History of the creation-evolution controversy
Encyclopedia
The creation-evolution controversy
has a long history. In response to theories developed by scientists, some religious individuals and organizations questioned the legitimacy of scientific ideas that contradicted the literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis.
Interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible
had long been the prerogative of an orthodox priesthood able to understand Latin
who traditionally held that Genesis was not meant to be read literally and taught it as an allegory. With the advent of the printing press, the translation of the Bible into other languages, and wider literacy, sundry and more literal understandings of scripture flourished. This allowed some religious persons and groups to challenge supporters of evolution
, such as Thomas Henry Huxley and Ernst Haeckel
.
led to various theories of an ancient earth, and fossil
s showing past extinctions prompted early ideas of evolution. Such ideas were particularly controversial in England where both the natural world and the hierarchical social order were thought to be fixed by God's will. As the terrors of the French Revolution
developed into the Napoleonic Wars
, followed by economic depression threatening revolution in Britain itself, such subversive ideas were rejected, associated only with radical
agitators.
Conditions eased with economic recovery, and when Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
was anonymously published in 1844 its ideas of transmutation of species
attracted wide public interest despite being attacked by the scientific establishment and many theologians who believed it to be in conflict with their interpretations of the biblical account of life's, especially humanity's, origin and development. However radical
Quaker
s, Unitarian
s and Baptists welcomed the book's ideas of "natural law
" as supporting their struggle to overthrow the privileges of the Church of England
.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation remained a best-seller, and paved the way for widespread interest in the theory of natural selection
as introduced and published by English naturalist
Charles Darwin
in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin's book was praised by Unitarians
as well as by liberal Anglican
theologians whose Essays and Reviews
sparked considerably more religious controversy in Britain than Darwin's publication, as its support of higher criticism questioned the historical accuracy of literal interpretations of the Bible and added declarations that miracles were irrational.
Darwin's book revolutionized the way naturalists viewed the world. The book and its promotion attracted attention and controversy, and many theologians reacted to Darwin's theories. For example, in his 1874 work What is Darwinism? the theologian Charles Hodge
argued that Darwin's theories were tantamount to atheism
. The controversy was fueled in part by one of Darwin's most vigorous promoters, Thomas Henry Huxley, who opined that Christianity
is "a compound of some of the best and some of the worst elements of Paganism
and Judaism
, moulded in practice by the innate character of certain people of the Western World
." Perhaps the most uncompromising of the evolutionary philosophers was the German, Ernst Heinrick Haeckel
, a professor of biology, who dogmatically affirmed that nothing spiritual exists.
A watershed in the Protestant objections to evolution occurred after about 1875. Previously, citing Louis Agassiz
and other scientific luminaries, Protestant contributors to religious quarterlies dismissed Darwin's theories as unscientific. After 1875, it became clear that the majority of naturalists embraced evolution, and a sizable minority of these Protestant contributors rejected Darwin's theory because it called into question the veracity of Scriptures. Even so, virtually none of these dissenters insisted on a young Earth.
The greatest concern for creationists at the turn of the twentieth century was the issue of human ancestry. In the words of an 1896 tract:
Creationists during this period were largely premillennialists
, whose belief in Christ's return depended on a quasi-literal reading of the Bible. However, they were not as concerned about geology, freely granting scientists any time they needed before the Edenic creation
to account for scientific observations, such as fossils and geological findings. In the immediate post-Darwinian era, few scientists or clerics rejected the antiquity of the earth, the progressive nature of the fossil record
. Likewise, few attached geological significance to the Bibilical flood, unlike subsequent creationists. Evolutionary skeptics, creationist leaders and skeptical scientists were usually either willing to adopt a figurative reading of the first chapter of Genesis, or allowed that the six days of creation
were not necessarily 24-hour days.
