Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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Lubenow and said, “You’re a Christian!” This man (not indentified in Lubenow’s book)<br />
was David McQueen, then a graduate student in Michigan. McQueen later joined the<br />
ICR faculty. Prior to joining ICR full-time, he gave a deposition <strong>for</strong> the Arkansas<br />
creation-science trial, but was not called as a witness at the trial itself. (No ICR members<br />
were witnesses at the trial.)<br />
Following its administrative separation from CHC, ICR began offering graduate<br />
courses. In 1981 the Cali<strong>for</strong>nia Private Postsecondary <strong>Education</strong> Division approved<br />
ICR’s M.S. degree programs in astro/geophysics, biology, geology, and science<br />
education. (“Approval” is not the same as accreditation. The ICR Graduate School has<br />
never sought state accreditation, knowing that its outspoken commitment to<br />
fundamentalist creationism would preclude this. “Approval” by the PPED means that<br />
Cali<strong>for</strong>nia officially recognizes graduate degrees as legitimate, though non-accredited.<br />
Renewal of this approval is now being contested.) 20<br />
M.S. theses have included Theories of Origins: Do They Persist Despite Contrary<br />
Evidence? (Brazo 1983; biology), A Critique of Molecular Homology (Knaub 1983;<br />
biology), Scale Time Versus Geologic Time in Radioisotope Age Determination (R.L.N.<br />
Mandock 1983), Theoretical Thermal Calculations <strong>for</strong> Heat Distributions with Spherical<br />
Symmetry (Mandock 1983), A Rationale <strong>for</strong> the Christian College Biology Curriculum: A<br />
Case Study at Christian Heritage College (M.J. Nutting 1983), Origin of Bedded Salt<br />
Deposits: A Critique of Evaporative Models (D. Nutting 1984), A Determination of the<br />
Time of the Flood from the Geologic Ages of River Deltas (Rasmussen 1984), A<br />
Reevaluation of the English Peppered Moth’s Use as an Example of Evolution in<br />
Progress (Osborne 1985), and A Pilot Study on the Validity of Using an Inquiry<br />
Approach in a Video Format <strong>for</strong> Origins: Two Models, Evolution-Creation in Christian<br />
Schools (Townley 1985). I took an ICR graduate level course in <strong>Science</strong> <strong>Education</strong><br />
taught by Richard Bliss on the two-model approach. (I did not take it <strong>for</strong> graduate credit,<br />
so officially I was auditing.)<br />
ICR Summer Institutes have also been held each year since 1972, both at ICR and<br />
at various locations around the country. These are five-day programs on creation-science<br />
and biblical creationism (I attended two such Summer Institutes at ICR), which can be<br />
taken <strong>for</strong> undergraduate or graduate credit (the last requiring an additional paper). Of the<br />
187 registered attendees at one of these Summer Institutes, in 1984, the following<br />
occupations were represented:<br />
Teachers: 43<br />
College: 11<br />
20 In 1988 this PPED approval was due <strong>for</strong> renewal. A five-man evaluating committee voted 3 to 2 <strong>for</strong><br />
renewal, but later, after meeting with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, one member<br />
switched his vote to deny approval. The two who voted <strong>for</strong> approval were George Howe of The Master’s<br />
College and the Creation Research Society, and G. Edwin Miller, <strong>for</strong>mer president of Morris’s (and ICR’s)<br />
Christian Heritage College. Miller has also been executive secretary of TRACS, a private fundamentalist<br />
and creationist accrediting agency founded by Morris. TRACS has accredited Christian Heritage College,<br />
Criswell <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> Bible Studies in Texas, and Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College (now University). ICR<br />
Graduate School is an associate member of TRACS.<br />
ICR has thus far avoided withdrawal of approval by negotiating with the Dept. of <strong>Education</strong>, promising to<br />
keep the “religious” aspects of its creationist teachings separate from its “science” instruction. Meanwhile,<br />
in 1989 a new committee was chosen by PPED to re-evaluate ICR’s graduate school approval and to check<br />
its compliance with the negotiated conditions. This new committee includes UCLA paleontologist Everett<br />
Olson and UCLA molecular biologist Richard Dickerson.