Creationism - National Center for Science Education

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