Creation science or scientific creationism
is a branch of creationism that claims to
provide scientific support for the Genesis
creation narrative in the Book of Genesis
and disprove or reexplain the scientific facts,
theories and paradigms about geology, cosmology,
biological evolution, archeology, history,
and linguistics.The overwhelming consensus
of the scientific community is that creation
science fails to produce scientific hypotheses,
and courts have ruled that it is a religious,
not a scientific, view.
It fails to qualify as a science because it
lacks empirical support, supplies no tentative
hypotheses, and resolves to describe natural
history in terms of scientifically untestable
supernatural causes.
Creation science is a pseudoscientific attempt
to map the Bible into scientific facts.
It is viewed by professional biologists as
unscholarly, and even as a dishonest and misguided
sham, with extremely harmful educational consequences.Creation
science began in the 1960s, as a fundamentalist
Christian effort in the United States to prove
Biblical inerrancy and nullify the scientific
evidence for evolution.
It has since developed a sizable religious
following in the United States, with creation
science ministries branching worldwide.
The main ideas in creation science are: the
belief in "creation ex nihilo" (Latin: out
of nothing); the conviction that the Earth
was created within the last 6,000–10,000
years; the belief that humans and other life
on Earth were created as distinct fixed "baraminological"
kinds; and the idea that fossils found in
geological strata were deposited during a
cataclysmic flood which completely covered
the entire Earth.
As a result, creation science also challenges
the commonly accepted geologic and astrophysical
theories for the age and origins of the Earth
and universe, which creationists believe are
irreconcilable with the account in the Book
of Genesis.
Creation science proponents often refer to
the theory of evolution as "Darwinism" or
as "Darwinian evolution."
The creation science texts and curricula that
first emerged in the 1960s focused upon concepts
derived from a literal interpretation of the
Bible and were overtly religious in nature,
most notably linking Noah's flood in the Biblical
Genesis account to the geological and fossil
record in a system termed flood geology.
These works attracted little notice beyond
the schools and congregations of conservative
fundamental and Evangelical Christians until
the 1970s, when its followers challenged the
teaching of evolution in the public schools
and other venues in the United States, bringing
it to the attention of the public-at-large
and the scientific community.
Many school boards and lawmakers were persuaded
to include the teaching of creation science
alongside evolution in the science curriculum.
Creation science texts and curricula used
in churches and Christian schools were revised
to eliminate their Biblical and theological
references, and less explicitly sectarian
versions of creation science education were
introduced in public schools in Louisiana,
Arkansas, and other regions in the United
States.The 1982 ruling in McLean v. Arkansas
found that creation science fails to meet
the essential characteristics of science and
that its chief intent is to advance a particular
religious view.
The teaching of creation science in public
schools in the United States effectively ended
in 1987 following the United States Supreme
Court decision in Edwards v. Aguillard.
The court affirmed that a statute requiring
the teaching of creation science alongside
evolution when evolution is taught in Louisiana
public schools was unconstitutional because
its sole true purpose was to advance a particular
religious belief.In response to this ruling,
drafts of the creation science school textbook
Of Pandas and People were edited to change
references of creation to intelligent design
before its publication in 1989.
The intelligent design movement promoted this
version.
Requiring intelligent design to be taught
in public school science classes was found
to be unconstitutional in the 2005 Kitzmiller
v. Dover Area School District federal court
case.
== Beliefs and activities ==
=== 
Religious basis ===
Creation science is based largely upon chapters
1–11 of the Book of Genesis.
These describe how God calls the world into
existence through the power of speech ("And
God said, Let there be light," etc.) in six
days, calls all the animals and plants into
existence, and molds the first man from clay
and the first woman from a rib taken from
the man's side; a worldwide flood destroys
all life except for Noah and his family and
representatives of the animals, and Noah becomes
the ancestor of the 70 "nations" of the world;
the nations live together until the incident
of the Tower of Babel, when God disperses
them and gives them their different languages.
Creation science attempts to explain history
and science within the span of Biblical chronology,
which places the initial act of creation some
six thousand years ago.
=== Modern religious affiliations ===
Most creation science proponents hold fundamentalist
or Evangelical Christian beliefs in Biblical
literalism or Biblical inerrancy, as opposed
to the higher criticism supported by liberal
Christianity in the Fundamentalist–Modernist
Controversy.
