Talk:Creationism

This will be an article, we can't do everything at once, please do not delete. It serves as a disambiguation page at the moment and that is important for the articles that it directs to. We have a robust "Yound earth creationism" and this will come, please do not delete disambiguation pages that point to developed articles. Nancy Sculerati 10:09, 11 June 2007 (CDT)

I'm thinking about starting work on this - creationism is a topic in itself, and YEC/OEC are subtopics. --Tom Morris 12:06, 28 June 2008 (CDT)

This looks like a good start. Something which is often overlooked in discussions of creationism is that political opposition to evolution gained a significant amount of moral force from its opposition to Social Darwinism, which was often presented as the morality dictated by the science of evolution. This should be examined in the article. Anthony Argyriou 13:51, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

Poor start. It blurs the distinction between Creationism and Creation Science and largely takes the pro-Evolution pov of Eugenie Scott. A section purporting to explain scientific reaction to Creationism actually only contains one long quote defending the way evolution is taught in schools.

We need to explain what Creationism is, in its various forms (notably 'young earth' and 'old earth' variants, an almost even split in the US). On what basis do people subscribe to these views? If it's on the basis of faith, do Creationism's advocates acknowledge this basis?

How is creationism different from scientific views on origins? Is materialism an aspect that should be mentioned?

What are the implications of accepting or endorsing creationism? Are the political ramifications? If so, what are these?

Who opposes creationism? On what grounds? Is it, for example, on the grounds that there is no God, hence, no Creator, hence no possibility of the universe or life or human beings being created by a non-existent Being? Is it, likewise, on the grounds of materialism, i.e., that the material world is "all there is" so no supernatural being could possibly have any effect on it? Or is there a sort of "methodological naturalism" in play here, wherein some philosophers choose to look only at natural causes (for one reason or another) while not explicitly denying the possible existence of the Supernatural?

Last but not least, is intelligent design correctly classified as Creationism? Is this only on the view of Eugenie Scott, or is it common knowledge? Or is it simply that if ID is true, there must be a designer, and that it's an obvious inference that such a designer could only be a supernatural being such as a Greek god or even God?

Without answering all these questions, the article will remain weak. I'd suggest taking a look at the New World Encyclopedia's version, especially with regard to ID. --Ed Poor 23:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that it's really taking Scott's point-of-view. I've been trying pretty hard to keep up on the literature around creationism (especially when doing my dissertation on Intelligent Design), and I haven't really seen anyone else either provide significant critique of Scott's taxonomy of creationist beliefs, or proposed and produced an alternative. I think that while there is an important historical difference between Creationism and Creation Science - the latter being the movement in the United States during the twentieth century that started after the Scopes trial, peaking with McLean v. Arkansas (but still going today with groups like the ICR). Thing is, I'm not sure what space there is left in the word 'creationism' for creationist-but-not-Creation-Science folks: if you were someone who believed that God created the Earth but not in a literalistic way as per Genesis, would you really be called a creationist? Most of the people who aren't creationists in the sense of special creation would not use the label 'creationist'. Take for instance the typical moderate or liberal Anglican or mainstream Protestant who believes that God did 'create' but that the process of his creation is scientifically indistinguishable from what science says - someone like Archbishop Rowan Williams or maybe even the previous Pope. They do believe that God is a creative power and has used that power to create the universe and the things inside it. But they aren't exactly what the word 'creationist' denotes.

To illustrate my point, here is the definition of 'creationism' from the Oxford American Dictionary (as it is on the Macintosh's Dictionary application): "the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution". It also states that it is "another term for creation science". If you take the first definition and lop the last clause off, the scope is enlarged enormously. Pretty much every Christian would match that definition. But then how do we pick out the authors of The Genesis Flood, and folks like Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Henry M. Morris etc.? There will be edge cases, and some of the ID people would seem to be pretty close to the edge of the Oxford American Dictionary definition. Certainly, opponents of intelligent design classify it as a form of creationism, the court in Kitzmiller said it was basically rebranded creationism (to the point where one could take a book about creationism and do a find-and-replace to then produce a book about Intelligent Design). Of course, the Discovery Institute says it's not. I guess the most we can say is that it is widely accused of being rebadged creationism, but that proponents of it vigourously deny this charge. --Tom Morris 23:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Considered pseudoscience?

The last sentence of par. 1 says: "Creationism, at least in the form of young earth creationism, is considered by the scientific community to be pseudoscience." Is this true? I should think that scientists regard "creation science" and "intelligent design" as a pseudoscience. Creationism per se, by contrast with these, is a religious doctrine that does not even purport to be scientific. No? --Larry Sanger 02:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I was just trying to make *some* sense out of what I think is a lede paragraph that tries to encompass too many elements. I'm no expert on the subject -- in fact, I wish it would go away. Hayford Peirce 03:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)