matched the developments in Britain, and when Wallace
went there for a lecture tour in 1886–1887 his explanations of "Darwinism
" were welcomed without any problems, but attitudes changed after the First World War. The controversy became political when public schools began teaching that man evolved from earlier forms of life per Darwin
's theory of Natural Selection
. In response, the State of Tennessee
passed a law (the Butler Act
of 1925) prohibiting the teaching of any theory of the origins of humans that contradicted the teachings of the Bible. This law was tested in the highly publicized Scopes Trial
of 1925. The law was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court, and remained on the books until 1967 when it was repealed. However, the next year, 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas
, 393 U.S. 97
(1968), that such bans contravened the Establishment Clause because their primary purpose was religious.
by Theodosius Dobzhansky
, combining Mendelian genetics with Darwinian natural selection
, and explaining, through neutral mutation
s, the source of the variation upon which evolution acted, led to a synthesis that brought together disparate fields of biology and other sciences into a strong, coherent explanation of evolution. A campaign ensued, urging schools to teach the "fact" of evolution, and in the 1960s
, the federally supported Biological Sciences Curriculum Study biology text books were introduced, promoting evolution as the organizing principle of biology. The belief in the power of science amongst biologists was running especially high: One of the prominent creators of the modern synthesis, Julian Huxley
, made a religion of humanism
, saying that a "drastic reorganization of our pattern of religious thought is now becoming necessary, from a god-centered to an evolutionary-centered pattern", and advocating the use of science to further expand human capacities. Meanwhile, public opinion polls suggested that most Americans either believed that God specially created human beings or guided evolution. Membership in churches favoring increasingly literal interpretations of Scripture continued to rise, with the Southern Baptist Convention
and Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
outpacing all other denominations. With growth, these churches became better equipped to promulgate a creationist message, with their own colleges, schools, publishing houses, and broadcast media.
With decreasing church membership among evolutionary scientists, the role of opposing the anti-BSCS textbook movement passed from prominent scientists in liberal churches to secular scientists less equipped to reach Christian audiences. Anti-evolutionary forces were able to reduce the number of school districts utilizing BSCS biology text books, but courts continued to prevent religious instruction in public schools.
and John C. Whitcomb Jr.'s
influential The Genesis Flood
was published in 1961. The authors argued that creation was literally 6 days long, that humans lived concurrently with dinosaur
s, and that God created each kind of life. With publication, Morris became a popular speaker, spreading anti-evolutionary ideas at fundamentalist churches, colleges, and conferences. Morris set up the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC), an organization dominated by Baptists, as an adjuct to the Christian Heritage College
. The CSRC rushed publication of biology text books that promoted creationism, and also published other books such as Kelly Segrave's sensational Sons of God Return that dealt with UFOlogy
, flood geology
, and demonology
. These efforts were against the recommendations of Morris, who urged a more cautious and scientific approach. Ultimately, the CSRC broke up, and Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research
. Morris promised that the ICR, unlike the CSRC, would be controlled and operated by scientists. During this time, Morris and others who supported flood geology adopted the scientific sounding terms scientific creationism and creation science
. The flood geologists effectively co-opted "the generic creationist label for their hyperliteralist views". Previously, creationism
was a generic term describing a philosophical perspective that presupposes the existence of a supernatural creator.
theory was that of the Venerable
John Henry Newman, who in 1868, in a letter to a fellow priest, made the following comments:
More recent statements have been made by Pope John Paul II
and Pope Benedict XVI
that also support a theistic understanding of evolution.
on the origins and evolution of life actively attacked by creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold some form of creationism (usually young earth creationism
, creation science
, old earth creationism
or intelligent design
) as an alternative. Most of these groups are explicitly Christian, and more than one sees the debate as part of the Christian mandate to evangelize
. Some see science and religion as being diametrically opposed views which cannot be reconciled (see section on the false dichotomy). More accommodating viewpoints, held by mainstream churches and some scientists, consider science and religion to be separate categories of thought, which ask fundamentally different questions about reality and posit different avenues for investigating it.