However, there are also examples of Islamic
and Jewish scientific creationism that conform
to the accounts of creation as recorded in
their religious doctrines.The Seventh-day
Adventist Church has a history of support
for creation science.
This dates back to George McCready Price,
an active Seventh-day Adventist who developed
views of flood geology, which formed the basis
of creation science.
This work was continued by the Geoscience
Research Institute, an official institute
of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, located
on its Loma Linda University campus in California.<Creation
science is generally rejected by the Church
of England as well as the Roman Catholic Church.
The Pontifical Gregorian University has officially
discussed intelligent design as a "cultural
phenomenon" without scientific elements.
The Church of England's official website cites
Charles Darwin's local work assisting people
in his religious parish.
=== Views on science ===
Creation science rejects evolution's theory
of the common descent of all living things
on the Earth.
Instead, it asserts that the field of evolutionary
biology is itself pseudoscientific or even
a religion.
Creationists argue instead for a system called
baraminology, which considers the living world
to be descended from uniquely created kinds
or "baramins."Creation science incorporates
the concept of catastrophism to reconcile
current landforms and fossil distributions
with Biblical interpretations, proposing the
remains resulted from successive cataclysmic
events, such as a worldwide flood and subsequent
ice age.
It rejects one of the fundamental principles
of modern geology (and of modern science generally),
uniformitarianism, which applies the same
physical and geological laws observed on the
Earth today to interpret the Earth's geological
history.Sometimes creationists attack other
scientific concepts, like the Big Bang cosmological
model or methods of scientific dating based
upon radioactive decay.
Young Earth creationists also reject current
estimates of the age of the universe and the
age of the Earth, arguing for creationist
cosmologies with timescales much shorter than
those determined by modern physical cosmology
and geological science, typically less than
10,000 years.
The scientific community has overwhelmingly
rejected the ideas put forth in creation science
as lying outside the boundaries of a legitimate
science.
The foundational premises underlying scientific
creationism disqualify it as a science because
the answers to all inquiry therein are preordained
to conform to Bible doctrine, and because
that inquiry is constructed upon theories
which are not empirically testable in nature.
Scientists also deem creation science's attacks
against biological evolution to be without
scientific merit.
Those views of the scientific community were
accepted in two significant court decisions
in the 1980s which found the field of creation
science to be a religious mode of inquiry,
not a scientific one.
== History ==
The teaching of evolution was gradually introduced
into more and more public high school textbooks
in the United States after 1900, but in the
aftermath of the First World War the growth
of fundamentalist Christianity gave rise to
a creationist opposition to such teaching.
Legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution
was passed in certain regions, most notably
Tennessee's Butler Act of 1925.
The Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik
1 in 1957 sparked national concern that the
science education in public schools was outdated.
In 1958, the United States passed National
Defense Education Act which introduced new
education guidelines for science instruction.
With federal grant funding, the Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) drafted new
standards for the public schools' science
textbooks which included the teaching of evolution.
Almost half the nation's high schools were
using textbooks based on the guidelines of
the BSCS soon after they were published in
1963.
The Tennessee legislature did not repeal the
Butler Act until 1967.Creation science (dubbed
"scientific creationism" at the time) emerged
as an organized movement during the 1960s.
It was strongly influenced by the earlier
work of armchair geologist George McCready
Price who wrote works such as The New Geology
(1923) to advance what he termed "new catastrophism"
and dispute the current geological time frames
and explanations of geologic history.
Price's work was cited at the Scopes Trial
of 1925, yet although he frequently solicited
feedback from geologists and other scientists,
they consistently disparaged his work.
Price's "new catastrophism" also went largely
unnoticed by other creationists until its
revival with the 1961 publication of The Genesis
Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris,
a work which quickly became an important text
on the issue to fundamentalist Christians
and expanded the field of creation science
beyond critiques of geology into biology and
cosmology as well.
Soon after its publication, a movement was
underway to have the subject taught in United
States' public schools.
=== Court determinations ===
The various state laws prohibiting teaching
of evolution were overturned in 1968 when
the United States Supreme Court ruled in Epperson
v. Arkansas such laws violated the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution.
