Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Bouw goes on to state that the abandonment of geocentrism has resulted in the current
atheistic existentialism which preaches that life is really meaningless.
After all, geocentricity and not heliocentricity is perceived by our senses. The problem is that science
falsely-so-called has in the past one hundred years been more involved with promoting the ancient Greco-
Babylonian superstition of evolution and fighting belief in the Judeo-Christian God than they have been
concerned with truth. Could it be that John Q. Public now has a better understanding of theory, belief, and
faith than does Dr. Establishment Scientist? [1989:19]
Bouw has written a book defending geocentricity, With Every Wind of Doctrine:
Biblical, Historical and Scientific Perspectives on Geocentricity (1984), in which he
insists on the absolute authority and inerrancy of the Bible, and demonstrates quite
convincingly, by thorough exegesis, that the Bible indeed teaches geocentricity. He
refutes the various claims by non-geocentrist Bible-scientists of Bible passages alleged to
prove heliocentricity. Although Bouw doubts the validity of Einsteinian relativity
(especially its supposed moral consequences), he relies on the relativistic claim that
science cannot demonstrate any absolute center or fixed, motionless reference point in the
universe, and thus science cannot prove (absolutely) that the earth orbits the sun or viceversa.
But, argues Bouw, the Bible is an absolute source of truth and it does say where
the center of the universe is: the Earth.
James Hanson, a professor of computer science at Cleveland State University,
contributes to CRSQ as well as to Bouw’s geocentrist journal. In A New Interest in
Geocentricity, an edited transcript of a talk given to the Association of Christian Schools,
published by BSA, Hanson presents both scientific and bilblical reasons for geocentricity.
“I sincerely believe that evolution and heliocentricity go together... To me it appears as
inconsistent for people to accept creation and then to oppose geocentricity” (1979:3).
At the 1985 National Conference on Creationism, sponsored by the Bible-Science
Association, the concluding and featured event was a formal debate on geocentrism vs.
heliocentrism. Hanson teamed up with Bouw for the geocentrist side. This event
revealed the deep differences of opinions among Bible-scientists and creationists
regarding geocentrism. Though it was the main event of the conference, the debate was
not included in the Proceedings of the 11th Bible-Science Association National
Conference (BSA 1985), nor were Elmendorf’s geocentrist presentations. Though Lang
is tolerant of geocentrism, the newer BSA leaders are not, and other major creationscience
groups such as ICR reject it contemptuously as scientifically (and biblically)
preposterous—just as the geocentrists, along with all other Bible-scientists except a few
individuals on the extreme right, dismiss flat-earthism as unscientific nonsense. Gish, for
example, expresses his contempt for the scientific claims of evolution theory by
comparing it with geocentrism, which he points out was once also accepted by
establishment scientists (1979:23; Gish equates geocentrism with the Ptolemaic theory,
unlike modern Tychonian geocentrists, however). In fact, nobody from ICR attended the
1985 Conference, though they have been prominent at all others; it may be that they
wished to dissociate themselves from geocentrism. However, Richard Niessen, an
apologetics and Bible professor at ICR’s Christian Heritage College who has written
several ICR Impact articles, did attend and teamed up with a Christian (though noncreationist)
astronomer to debate Bouw and Hanson. In the debate, Bouw and Hanson
emphasized that astrodynamic equations based on either a geocentric or heliocentric
model work equally well.