More recently, the Intelligent Design movement
has taken an anti-evolution position which avoids any direct appeal to religion. However, Leonard Krishtalka, a paleontologist and an opponent of the movement, has called intelligent design "nothing more than creationism in a cheap tuxedo", and, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
(2005) United States District Judge
John E. Jones III
ruled that "intelligent design is not science", but is "grounded in theology" and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Before the trial began, President Bush
commented endorsing the teaching of Intelligent design alongside evolution "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about." Scientists argue that Intelligent design
does not represent any research program within the scientific community, and is opposed by most of the same groups who oppose creationism.
Creation-evolution controversy
The creation–evolution controversy is a recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe....
has a long history. In response to theories developed by scientists, some religious individuals and organizations questioned the legitimacy of scientific ideas that contradicted the literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis.
Interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
had long been the prerogative of an orthodox priesthood able to understand Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
who traditionally held that Genesis was not meant to be read literally and taught it as an allegory. With the advent of the printing press, the translation of the Bible into other languages, and wider literacy, sundry and more literal understandings of scripture flourished. This allowed some religious persons and groups to challenge supporters of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, such as Thomas Henry Huxley and Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
.
Creation-evolution controversy in the age of Darwin
The Creation-Evolution controversy originated in Europe and North America in the late eighteenth century, when discoveries in geologyGeology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
led to various theories of an ancient earth, and fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s showing past extinctions prompted early ideas of evolution. Such ideas were particularly controversial in England where both the natural world and the hierarchical social order were thought to be fixed by God's will. As the terrors of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
developed into the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, followed by economic depression threatening revolution in Britain itself, such subversive ideas were rejected, associated only with radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
agitators.
Conditions eased with economic recovery, and when Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
was anonymously published in 1844 its ideas of transmutation of species
Transmutation of species
Transmutation of species was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory that described the altering of one species into another, and the term is often used to describe 19th century evolutionary ideas that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection...
attracted wide public interest despite being attacked by the scientific establishment and many theologians who believed it to be in conflict with their interpretations of the biblical account of life's, especially humanity's, origin and development. However radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
s, Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
s and Baptists welcomed the book's ideas of "natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
" as supporting their struggle to overthrow the privileges of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
.
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation remained a best-seller, and paved the way for widespread interest in the theory of natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
as introduced and published by English naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin's book was praised by Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
as well as by liberal Anglican
Liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
theologians whose Essays and Reviews
Essays and Reviews
Essays and Reviews, published in March 1860, is a broad-church volume of seven essays on Christianity. The topics covered the biblical research of the German critics, the evidence for Christianity, religious thought in England, and the cosmology of Genesis....
sparked considerably more religious controversy in Britain than Darwin's publication, as its support of higher criticism questioned the historical accuracy of literal interpretations of the Bible and added declarations that miracles were irrational.
Charles Hodge
Charles Hodge was the principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878. A Presbyterian theologian, he was a leading exponent of historical Calvinism in America during the 19th century. He was deeply rooted in the Scottish philosophy of Common Sense Realism...
argued that Darwin's theories were tantamount to atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
. The controversy was fueled in part by one of Darwin's most vigorous promoters, Thomas Henry Huxley, who opined that Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
is "a compound of some of the best and some of the worst elements of Paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
and Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, moulded in practice by the innate character of certain people of the Western World
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
." Perhaps the most uncompromising of the evolutionary philosophers was the German, Ernst Heinrick Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
, a professor of biology, who dogmatically affirmed that nothing spiritual exists.
A watershed in the Protestant objections to evolution occurred after about 1875. Previously, citing Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
and other scientific luminaries, Protestant contributors to religious quarterlies dismissed Darwin's theories as unscientific. After 1875, it became clear that the majority of naturalists embraced evolution, and a sizable minority of these Protestant contributors rejected Darwin's theory because it called into question the veracity of Scriptures. Even so, virtually none of these dissenters insisted on a young Earth.
The greatest concern for creationists at the turn of the twentieth century was the issue of human ancestry. In the words of an 1896 tract:
Creationists during this period were largely premillennialists
Premillennialism
Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus’ physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration...