This ruling inspired a new creationist movement
to promote laws requiring that schools give
balanced treatment to creation science when
evolution is taught.
The 1981 Arkansas Act 590 was one such law
that carefully detailed the principles of
creation science that were to receive equal
time in public schools alongside evolutionary
principles.
The act defined creation science as follows:
"'Creation-science' means the scientific evidences
for creation and inferences from those evidences.
Creation-science includes the scientific evidences
and related inferences that indicate:
Sudden creation of the universe, and, in particular,
life, from nothing;
The insufficiency of mutation and natural
selection in bringing about development of
all living kinds from a single organism;
Changes only with fixed limits of originally
created kinds of plants and animals;
Separate ancestry for man and apes;
Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism,
including the occurrence of worldwide flood;
and
A relatively recent inception of the earth
and living kinds."This legislation was examined
in McLean v. Arkansas, and the ruling handed
down on January 5, 1982, concluded that creation-science
as defined in the act "is simply not science".
The judgement defined the following as essential
characteristics of science:
It is guided by natural law;
It has to be explanatory by reference to nature
law;
It is testable against the empirical world;
Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not
necessarily the final word; and
It is falsifiable.The court ruled that creation
science failed to meet these essential characteristics
and identified specific reasons.
After examining the key concepts from creation
science, the court found:
Sudden creation "from nothing" calls upon
a supernatural intervention, not natural law,
and is neither testable nor falsifiable
Objections in creation science that mutation
and natural selection are insufficient to
explain common origins was an incomplete negative
generalization
'Kinds' are not scientific classifications,
and creation science's claims of an outer
limit to the evolutionary change possible
of species are not explained scientifically
or by natural law
Separate ancestry of man and apes is an assertion
rather than scientific explanation, and did
not derive from any scientific fact or theory
Catastrophism, including its identification
of the worldwide flood, failed as a science
"Relatively recent inception" was the product
of religious readings and had no scientific
meaning, and was neither the product of, nor
explainable by, natural law; nor is it tentativeThe
court further noted that no recognized scientific
journal had published any article espousing
the creation science theory as described in
the Arkansas law, and stated that the testimony
presented by defense attributing the absence
to censorship was not credible.
In its ruling, the court wrote that for any
theory to qualify as scientific, the theory
must be tentative, and open to revision or
abandonment as new facts come to light.
It wrote that any methodology which begins
with an immutable conclusion which cannot
be revised or rejected, regardless of the
evidence, is not a scientific theory.
The court found that creation science does
not culminate in conclusions formed from scientific
inquiry, but instead begins with the conclusion,
one taken from a literal wording of the Book
of Genesis, and seeks only scientific evidence
to support it.
The law in Arkansas adopted the same two-model
approach as that put forward by the Institute
for Creation Research, one allowing only two
possible explanations for the origins of life
and existence of man, plants and animals:
it was either the work of a creator or it
was not.
Scientific evidence that failed to support
the theory of evolution was posed as necessarily
scientific evidence in support of creationism,
but in its judgment the court ruled this approach
to be no more than a "contrived dualism which
has not scientific factual basis or legitimate
educational purpose."The judge concluded that
"Act 590 is a religious crusade, coupled with
a desire to conceal this fact," and that it
violated the First Amendment's Establishment
Clause.The decision was not appealed to a
higher court, but had a powerful influence
on subsequent rulings.
Louisiana's 1982 Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science
and Evolution-Science Act, authored by State
Senator Bill P. Keith, judged in the 1987
United States Supreme Court case Edwards v.
Aguillard, and was handed a similar ruling.
It found the law to require the balanced teaching
of creation science with evolution had a particular
religious purpose and was therefore unconstitutional.
=== Intelligent design splits off ===
In 1984, The Mystery of Life's Origin was
first published.
It was co-authored by chemist and creationist
Charles B. Thaxton with Walter L. Bradley
and Roger L. Olsen, the foreword written by
Dean H. Kenyon, and sponsored by the Christian-based
Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE).
The work presented scientific arguments against
current theories of abiogenesis and offered
an hypothesis of special creation instead.
