Creationism

Overview

Creationism is a counter-scientific theory of Creation which adheres strictly to religious doctrine.

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Creationists are often opposed to the teaching of the theory of evolution, and usually claim that if evolution is to be taught, creationism should be given "equal time" as an equally valid theory – despite the lack of evidence supporting creation, the nonsensicality of many of its argumants, and the near-unanimity of scientists in agreeing that evolution is the only theory which comes anywhere close to explaining the facts.

Related Pages

• Creationism is one form of direct creation theory.
  • The Creation Museum promotes creationism by presenting it in a museum format

attempts to infiltrate public education

• creation science (1980s) was found to be against the constitution due to its religious nature
• intelligent design (ID) was determined in 2005 to be nothing more than creation science with all religious references stripped out (often by straight search-and-replace) and a few scientific-sounding points tacked on
• teach the controversy advocated teaching both "sides" of the non-existent scientific controversy between evolution and ID
• creationist advocates of "academic freedom" argue that teachers and students should be free to express their views in class, including in answers to science tests, without fear of retribution: for example, a geology teacher should be allowed to teach that the Earth is 6000 years old, and "God did it" should be an acceptable answer on a biology or geology test. (This is of course a misuse of the term "academic freedom"; it is meant to apply to the results of research, not to teachers at the grade-school level who are largely teaching from a pre-set curriculum.)
  • The hypocrisy of this latest tack became plain when a creationist student accused a teacher of insulting Christianity after the teacher exercised his "academic freedom" to express negative views of creationism.

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia: Creationism, Creation science
• Creation Wiki
• An Index to Creationist Claims, with refutation for each. Compiled by the Talk.Origins archive. Includes Intelligent Design postulates.
• Conservapedia
• dKosopedia
• SourceWatch no equivalent page as of 2010-01-03; see Restating Creationism as Intelligent Design
• RationalWiki

Essays

• 1984 The "Threat" of Creationism by Isaac Asimov

Media

• Why do people laugh at creationists? (series of video shorts): Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Filed Links

version 2

• 2009-05-28 [Talk|Index] Holier than thou § “...[faith + evolution is] an aggressively dishonest site, too. It consists of lots of people claiming that modern scientific evidence points more strongly than ever to a cosmic designer, which is a flat lie – finding natural mechanisms for complex processes means their designer god is increasingly superfluous.”
• 2009-05-01 [Talk|Index] High school teacher found guilty of insulting Christians § “James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was found guilty of referring to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture...”
• 2009-03 [Talk|Index] Crossing the God Divide § “While the traditional dating scene at Brown is famously nonexistent, many Liberty students marry before they graduate. Professors begin every class with prayer, and creation-studies tests contain questions like "True or False: Noah's Ark was large enough to carry various kinds of dinosaurs."”
• 2008-11-05 [Talk|Index] Is our children learning science? O, woe is Texas § “Dunbar was not worried about martial law when President George W. Bush actually took the steps she claims to worry about now, assigning troops to domestic crowd control in the U.S.”
• 2008-09-16 [Talk|Index] Brunswick school board to consider creationism teaching § “The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution.”
• 2008-05-20 [Talk|Index] 16 percent of US science teachers are creationist § [2]“Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science – and especially evolutionary biology – tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles.” ... “...a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48% – about 12.5% of the total survey – said they taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species".”
• 2007-10-02 [Talk|Index] Collins and Broder and all the Raccoons played a sick, stupid old ball game § [2]“Weighing in on a Kansas controversy, Vice President Al Gore's office said Thursday he favors the teaching of evolution in public schools but would not oppose instruction in creationism if taught as part of a religious course. .. "They may teach creationism in the context of a religious course; that is clearly up to the local districts to decide," said Alejandro Cabrera, speaking for Gore. He said Gore bases his opinion on court rulings that allow the teaching of creationism as part of a religious course but not as a science.” (emphasis added)
• 2006-11-26 [Talk|Index] Handing out a little rope § [2]“This fellow, Daniel J. Lewis, from Answers in Genesis has come along and requested a space to defend creationism. ... I'm not too keen on accommodating creationist kooks with demands like that, especially when he could have just said what he wanted on that thread, but OK... I'll give him a chance. Let's see some intelligent discussion of creationism.” An interesting discussion follows.
• 2006-09-18 [Talk|Index] Three teachers § [2]“Where do we place the blame? Where do we need to take action? (No, the answer is not to fault the existence of atheists in our society, so if that was your first thought, stop reading this page, go sit in a corner and read your Bible.) We don't have to look far; the problem is perpetuated in the same way everywhere... The problem is religion. Religion encourages ignorant people to pretend they know science and to evangelize lies for their beliefs.”
• 1999-08-29 [Talk|Index] Gore waffling in debate over teaching of creationism? § “According to Eisner, "Several hours" after the initial statement, Cabrera called Reuters again to insist "the vice president supports the right of school boards to teach creationism within the context of religious courses and not science courses."”

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News

• 2006-11-13 So what's with all the dinosaurs?: "The world's first Creationist museum – dedicated to the idea that the creation of the world, as told in Genesis, is factually correct – will soon open."
  • Commentary: slashdot