, whose belief in Christ's return depended on a quasi-literal reading of the Bible. However, they were not as concerned about geology, freely granting scientists any time they needed before the Edenic creation
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
to account for scientific observations, such as fossils and geological findings. In the immediate post-Darwinian era, few scientists or clerics rejected the antiquity of the earth, the progressive nature of the fossil record
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
. Likewise, few attached geological significance to the Bibilical flood, unlike subsequent creationists. Evolutionary skeptics, creationist leaders and skeptical scientists were usually either willing to adopt a figurative reading of the first chapter of Genesis, or allowed that the six days of creation
Creation according to Genesis
The Genesis creation narrative describes the divine creation of the world including the first man and woman...
were not necessarily 24-hour days.
Scopes Trial
Initial reactions in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
matched the developments in Britain, and when Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
went there for a lecture tour in 1886–1887 his explanations of "Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
" were welcomed without any problems, but attitudes changed after the First World War. The controversy became political when public schools began teaching that man evolved from earlier forms of life per Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's theory of Natural Selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. In response, the State of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
passed a law (the Butler Act
Butler Act
The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 Section 1922...
of 1925) prohibiting the teaching of any theory of the origins of humans that contradicted the teachings of the Bible. This law was tested in the highly publicized Scopes Trial
Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
of 1925. The law was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court, and remained on the books until 1967 when it was repealed. However, the next year, 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas
Epperson v. Arkansas
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 , was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of human evolution in the public schools...
, 393 U.S. 97
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1968), that such bans contravened the Establishment Clause because their primary purpose was religious.
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) textbooks
Work in genetics culminating in the 1937 publication of Genetics and the Origin of SpeciesGenetics and the Origin of Species
Genetics and the Origin of Species is a 1937 book by the twentieth century Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky and one of the important books of the modern evolutionary synthesis. The book describes the Modern Synthesis of Evolution Theory, also known as Synthetic...
by Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky ForMemRS was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis...
, combining Mendelian genetics with Darwinian natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
, and explaining, through neutral mutation
Neutral mutation
In genetics, a neutral mutation is a mutation that has no effect on fitness. In other words, it is neutral with respect to natural selection.For example, some mutations in a DNA triplet or codon do not change which amino acid is introduced: this is known as a synonymous substitution. Unless the...
s, the source of the variation upon which evolution acted, led to a synthesis that brought together disparate fields of biology and other sciences into a strong, coherent explanation of evolution. A campaign ensued, urging schools to teach the "fact" of evolution, and in the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
, the federally supported Biological Sciences Curriculum Study biology text books were introduced, promoting evolution as the organizing principle of biology. The belief in the power of science amongst biologists was running especially high: One of the prominent creators of the modern synthesis, Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
, made a religion of humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, saying that a "drastic reorganization of our pattern of religious thought is now becoming necessary, from a god-centered to an evolutionary-centered pattern", and advocating the use of science to further expand human capacities. Meanwhile, public opinion polls suggested that most Americans either believed that God specially created human beings or guided evolution. Membership in churches favoring increasingly literal interpretations of Scripture continued to rise, with the Southern Baptist Convention
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
and Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 2.3 million members, it is both the eighth largest Protestant denomination and the second-largest Lutheran body in the U.S. after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Synod...
outpacing all other denominations. With growth, these churches became better equipped to promulgate a creationist message, with their own colleges, schools, publishing houses, and broadcast media.
With decreasing church membership among evolutionary scientists, the role of opposing the anti-BSCS textbook movement passed from prominent scientists in liberal churches to secular scientists less equipped to reach Christian audiences. Anti-evolutionary forces were able to reduce the number of school districts utilizing BSCS biology text books, but courts continued to prevent religious instruction in public schools.