While the focus of creation science had until
that time centered primarily on the criticism
of the fossil evidence for evolution and validation
of the creation myth of the Bible, this new
work posed the question whether science reveals
that even the simplest living systems were
far too complex to have developed by natural,
unguided processes.Kenyon later co-wrote with
creationist Percival Davis a book intended
as a "scientific brief for creationism" to
use as a supplement to public high school
biology textbooks.
Thaxton was enlisted as the book's editor,
and the book received publishing support from
the FTE.
Prior to its release, the 1987 Supreme Court
ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard barred the
teaching of creation science and creationism
in public school classrooms.
The book, originally titled Biology and Creation
but renamed Of Pandas and People, was released
in 1989 and became the first published work
to promote the anti-evolutionist design argument
under the name intelligent design.
The contents of the book later became a focus
of evidence in the federal court case, Kitzmiller
v. Dover Area School District, when a group
of parents filed suit to halt the teaching
of intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania,
public schools.
School board officials there had attempted
to include Of Pandas and People in their biology
classrooms and testimony given during the
trial revealed the book was originally written
as a creationist text but following the adverse
decision in the Supreme Court it underwent
simple cosmetic editing to remove the explicit
allusions to "creation" or "creator," and
replace them instead with references to "design"
or "designer."By the mid-1990s, intelligent
design had become a separate movement.
The creation science movement is distinguished
from the intelligent design movement, or neo-creationism,
because most advocates of creation science
accept scripture as a literal and inerrant
historical account, and their primary goal
is to corroborate the scriptural account through
the use of science.
In contrast, as a matter of principle, neo-creationism
eschews references to scripture altogether
in its polemics and stated goals (see Wedge
strategy).
By so doing, intelligent design proponents
have attempted to succeed where creation science
has failed in securing a place in public school
science curricula.
Carefully avoiding any reference to the identity
of the intelligent designer as God in their
public arguments, intelligent design proponents
sought to reintroduce the creationist ideas
into science classrooms while sidestepping
the First Amendment's prohibition against
religious infringement.
However, the intelligent design curriculum
was struck down as a violation of the Establishment
Clause in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School
District, the judge in the case ruling "that
ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism."Today,
creation science as an organized movement
is primarily centered within the United States.
Creation science organizations are also known
in other countries, most notably Creation
Ministries International which was founded
(under the name Creation Science Foundation)
in Australia.
Proponents are usually aligned with a Christian
denomination, primarily with those characterized
as evangelical, conservative, or fundamentalist.
While creationist movements also exist in
Islam and Judaism, these movements do not
use the phrase creation science to describe
their beliefs.
== Issues ==
Creation science has its roots in the work
of young Earth creationist George McCready
Price disputing modern science's account of
natural history, focusing particularly on
geology and its concept of uniformitarianism,
and his efforts instead to furnish an alternative
empirical explanation of observable phenomena
which was compatible with strict Biblical
literalism.
Price's work was later discovered by civil
engineer Henry M. Morris, who is now considered
to be the father of creation science.
Morris and later creationists expanded the
scope with attacks against the broad spectrum
scientific findings that point to the antiquity
of the Universe and common ancestry among
species, including growing body of evidence
from the fossil record, absolute dating techniques,
and cosmogony.The proponents of creation science
often say that they are concerned with religious
and moral questions as well as natural observations
and predictive hypotheses.
Many state that their opposition to scientific
evolution is primarily based on religion.
The overwhelming majority of scientists are
in agreement that the claims of science are
necessarily limited to those that develop
from natural observations and experiments
which can be replicated and substantiated
by other scientists, and that claims made
by creation science do not meet those criteria.
Duane Gish, a prominent creation science proponent,
has similarly claimed, "We do not know how
the creator created, what processes He used,
for He used processes which are not now operating
anywhere in the natural universe.
This is why we refer to creation as special
creation.
We cannot discover by scientific investigation
anything about the creative processes used
by the Creator."
But he also makes the same claim against science's
evolutionary theory, maintaining that on the
subject of origins, scientific evolution is
a religious theory which cannot be validated
by science.
=== Metaphysical assumptions ===
Creation science makes the a priori metaphysical
assumption that there exists a creator of
the life whose origin is being examined.
Christian creation science holds that the
description of creation is given in the Bible,
that the Bible is inerrant in this description
(and elsewhere), and therefore empirical scientific
evidence must correspond with that description.
