Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Adventists established GRI at their Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan,
with Frank Marsh as its first director.
The purpose of the Geoscience Research Institute was thus never intended to be
that of evangelizing the public and proselytizing widely for creationism, but rather the
much narrower aim of providing its own Adventist teachers with scientific advice
regarding creation-evolution and related issues. Therefore GRI plays a role which seems
curiously detached from that of George McCready Price, who was of course an
Adventist, and who aimed to convince the world. GRI is not descended from Price’s
Creation-Deluge Society.
Marsh was succeeded as director by Richard Ritland, an Andrews University
geophysicist. Ritland wrote A Search for Meaning in Nature (1966), a careful, reserved
presentation of creation-science arguments intended for use in Adventist schools. Ellen
G. White is cited frequently. Ritland does not believe, however, that all fossils result
from the Flood, and he doubts the authenticity of the Paluxy manprints.
Harold G. Coffin, a professor of paleontology at Andrews University and member
of the GRI staff, wrote Creation—Accident or Design? (1969), a 512-page presentation
of Seventh-day Adventist creation-science (some sections were written by Ariel Roth,
Ernest Booth, Robert H. Brown, Harold Clark, and Edward E. White). Coffin relies
heavily on the authority of Ellen G. White in this book; he quotes her, for instance, in
explaining that many new species have been produced by hybridization since the Flood:
It is Satan’s desire to bring discredit upon the Creator, to cause discomfort to man, and to support his
counterfeit of the creation story by working through the laws of genetics to bring about thorns on roses,
stingers on nettles, parasites, predators, and the host of other ugly and degenerate changes. [1969:365]
Genesis ‘kinds’ may also have crossed before the Flood: some of the bizarre fossil forms,
including alleged ape-men, may be the result of such crossing. God declared these
degenerate products of amalgamation “corrupt.” Citing White, he says that Adam was
twelve feet tall. Coffin also stresses that the Adventist belief concerning the Sabbath day
is based directly on the creation account, and describes each of the creation days.
(Coffin’s book was illustrated by Harry Baerg, professional illustrator for Review
and Herald, the Seventh-day Adventist publisher. Baerg wrote his own creation-science
book Creation and Catastrophe: The Story , of Our Father’s World (1972), with nice
drawings on every page. He also cites White frequently. Adam is fifteen feet tall in
Baerg’s book. Baerg suggests that a global network of shallow canal-like seas may have
caused the the worldwide tropical climate of the antediluvian world. The Flood was
precipitated either by a tilting of the earth’s axis, or by extinction of the fires which
burned on the moon.) Coffin also wrote Origin by Design (1983), assisted by Robert H.
Brown, Roth, and edited by Gerald Wheeler. It is similar to his earlier book, covering the
same topics, but with updated scientific references, no mention of Adventism, and only a
single mention of E.G. White. Brown served as director of GRI; Roth is the current
director.
Gerald Wheeler wrote The Two-taled Dinosaur: Why Science and Religion
Conflict Over the Origin of Life (1975). While completing his M.A. at the University of
Michigan, Wheeler heard a student describing a dinosaur exhibit in evolutionary terms.
It struck him that this paleontological evidence could be interpreted two very different
ways: evolutionist or creationist. Much of his book concerns the history of evolutionist