Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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standard creationist arguments as the bombardier beetle (1986:38). His book has a backcover<br />
blurb by Nobel laureate physicist Eugene Wigner, who applauds Gange’s antimaterialism.<br />
Gange states that “modern knowledge is vindicating the Bible<br />
archeologically, biologically, and anthropologically” (1986:152), and urges acceptance of<br />
its eternal truth.<br />
The Intellectuals Speak Out About God (1984), a book edited by Roy Varghese<br />
and intended as a “theistic manifesto,” contains contributions by several old-earth<br />
creationists. Published by Regnery Gateway, a strongly conservative press, this volume,<br />
subtitled “A Handbook <strong>for</strong> the Christian Student in a Secular Society,” is dedicated to<br />
C.S. Lewis, and includes a Foreword by Ronald Reagan and a prefatory “Message from<br />
the Vatican.” Contributors include Geisler, McDowell, Charles Thaxton, Yale physics<br />
professor Henry Margenau, Robert Jastrow of NASA, Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles (a<br />
neurobiolgist and a philosophical dualist), Rupert Sheldrake (<strong>for</strong>mer Cambridge<br />
University biochemist who advanced the theory of “<strong>for</strong>mative causation” and<br />
“morphogenetic fields”), Chandra Wickramasinghe (Fred Hoyle’s co-author, and an antievolution<br />
witness at the Arkansas trial), historian of science Stanley Jaki, NYU<br />
psychologist Paul Vitz (recently famous <strong>for</strong> his study of the exclusion of the role of<br />
religion in textbooks), and a number of other philosophers and theologians. The scientist<br />
contributors oppose materialism and generally oppose Darwinian evolution. They appeal<br />
to Big Bang cosmogony as proof of the creation of the universe from nothing billions of<br />
years ago, the anthropic principle as demonstration of Design in the universe, and<br />
quantum mechanics as refutation of materialistic physics. Jastrow, founder-director of<br />
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, says a naturalistic origin of life and<br />
evolution of man from lower animals is “plausible” but “not certain” (1984:20). (In his<br />
popular books, Jastrow has convincingly presented the evolution of the universe, and the<br />
succession of life-<strong>for</strong>ms on earth, but has grown skeptical of naturalistic evolution.) In his<br />
chapter “<strong>Science</strong> and the Divine Origin of Life,” Wickramasinghe denounces<br />
evolutionists as “arrogant, dogmatic people” who “hold absolutely tenaciously to a point<br />
of view which has become a theological issue” (1984:31). He agrees with Varghese that<br />
Darwinism is “fatally flawed,” and expresses his support <strong>for</strong> the creationists, though<br />
stating that young-earth creationism is wrong. Other contributors as well chide the<br />
young-earthers <strong>for</strong> making creationism appear unscientific.<br />
Charles Thaxton, one of the contributors to this volume, is also co-author of The<br />
Mystery of Life’s Origins: Reassessing Current Theories (Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen<br />
1984), a knowledgeable critique of origin-of-life experiments and theories. Thaxton, who<br />
has a chemistry Ph.D. from Iowa State University, is now director of curriculum research<br />
at the Foundation <strong>for</strong> Thought and Ethics in Richardson, Texas, an organization which<br />
promotes presentation of a theistic world-view in science teaching and textbooks. Coauthor<br />
Walter Bradley is a professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M<br />
University; Roger Olsen has a Ph.D. in geochemistry from Colorado School of Mines.<br />
The book’s Foreword is by Dean Kenyon, a San Francisco State University<br />
biology professor who converted to creationism and who wrote the Foreword to Morris<br />
and Parker’s What Is Creation <strong>Science</strong>? (1982), and supported the Louisiana creationscience<br />
bill with an affidavit. (Wilder-Smith, in his “Great Debate: Evolution or<br />
Creation” tape from Firefighters from Christ, claims that Kenyon converted to belief in<br />
God and creationism after a student gave him a copy of Wilder-Smith’s 1970 book, and