Creationists also view the preclusion of all
supernatural explanations within the sciences
as a doctrinaire commitment to exclude the
supreme being and miracles.
They claim this to be the motivating factor
in science's acceptance of Darwinism, a term
used in creation science to refer to evolutionary
biology which is also often used as a disparagement.
Critics argue that creation science is religious
rather than scientific because it stems from
faith in a religious text rather than by the
application of the scientific method.
The United States National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) has stated unequivocally, "Evolution
pervades all biological phenomena.
To ignore that it occurred or to classify
it as a form of dogma is to deprive the student
of the most fundamental organizational concept
in the biological sciences.
No other biological concept has been more
extensively tested and more thoroughly corroborated
than the evolutionary history of organisms."
Anthropologist Eugenie Scott has noted further,
"Religious opposition to evolution propels
antievolutionism.
Although antievolutionists pay lip service
to supposed scientific problems with evolution,
what motivates them to battle its teaching
is apprehension over the implications of evolution
for religion."Creation science advocates argue
that scientific theories of the origins of
the Universe, Earth, and life are rooted in
a priori presumptions of methodological naturalism
and uniformitarianism, each of which is disputed.
In some areas of science such as chemistry,
meteorology or medicine, creation science
proponents do not challenge the application
of naturalistic or uniformitarian assumptions.
Traditionally, creation science advocates
have singled out those scientific theories
judged to be in conflict with held religious
beliefs, and it is against those theories
that they concentrate their efforts.
=== Religious criticism ===
Many mainstream Christian churches criticize
creation science on theological grounds, asserting
either that religious faith alone should be
a sufficient basis for belief in the truth
of creation, or that efforts to prove the
Genesis account of creation on scientific
grounds are inherently futile because reason
is subordinate to faith and cannot thus be
used to prove it.Many Christian theologies,
including Liberal Christianity, consider the
Genesis creation narrative to be a poetic
and allegorical work rather than a literal
history, and many Christian churches—including
the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic,
Anglican and the more liberal denominations
of the Lutheran, Methodist, Congregationalist
and Presbyterian faiths—have either rejected
creation science outright or are ambivalent
to it.
Belief in non-literal interpretations of Genesis
is often cited as going back to Saint Augustine.
Theistic evolution and evolutionary creationism
are theologies that reconcile belief in a
creator with biological evolution.
Each holds the view that there is a creator
but that this creator has employed the natural
force of evolution to unfold a divine plan.
Religious representatives from faiths compatible
with theistic evolution and evolutionary creationism
have challenged the growing perception that
belief in a creator is inconsistent with the
acceptance of evolutionary theory.
Spokespersons from the Catholic Church have
specifically criticized biblical creationism
for relying upon literal interpretations of
biblical scripture as the basis for determining
scientific fact.
=== Scientific criticism ===
The National Academy of Sciences states that
"the claims of creation science lack empirical
support and cannot be meaningfully tested"
and that "creation science is in fact not
science and should not be presented as such
in science classes."
According to Joyce Arthur writing for Skeptic
magazine, the "creation 'science' movement
gains much of its strength through the use
of distortion and scientifically unethical
tactics" and "seriously misrepresents the
theory of evolution."Scientists have considered
the hypotheses proposed by creation science
and have rejected them because of a lack of
evidence.
Furthermore, the claims of creation science
do not refer to natural causes and cannot
be subject to meaningful tests, so they do
not qualify as scientific hypotheses.
In 1987, the United States Supreme Court ruled
that creationism is religion, not science,
and cannot be advocated in public school classrooms.
Most mainline Christian denominations have
concluded that the concept of evolution is
not at odds with their descriptions of creation
and human origins.A summary of the objections
to creation science by scientists follows:
Creation science is not falsifiable: An idea
or hypothesis is generally not considered
to be in the realm of science unless it can
be potentially disproved with certain experiments,
this is the concept of falsifiability in science.
The act of creation as defined in creation
science is not falsifiable because no testable
bounds can be imposed on the creator.
In creation science, the creator is defined
as limitless, with the capacity to create
(or not), through fiat alone, infinite universes,
not just one, and endow each one with its
own unique, unimaginable and incomparable
character.
