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# Creationism

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Creationism is a philosophical or religious position grounded in the idea that a supreme being or ultimate mover literally created the physical universe and all life contained therein. Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, this creation is taken to be ex nihilo (out of nothing), but some Biblical scholars have argued that this comes from a mistranslation of Genesis.

In one sense it is possible to be an evolutionary creationist: one can believe that a supreme being created the universe and also hold that life (and humans) evolved within this creation. It can also be held that a supreme being guided the process of evolution. This latter option, however--if it is construed as being part of a scientific explanation--might well be held up to criticism, since it seems to violate the stipulation that scientific enquiry be built upon a foundation of methodological naturalism.

Creationism, particularly when rooted in Judeo-Christian Biblical literalism, is usually expressed as opposition to evolutionary thinking. A very large majority of practising scientists, theologians and philosophers of science believe scientific creationism and [intelligent design theory]? -- terms that many of these thinkers do not take seriously -- to be untenable, either because these views are scientifically unsupported and unverifiable, or because they are considered outright nonsense. Creationists, of course, including a number of Christian scientists, disagree with this position and primarily combat it by claiming that evolutionary theory is inadequately supported and thus rooted in faith as well. Evolutionary scientists, at this point in the debate, usually argue that science does not claim any absolute truths but learns from its own failures and incompleteness, and that creationists do not present anything which would qualify as a falsifiable theory.

[We need a way to sum up the situation that does not make it seem as though Wikipedia officially endorses evolutionary science, as the above does. (Whoever gets the last word seems the victor, eh?) Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but that's an illustration of lack of bias.]

/Talk

The following needs to be integrated with the foregoing.

Person who believes the universe and the human race have been created by God. Usually in opposition to the theories of [Big Bang]? and evolution. Most curricula around the world exclude creationism from their textbooks. Creationists oppose evolution as being contrary to the Bible. In 1999, despite the official stand of the Vatican, fundamentalist Christians on the Kansas board of education removed evolution from the state science curriculum?. As a result of public criticism and ridicule, board members who supported de-emphasizing evolution were defeated in GOP? primaries? in August 2000. In 2001, the new board voted 7 to 3 for the new standards to again require the secondary schools to teach evolution.

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Last edited August 16, 2001 5:38 pm (diff)
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