ICR and the co-opting of the creationist label
Henry M. MorrisHenry M. Morris
Henry Madison Morris was an American young earth creationist and Christian apologist. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research...
and John C. Whitcomb Jr.'s
John C. Whitcomb
John Clement Whitcomb, Jr. is an American Old Testament theologian and young earth creationist. Whitcomb is sometimes credited for establishing the modern young earth creationist/creation science movement by authoring with Henry M...
influential The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M...
was published in 1961. The authors argued that creation was literally 6 days long, that humans lived concurrently with dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s, and that God created each kind of life. With publication, Morris became a popular speaker, spreading anti-evolutionary ideas at fundamentalist churches, colleges, and conferences. Morris set up the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC), an organization dominated by Baptists, as an adjuct to the Christian Heritage College
San Diego Christian College
San Diego Christian College is a private, evangelical Christian college located in El Cajon, California, in suburban San Diego, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.-History:In January 1970, Tim F...
. The CSRC rushed publication of biology text books that promoted creationism, and also published other books such as Kelly Segrave's sensational Sons of God Return that dealt with UFOlogy
Ufology
Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...
, flood geology
Flood geology
Flood geology is the interpretation of the geological history of the Earth in terms of the global flood described in Genesis 6–9. Similar views played a part in the early development of the science of geology, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists in favour of an...
, and demonology
Demonology
Demonology is the systematic study of demons or beliefs about demons. It is the branch of theology relating to superhuman beings who are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings that have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent...
. These efforts were against the recommendations of Morris, who urged a more cautious and scientific approach. Ultimately, the CSRC broke up, and Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
. Morris promised that the ICR, unlike the CSRC, would be controlled and operated by scientists. During this time, Morris and others who supported flood geology adopted the scientific sounding terms scientific creationism and creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
. The flood geologists effectively co-opted "the generic creationist label for their hyperliteralist views". Previously, creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
was a generic term describing a philosophical perspective that presupposes the existence of a supernatural creator.
The Catholic Church and Evolution
Among the first recorded responses of a prominent Catholic clergyman to Darwin'sCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
theory was that of the Venerable
Venerable
The Venerable is used as a style or epithet in several Christian churches. It is also the common English-language translation of a number of Buddhist titles.-Roman Catholic:...
John Henry Newman, who in 1868, in a letter to a fellow priest, made the following comments:
More recent statements have been made by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
and Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
that also support a theistic understanding of evolution.
The current controversy
The controversy continues to this day, with the scientific consensusScientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
on the origins and evolution of life actively attacked by creationist organizations and religious groups who desire to uphold some form of creationism (usually young earth creationism
Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism is the religious belief that Heavens, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago...
, creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
, old earth creationism
Old Earth creationism
Old Earth creationism is an umbrella term for a number of types of creationism, including gap creationism and progressive creationism...
or intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
) as an alternative. Most of these groups are explicitly Christian, and more than one sees the debate as part of the Christian mandate to evangelize
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
. Some see science and religion as being diametrically opposed views which cannot be reconciled (see section on the false dichotomy). More accommodating viewpoints, held by mainstream churches and some scientists, consider science and religion to be separate categories of thought, which ask fundamentally different questions about reality and posit different avenues for investigating it.
More recently, the Intelligent Design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
has taken an anti-evolution position which avoids any direct appeal to religion. However, Leonard Krishtalka, a paleontologist and an opponent of the movement, has called intelligent design "nothing more than creationism in a cheap tuxedo", and, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
(2005) United States District Judge
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
John E. Jones III
John E. Jones III
John Edward Jones III is an American lawyer and jurist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A Republican, Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush as federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in February 2002 and was unanimously confirmed by...
ruled that "intelligent design is not science", but is "grounded in theology" and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Before the trial began, President Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
commented endorsing the teaching of Intelligent design alongside evolution "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about." Scientists argue that Intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
does not represent any research program within the scientific community, and is opposed by most of the same groups who oppose creationism.
Timeline of the controversy
- 1650 - Anglican ArchbishopArchbishopAn archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
James Usher of IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
states that the universe was created in 4004 BCE, in direct conflict with the former prevailing AristotlianAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
view of a cyclical and eternal earth. - 1785 - James HuttonJames HuttonJames Hutton was a Scottish physician, geologist, naturalist, chemical manufacturer and experimental agriculturalist. He is considered the father of modern geology...
presented his theory of uniformitarianismUniformitarianism (science)In the philosophy of naturalism, the uniformitarianism assumption is that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the...
