considered the "father" of modern creationism.

The Creation Research Society, founded in 1963 by a number of creationists including Henry Morris, is a membership organisation with voting membership limited to holders of an earned postgraduate degree. CRS has a voting membership of about 650, and a total membership of 1700 people. It publishes the CRS Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal for creationists, conducts research, and operates a web-site.

The Institute for Creation Research is based in San Diego and was founded in 1970 by Henry Morris, and is now led by his son, John Morris. ICR publishes a number of books and newsletters, as well as producing radio spots and operating a web-site and a small museum.

Answers in Genesis is a Christian apologetics organization devoted to the belief of Young Earth Creationism, specifically a plain reading of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis.

The Discovery Institute is a Seattle-based intelligent design think-tank whose members include Michael Behe and William Dembski. It has a stated goal of introducing intelligent design into the scientific community and society by a wide range of methods as described on its web site and in the Wedge strategy document.

The National Center for Science Education was founded in 1981 to oppose creationism and is led by Eugenie Scott. It is a membership organisation with 4000 members and operates a web-site.

File:Stephen Jay Gould.png
Stephen Jay Gould

Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse, and the late Stephen Jay Gould are well-known evolutionary scientists who have been outspoken against creationism.

Simon Conway Morris is an evolutionary biologist who is also a Christian, and who has publically supported the acceptance of evolutionary biology by moderate Christians.

Duane Gish is a creationist who has become well-known for debating evolutionists across America and in other countries. He is also Senior Vice President of ICR.

The Talk.Origins Archive is a large web-site of articles critiquing creationary ideas, plus a discussion forum.

The True.Origins Archive is a web-site set up to respond to claims made on The Talk.Origins Archive.

Reasons to Believe is a progressive-creationist organisation founded in 1986 by Hugh Ross. It publishes a number of books and operates a web-site. He opposes biological evolution but accepts astronomical and geological evolution.

Arthur N. Strahler, author of the 1987 book Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy. Duane Gish's Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics was a creationist response to Strahler's book and many other anti-creationist books.

Kent Hovind, aka Dr. Dino is a creationist enthusiast who started a creationist theme park and tours churches arguing against evolution. He has been the proponent of a number of ideas including advocating that dinosaurs lived at the same time as human beings. Hovind has been at the center of a number of controversies including a questionable doctoral degree granted by a university without official accredation and investigation by the IRS for tax evasion.

Ramifications of the controversy

Public education in the United States

Main article: creation and evolution in public education

The status of creation in public education in the United States is the subject of contention between creationists and other members of the community. The history extends back to the Scopes trial and locally controlled school boards in regions of the country dominated by creationists have made numerous and varied attempts over the years to remove or undermine discussion of biological evolution in science classrooms. Along with legal challenges to such actions, controversy surfaces frequently in school textbook/curriculum reviews. Creationists lobby for equal time, teach the controversy, or replacement of science curriculum with creation science or intelligent design and allege science textbooks are biased, out of date and contain factual errors.

Surveying views

In a 2001 Gallup poll on the origin and development of human beings [1] a sample of about one thousand Americans were asked which statement came closest to their views on the origin and development of human beings. Of those polled, 45% chose "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so", 37% chose "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process", 12% chose "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process", and the remainder (6%) either volunteered a different response or had no opinion. The Religious Tolerance website claims that the poll also found that 5% of American scientists (not necessarily working in fields connected with evolution) believed in biblically literal creation, 40% believed in "theistic evolution", and 55% believed in "naturalistic evolution" [2].

However, following another opinion poll by DYG Inc., it seems that such results may reveal a false dichotomy. According to the DYG poll, about 70% of Americans indicated that they did not see the theories of evolution and creation as in conflict [3].

History

File:Creation vs evolution debate.jpg
Creation Magazine is a venue for young-earth creationist views. This issue claims to examine whether dinosaurs perished in Noah's Flood.

See also

References

  • Burian, RM: 1994. Dobzhansky on Evolutionary Dynamics: Some Questions about His Russian Background. In The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky, ed. MB Adams, Princeton University Press.
  • Samuel Butler, Evolution Old and New, 1879, p. 54.
  • Darwin, "Origin of Species," New York: Modern Library, 1998.
  • Dobzhansky, Th: 1937. Genetics and the Origin of Species, Columbia University Press
  • Henig, The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
  • Kutschera, Ulrich and Karl J. Niklas. 2004. "The modern theory of biological evolution: an expanded synthesis." Naturwissenschaften 91, pp. 255-276.
  • Mayr, E. The Growth of Biological Thought, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1982.
  • James B. Miller (Ed.): An Evolving Dialogue: Theological and Scientific Perspectives on Evolution, ISBN 1563383497
  • Morris, H.R. 1963. The Twilight of Evolution, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
  • Numbers, R.L. 1991. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, Berkely: University of California Press.
  • Pennock, Robert T. 2003. "Creationism and intelligent design." Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 4, pp. 143-163.
  • Carl Sagan. The Demon-Haunted World. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
  • Scott, Eugenie C. 1997. "Antievolution and creationism in the United States." Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 263-289.
  • Maynard Smith, "The status of neo-darwinism," in "Towards a Theoretical Biology" (C.H. Waddington, ed., University Press, Edinburgh, 1969.
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