Creationism - National Center for Science Education

from open-minded neutrality, not—as is the case with most other creationists—from
crude and naive attempts to force data into pre-conceived theories derived from the Bible.
Thus, they try to uphold an ideal of inductive science not committed to prior conclusions,
and often accuse other creationists of unscientific deductive reasoning in starting with
biblical, religious ideas rather than from independent, neutral observations and facts
(Toumey). A notable example of this relatively critical attitude is Berney Neufeld’s
article “Dinosaur Tracks and Giant Men” in Origins (1975), in which he discounts the
creationist claims of the Paluxy manprints.
Despite this difference in approach and attitude, ICR maintains good relations
with GRI. ICR scientists have published in Origins (e.g. Brazo and Austin 1982), and
ICR students have gone on to further graduate study at Loma Linda. And creationscientists
in general admire the long and continuing tradition of Seventh-day Adventist
opposition to evolution.
THE INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH
The Institute for Creation Research, founded in 1972 after the original Creation
Science Research Center split up, has become the best-known creation-science
organization. Morris and Gish, ICR president and vice-president, respectively, are easily
the most prominent and widely recognized creationists in the world; Morris as creationscience
theoretician and author, and Gish as indefatigable debater. ICR, founded as the
research division of Morris and LaHaye’s Christian Heritage College, became
institutionally independent of CHC in 1980, though it remained physically on the CHC
campus until 1985, when it moved to a new building in nearby Santee. ICR has
published a monthly newsletter, Acts & Facts, since 1972, sent free on request (the
mailing list is now 82,000). Each issue contains a separate creation-science article as an
insert: the Impact articles series, which are written either by ICR faculty or non-ICR
creationists. 19 Acts & Facts/Impact compilations include Morris, Gish and Hillestad
1974, Morris and Gish 1976, Gish and Rohrer 1978, and Morris and Rohrer 1981, 1982.
The ICR Museum of Creation and Earth History was founded in 1977, and now occupies
expanded quarters in the new ICR building.
Creation/Evolution debates have attracted a great deal of public and media
attention. Marvin Lubenow, a Baptist minister who has written for ICR’s Impact series
and is also active in BSA and CRS, wrote an account of a decade of ICR debates, From
Fish to Gish: Morris and Gish Confront the Evolutionary Establishment (1983).
Lubenow’s book includes a discussion of a 1977 debate at UCLA between Gish and
Henry Hespenheide of the UCLA Biology Department, moderated by Everett Olson
(Lubenow 1983:155-163). In his Introduction, Lubenow describes a 1975 lecture by
UCLA geologist J.W. Schopf which he attended at the University of Michigan.
Lubenow, hiding his creationist identity, asked Schopf a question after the lecture
(concerning the claim that many terrestial plant genera were already in existence in the
Cambrian) which he felt demolished evolutionist claims. A young man then came up to
19 Impact No. 166, “Mutation Fixation: A Dead End for Macro-Evolution” (Beisner 1987), is of local
interest. It is based on a 1972 article by Robert Byles, until recently a member of the UCLA Anthropology
Dept. Byles had presented a number of conditions necessary for mutation fixation. The ICR article argues
that these conditions preclude macroevolution. This misses Byles’ point, however. Byles was referring to
a particular hypothesized form of directed, reductive mutation: the “Probable Mutation Effect.”