It is impossible to disprove a claim when
that claim as defined encompasses every conceivable
contingency.
Creation science violates the principle of
parsimony: Parsimony favours those explanations
which rely on the fewest assumptions.
Scientists prefer explanations which are consistent
with known and supported facts and evidence
and require the fewest assumptions to fill
remaining gaps.
Many of the alternative claims made in creation
science retreat from simpler scientific explanations
and introduce more complications and conjecture
into the equation.
Creation science is not, and cannot be, empirically
or experimentally tested: Creationism posits
supernatural causes which lie outside the
realm of methodological naturalism and scientific
experiment.
Science can only test empirical, natural claims.
Creation science is not correctable, dynamic,
tentative or progressive: Creation science
adheres to a fixed and unchanging premise
or "absolute truth," the "word of God," which
is not open to change.
Any evidence that runs contrary to that truth
must be disregarded.
In science, all claims are tentative, they
are forever open to challenge, and must be
discarded or adjusted when the weight of evidence
demands it.By invoking claims of "abrupt appearance"
of species as a miraculous act, creation science
is unsuited for the tools and methods demanded
by science, and it cannot be considered scientific
in the way that the term "science" is currently
defined.
Scientists and science writers commonly characterize
creation science as a pseudoscience.
=== Historical, philosophical, and sociological
criticism ===
Historically, the debate of whether creationism
is compatible with science can be traced back
to 1874, the year science historian John William
Draper published his History of the Conflict
between Religion and Science.
In it Draper portrayed the entire history
of scientific development as a war against
religion.
This presentation of history was propagated
further by followers such as Andrew Dickson
White in his two-volume A History of the Warfare
of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).
Their conclusions have been disputed.In the
United States, the principal focus of creation
science advocates is on the government-supported
public school systems, which are prohibited
by the Establishment Clause from promoting
specific religions.
Historical communities have argued that Biblical
translations contain many translation errors
and errata, and therefore that the use of
biblical literalism in creation science is
self-contradictory.
== 
Areas of study ==
=== 
Creationist biology ===
Creationist biology centers on an idea derived
from Genesis that states that life was created
by God, in a finite number of "created kinds,"
rather than through biological evolution from
a common ancestor.
Creationists consider that any observable
speciation descends from these distinctly
created kinds through inbreeding, deleterious
mutations and other genetic mechanisms.
Whereas evolutionary biologists and creationists
share similar views of microevolution, creationists
disagree that the process of macroevolution
can explain common ancestry among organisms
far beyond the level of common species.
Creationists contend that there is no empirical
evidence for new plant or animal species,
and deny fossil evidence has ever been found
documenting the process.Popular arguments
against evolution have changed since the publishing
of Henry M. Morris' first book on the subject,
Scientific Creationism (1974), but some consistent
themes remain: that missing links or gaps
in the fossil record are proof against evolution;
that the increased complexity of organisms
over time through evolution is not possible
due to the law of increasing entropy; that
it is impossible that the mechanism of natural
selection could account for common ancestry;
and that evolutionary theory is untestable.
The origin of the human species is particularly
hotly contested; the fossil remains of purported
hominid ancestors are not considered by advocates
of creation biology to be evidence for a speciation
event involving Homo sapiens.
Creationists also assert that early hominids,
are either apes, or humans.Richard Dawkins
has explained evolution as "a theory of gradual,
incremental change over millions of years,
which starts with something very simple and
works up along slow, gradual gradients to
greater complexity," and described the existing
fossil record as entirely consistent with
that process.
Biologists emphasize that transitional gaps
between those fossils recovered are to be
expected, that the existence of any such gaps
cannot be invoked to disprove evolution, and
that instead the fossil evidence that could
be used to disprove the theory would be those
fossils which are found and which are entirely
inconsistent with what can be predicted or
anticipated by the evolutionary model.
One example given by Dawkins was, "If there
were a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian,
that would completely blow evolution out of
the water.
None have ever been found."
=== Earth sciences and geophysics ===
==== 
Flood geology ====
Flood geology is a concept based on the belief
that most of Earth's geological record was
formed by the Great Flood described in the
story of Noah's Ark.