, explaining that the Earth must be much older than previously supposed to allow time for mountains to be erodedErosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
and for sediment to form new rocks at the bottom of the sea, which in turn were raised up to become dry land. - 1794 to 1796 - Erasmus DarwinErasmus DarwinErasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...
published ZoönomiaZoönomiaZoonomia; or the Laws of Organic Life is a two-volume medical work by Erasmus Darwin dealing with pathology, anatomy, psychology, and the functioning of the body...
with ideas on evolution and all warm-blooded animals arising from one living filament. - 1802 - William PaleyWilliam PaleyWilliam Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...
publishes Natural Theology which uses the watchmaker analogyWatchmaker analogyThe watchmaker analogy, or watchmaker argument, is a teleological argument for the existence of God. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer...
to argue for the existence of God from signs of intelligent design in the living world. - 1809 - Jean-Baptiste LamarckJean-Baptiste LamarckJean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck , often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist...
proposed a theory of evolution by acquired characteristics, later known as LamarckismLamarckismLamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
. - 1830 to 1833 - Charles LyellCharles LyellSir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
(student of Buckland) published Principles of Geology denigrating catastrophism. - 1836 - William BucklandWilliam BucklandThe Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
, theologian and geologist, publishes Geological and Mineralogical Considerations with Reference to Natural Theology which was sixth in the Bridgewater Treatises series and rejected a global flood. - 1844 - Robert Chambers anonymously published the Vestiges of the Natural History of CreationVestiges of the Natural History of CreationVestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
. - 1857 - Philip Henry GossePhilip Henry GossePhilip Henry Gosse was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science, virtually the inventor of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology...
published Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. Omphalos is Greek for "navelNavelThe navel is a scar on the abdomen caused when the umbilical cord is removed from a newborn baby...
". Gosse was a brilliant naturalistNatural historyNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
who invented the first stable seawater aquarium. Gosse's book was an attempt to reconcile biblical literalismBiblical literalismBiblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
with geological uniformitarianism by adopting a Surrealist or Surrogate Realist (an anti commonsense realist) view of uniformitarianism and science generally. The book's Surrealist interpretation of science can be summed up God created the world AS IF the teachings of geology & science are true. Gosse's position is sometimes referred to as "Theological Surrealism" (see Jarrett Lepin for less trivial examples of Surrealism). Gosse's theme within the book was whether Adam and EveAdam and EveAdam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
had belly buttons (remnants of a link between the placentaPlacentaThe placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. "True" placentas are a defining characteristic of eutherian or "placental" mammals, but are also found in some snakes and...
and the baby). Since Adam and Eve did not have human parents they should not have belly buttons. This theme underlies the tension between geological records and biblical fundamentalism. His book was rejected by both sides of the debate because it "cuts no ice". Much of 21st century Creationist, Intelligent Design Theories flirt with Gosse's surrealist tenets to create an alternative and competing science. - 1859 - Charles DarwinCharles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
published The Origin of SpeciesThe Origin of SpeciesCharles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the...
regarding the theory of evolution, after over 20 years of research and discovery. Darwin was prompted to publish by the publication of an essay by Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
, which independently summarized the theory. The theory's most profound element, "natural selectionNatural selectionNatural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
," challenged the generally accepted idea of divine intervention in species formation, leading to strong reaction to Darwin's theoryReaction to Darwin's theoryThe immediate reaction to Darwin's theory followed closely on his publication of On the Origin of Species, and Charles Darwin's book sparked off international debate, though the heat of controversy was less than that over earlier works such as Vestiges of Creation...
. - 1860 - Liberal theologians published Essays and ReviewsEssays and ReviewsEssays and Reviews, published in March 1860, is a broad-church volume of seven essays on Christianity. The topics covered the biblical research of the German critics, the evidence for Christianity, religious thought in England, and the cosmology of Genesis....
supporting Darwin. A debate of Darwin's theory1860 Oxford evolution debateThe 1860 Oxford evolution debate took place at the Oxford University Museum on 30 June 1860, seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated, including Thomas Henry Huxley, Bishop Samuel...
was arranged at the Oxford MuseumOxford University Museum of Natural HistoryThe Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the...
, with Thomas HuxleyThomas HuxleyThomas Henry Huxley PC FRS was an English biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution....
among its defenders and Samuel WilberforceSamuel WilberforceSamuel Wilberforce was an English bishop in the Church of England, third son of William Wilberforce. Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his time and place...
, the BishopBishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of OxfordOxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
leading its critics. Later accounts indicate Sir Joseph HookerJoseph Dalton HookerSir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
was most vocal in defending DarwinismDarwinismDarwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
. - 1923 - The New Geology by Seventh-day Adventist George McCready PriceGeorge McCready PriceGeorge McCready Price was a Canadian creationist. He produced several anti-evolution and creationist works, particularly on the subject of flood geology...
was inspiration and basis for Morris and Whitcom's The Genesis Flood (see 1960 below). - 1925 - The Scopes TrialScopes TrialThe Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
(Dayton, TNDayton, TennesseeDayton is a city in Rhea County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 6,180 at the 2000 census. The Dayton, TN, Urban Cluster, which includes developed areas adjacent to the city and extends south to Graysville, Tennessee, had 9,050 people in 2000...
U.S.A.) tested the new Butler ActButler ActThe Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 Section 1922...
, which made it illegal to teach that man descended from animals in public schools. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100; prosecution lawyer William Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
offered to pay it, but it was later set aside on a technicality after appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. - 1950 - Pope Pius XIIPope Pius XIIThe Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
issued the papal encyclical Humani GenerisHumani GenerisHumani generis is a papal encyclical that Pope Pius XII promulgated on 12 August 1950 "concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine"...
, which states that evolution is compatible with Christianity insofar as to discover "the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter," but that to apply evolution to matters of spirituality is inappropriate. The Roman Catholic Church has since refined its interpretations of Genesis as symbolic of spirituality. - 1958 - The National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
started the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, which emphasizes evolution in high school biology textbooks. This was part of a broad-based improvement of education in the United States in response to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite. (See Sputnik crisisSputnik crisisThe Sputnik crisis is the name for the American reaction to the success of the Sputnik program. It was a key event during the Cold War that began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite....
, "New MathNew mathNew Mathematics or New Math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries, during the 1960s. The name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the U.S...
") - 1960 - The Genesis FloodThe Genesis FloodThe Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M...
by Henry MorrisHenry M. MorrisHenry Madison Morris was an American young earth creationist and Christian apologist. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research...
and John C. Whitcomb, Jr.John C. WhitcombJohn Clement Whitcomb, Jr. is an American Old Testament theologian and young earth creationist. Whitcomb is sometimes credited for establishing the modern young earth creationist/creation science movement by authoring with Henry M...
reinvigorated the creationist movement. - 1968 - A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Epperson v. ArkansasEpperson v. ArkansasEpperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 , was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of human evolution in the public schools...
case repealed all remaining creationist laws. The Court supported a District Court ruling that the "Creationism Act"Edwards v. AguillardEdwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
violated the Establishment Clause because it prohibited the teaching of evolution and it required the teaching of a particular religious doctrine. - 1973 - Tennessee passed a law requiring textbooks with a theory of origin to give equal emphasis to the Genesis account of Creation. In 1975 it was ruled unconstitutional because it violated the principle of separation of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. - 1991 - Darwin on TrialDarwin on TrialDarwin on Trial is a 1991 book about the theory of evolution and the creation-evolution debate. It was written by Harvard graduate and University of California, Berkeley law professor emeritus Phillip E. Johnson...
by Phillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. JohnsonPhillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
initiated the intelligent designIntelligent designIntelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
movement. - 1996 - Michael J. Behe wrote Darwin's Black BoxDarwin's Black BoxDarwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution is a book written by Michael J. Behe and published by Free Press in which he presents his notion of irreducible complexity and claims that its presence in many biochemical systems indicates therefore that they must be the result of...