Fossils and fossil fuels are believed to have
formed from animal and plant matter which
was buried rapidly during this flood, while
submarine canyons are explained as having
formed during a rapid runoff from the continents
at the end of the flood.
Sedimentary strata are also claimed to have
been predominantly laid down during or after
Noah's flood and orogeny.
Flood geology is a variant of catastrophism
and is contrasted with geological science
in that it rejects standard geological principles
such as uniformitarianism and radiometric
dating.
For example, the Creation Research Society
argues that "uniformitarianism is wishful
thinking."Geologists conclude that no evidence
for such a flood is observed in the preserved
rock layers and moreover that such a flood
is physically impossible, given the current
layout of land masses.
For instance, since Mount Everest currently
is approximately 8.8 kilometres in elevation
and the Earth's surface area is 510,065,600
km2, the volume of water required to cover
Mount Everest to a depth of 15 cubits (6.8
m), as indicated by Genesis 7:20, would be
4.6 billion cubic kilometres.
Measurements of the amount of precipitable
water vapor in the atmosphere have yielded
results indicating that condensing all water
vapor in a column of atmosphere would produce
liquid water with a depth ranging between
zero and approximately 70mm, depending on
the date and the location of the column.
Nevertheless, there continue to be adherents
to the belief in flood geology, and in recent
years new theories have been introduced such
as catastrophic plate tectonics and catastrophic
orogeny.
==== Radiometric dating ====
Creationists point to experiments they have
performed, which they claim demonstrate that
1.5 billion years of nuclear decay took place
over a short period of time, from which they
infer that "billion-fold speed-ups of nuclear
decay" have occurred, a massive violation
of the principle that radioisotope decay rates
are constant, a core principle underlying
nuclear physics generally, and radiometric
dating in particular.The scientific community
points to numerous flaws in the creationists'
experiments, to the fact that their results
have not been accepted for publication by
any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and
to the fact that the creationist scientists
conducting them were untrained in experimental
geochronology.
They have also been criticised for widely
publicising the results of their research
as successful despite their own admission
of insurmountable problems with their hypothesis.The
constancy of the decay rates of isotopes is
well supported in science.
Evidence for this constancy includes the correspondences
of date estimates taken from different radioactive
isotopes as well as correspondences with non-radiometric
dating techniques such as dendrochronology,
ice core dating, and historical records.
Although scientists have noted slight increases
in the decay rate for isotopes subject to
extreme pressures, those differences were
too small to significantly impact date estimates.
The constancy of the decay rates is also governed
by first principles in quantum mechanics,
wherein any deviation in the rate would require
a change in the fundamental constants.
According to these principles, a change in
the fundamental constants could not influence
different elements uniformly, and a comparison
between each of the elements' resulting unique
chronological timescales would then give inconsistent
time estimates.In refutation of young Earth
claims of inconstant decay rates affecting
the reliability of radiometric dating, Roger
C. Wiens, a physicist specializing in isotope
dating states:
There are only three quite technical instances
where a half-life changes, and these do not
affect the dating methods:
Only one technical exception occurs under
terrestrial conditions, and this is not for
an isotope used for dating.
... The artificially-produced isotope, beryllium-7
has been shown to change by up to 1.5%, depending
on its chemical environment.
... [H]eavier atoms are even less subject
to these minute changes, so the dates of rocks
made by electron-capture decays would only
be off by at most a few hundredths of a percent.
... Another case is material inside of stars,
which is in a plasma state where electrons
are not bound to atoms.
In the extremely hot stellar environment,
a completely different kind of decay can occur.
'Bound-state beta decay' occurs when the nucleus
emits an electron into a bound electronic
state close to the nucleus.
... All normal matter, such as everything
on Earth, the Moon, meteorites, etc. has electrons
in normal positions, so these instances never
apply to rocks, or anything colder than several
hundred thousand degrees.
...
The last case also involves very fast-moving
matter.
It has been demonstrated by atomic clocks
in very fast spacecraft.
These atomic clocks slow down very slightly
(only a second or so per year) as predicted
by Einstein's theory of relativity.
No rocks in our solar system are going fast
enough to make a noticeable change in their
dates.
==== Radiohaloes ====
In the 1970s, young Earth creationist Robert
V. Gentry proposed that radiohaloes in certain
granites represented evidence for the Earth
being created instantaneously rather than
gradually.
This idea has been criticized by physicists
and geologists on many grounds including that
the rocks Gentry studied were not primordial
and that the radionuclides in question need
not have been in the rocks initially.
Thomas A. Baillieul, a geologist and retired
senior environmental scientist with the United
States Department of Energy, disputed Gentry's
claims in an article entitled, "'Polonium
Haloes' Refuted: A Review of 'Radioactive
Halos in a Radio-Chronological and Cosmological
Perspective' by Robert V. Gentry."
Baillieul noted that Gentry was a physicist
with no background in geology and given the
absence of this background, Gentry had misrepresented
the geological context from which the specimens
were collected.
Additionally, he noted that Gentry relied
on research from the beginning of the 20th
century, long before radioisotopes were thoroughly
understood; that his assumption that a polonium
isotope caused the rings was speculative;
and that Gentry falsely argued that the half-life
of radioactive elements varies with time.
Gentry claimed that Baillieul could not publish
his criticisms in a reputable scientific journal,
although some of Baillieul's criticisms rested
on work previously published in reputable
scientific journals.
=== Astronomy and cosmology ===
==== 
Creationist cosmologies ====
Several attempts have been made by creationists
to construct a cosmology consistent with a
young Universe rather than the standard cosmological
age of the universe, based on the belief that
Genesis describes the creation of the Universe
as well as the Earth.
The primary challenge for young-universe cosmologies
is that the accepted distances in the Universe
require millions or billions of years for
light to travel to Earth (the "starlight problem").
An older creationist idea, proposed by creationist
astronomer Barry Setterfield, is that the
speed of light has decayed in the history
of the Universe.
More recently, creationist physicist Russell
Humphreys has proposed a hypothesis called
"white hole cosmology" which suggests that
the Universe expanded out of a white hole
less than 10,000 years ago; the apparent age
of the universe results from relativistic
effects.
Humphreys' theory is advocated by creationist
organisations such as Answers in Genesis;
however because the predictions of Humphreys'
cosmology conflict with current observations,
it is not accepted by the scientific community.
==== Planetology ====
Various claims are made by creationists concerning
alleged evidence that the age of the Solar
System is of the order of thousands of years,
in contrast to the scientifically accepted
age of 4.6 billion years.
It is commonly argued that the number of comets
in the Solar System is much higher than would
be expected given its supposed age.
Creationist astronomers express scepticism
about the existence of the Kuiper belt and
Oort cloud.
Creationists also argue that the recession
of the Moon from the Earth is incompatible
with either the Moon or the Earth being billions
of years old.
These claims have been refuted by planetologists.In
response to increasing evidence suggesting
that Mars once possessed a wetter climate,
some creationists have proposed that the global
flood affected not only the Earth but also
Mars and other planets.
People who support this claim include creationist
astronomer Wayne Spencer and Russell Humphreys.An
ongoing problem for creationists is the presence
of impact craters on nearly all Solar System
objects, which is consistent with scientific
explanations of solar system origins but creates
insuperable problems for young Earth claims.
Creationists Harold Slusher and Richard Mandock,
along with Glenn Morton (who later repudiated
this claim) asserted that impact craters on
the Moon are subject to rock flow, and so
cannot be more than a few thousand years old.
While some creationist astronomers assert
that different phases of meteoritic bombardment
of the Solar System occurred during creation
week and during the subsequent Great Flood,
others regard this as unsupported by the evidence
and call for further research.
== Groups ==
=== Proponents ===
Answers in Genesis
Creation Ministries International
Creation Research Society
Geoscience Research Institute
Institute for Creation Research
=== 
Critics ===
American Museum of Natural History
National Science Teachers Association
National Center for Science Education
No Answers in Genesis
National Academy of Sciences
Scientific American
The Skeptic's Dictionary
Talk.reason
TalkOrigins Archive
== 
See also ==
Adnan Oktar
Biogenesis
Cargo cult science
Conflict thesis
Denialism
Ken Ham
Kent Hovind
International Conference on Creationism
Natural theology
Omphalos hypothesis
Jonathan Sarfati
Skepticism
== Notes