, which proposed that some biological systems are irreducibly complex. - 1996 - On October 22, Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul IIBlessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
sent the message On Evolution to the Pontifical Academy of SciencesPontifical Academy of SciencesThe Pontifical Academy of Sciences is a scientific academy of the Vatican, founded in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. It is placed under the protection of the reigning Supreme Pontiff. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical and natural sciences and the study of related...
, stating that "fresh knowledge" requires one to realize that evolution is "more than a hypothesis." - 1999 - On August 11, the Kansas State Board of Education deleted discussion of evolution and the Big BangBig BangThe Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
from standards relating to state assessments. - 2001 - The Kansas State Board of Education reinstated the discussion of evolution and the Big Bang after the removal of three board members.
- 2002 - After much debate, the Ohio State Board of EducationOhio State Board of EducationThe Ohio Department of Education is the state education agency of Ohio, headquartered in Columbus. The Ohio State Board of Education is the governing body of the department....
partially adopted the new "Teach the ControversyTeach the ControversyTeach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
" initiative of intelligent design activists. In 2004 the board created a "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson plan for teachers. - 2004 - On January 30, Former U.S. President Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
released a statement condemning the suggestion that the word "evolution" be banned from textbooks used in schools in the state of GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. - 2004 - On February 19, Italian Education Minister Letizia MorattiLetizia MorattiLetizia Brichetto-Arnaboldi Moratti is an Italian businesswoman and politician. She is the former mayor of Milan.-Biography:...
issued a legislative decree that Italian children will learn about creationism. On April 23, top Italian scientists responded with an open letter and a petition, signed by more than 50,000 citizens, claiming that her proposal would sacrifice the "scientific curiosity of youth." Moratti clarified that her proposal did not ban the teaching of evolution, but rescinded the decree nonetheless and even acted to bolster the presence of evolution in Italian academic curricula. - 2004 - On July 23, the International Theological Commission issued the document Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God.
- 2005 - Evolution went on trial once again in the Kansas State Board of Education. Advertisements pushing intelligent design started to appear in European cities like BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
that had been untouched by creationism up to this point. - 2005 - In September, parents in the Dover Area School District legally challenged intelligent designKitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictTammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
after a statement read to students claimed that there are "gaps" in evolution and that intelligent design is an alternative about which they can learn from Of Pandas and PeopleOf Pandas and PeopleOf Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics...
. In December, the federal court in Harrisburg, PennsylvaniaHarrisburg, PennsylvaniaHarrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...
issued a sweeping decision asserting that intelligent design is just another name for creationism, that it is not science, and that it cannot be taught as science in public schools. - 2005 - In November, eight of the nine-member Dover, Pennsylvania school board were voted out and replaced with a coalition of DemocraticDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
and RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidates who oppose the previous board's decision to introduce intelligent design and lay doubts on evolution. The coalition ran on the Democratic ticket. The newly elected board members agreed to not appeal the court decision in Kitzmiller and have removed the intelligent design requirements from the school district's curriculum. (See Teaching Intelligent Design: Incumbent Dover PA school board fails reelection .) - 2005 - On December 20 the court in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictKitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictTammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, the "Dover trial," issued its ruling that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy requiring the presentation of intelligent design as an alternative to evolutionEvolutionEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
as an "explanation of the origin of life" thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States ConstitutionFirst Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. In his ruling, the judge wrote that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature. - 2007 - Pope Benedict XVI publishes Creation and Evolution, where he writes "This clash (between evolution and Creationism) is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such."
See also
- Creation-evolution controversyCreation-evolution controversyThe creation–evolution controversy is a recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe....
- History of creationismHistory of creationismThe history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on a premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally...
- History of evolutionary thoughtHistory of evolutionary thoughtEvolutionary thought, the conception that species change over time, has roots in antiquity, in the ideas of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese as well as in medieval Islamic science...