Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

system called “baraminology” (from the Hebrew words for
“created kinds”) to express these ideas.
Creationism is rare outside of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
tradition, partly because polytheistic religions closely identify
their gods with natural forces (however, see the Hindu references
in Further Reading). Even though most of the biblical
foundation of creationism comes from the Old Testament,
which is also scripture for Jews and Muslims, very few Jews
or Muslims publicly proclaim opposition to evolutionary science
in Western countries (for exceptions, see Further Reading).
Throughout its history, creationism has been associated
with Christianity, and, beginning in the 20th century, with
Christian fundamentalism, although conservative Muslims
also accept creationism. Creationism is not simply belief in
the existence of a creator; thus when Theodosius Dobzhansky
described himself as a creationist, he used the term in a highly
unusual manner.
Before the rise of modern science, deriving science from
the Bible was the only available explanation for the origin
of the world and life in Western countries. Medieval church
leaders insisted that the Earth was the center of the universe,
because, they believed, the Bible said so; Copernicus (see
Copernicus, Nicolaus) and Galileo Galilei got in trouble
for presenting scientific evidence against this. As people
began to realize that the world was far larger and far older
than they had imagined, Western thinkers began to more easily
accommodate concepts that did not fit with biblical literalism.
As far back as the Scottish Presbyterian scholars Thomas
Chalmers in the late 18th century and Hugh Miller in the
early 19th century, the creation chapter of the Christian
Bible (Genesis 1) was being reinterpreted. Chalmers believed
there was a big gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, into which
countless eons of Earth history could fit; and Miller believed
that each day in the Genesis creation week represented a long
period of time. When theologian William Paley presented
the clearest and most famous defense of the idea that God
had designed the heavens and all of Earth’s organisms (see
natural theology), the only competing theory was that all
of these things had simply been produced by chance. Even
though Paley and others like him were not biblical literalists,
their viewpoints were similar to those of modern creationists,
because no credible theory of evolution had been presented.
The evolutionary theories of Lamarck and Chambers (see
Lamarckism; Chambers, Robert) were not convincing to
most scholars.
All that changed in 1859 when Darwin published Origin
of Species (see Darwin, Charles; origin of species
[book]). Here, at last, was a credible alternative to supernatural
design. If God did not supernaturally create the world,
then what reason was there to believe in God? Some people
became atheists; others, like Darwin and Huxley (see Huxley,
Thomas), believed that the existence of God could
not be known, a belief for which Huxley invented the term
agnosticism. Some religious people viewed Darwinism as a
major threat to their entire system of beliefs. But many Christians,
particularly those who were prominent in the study of
theology and science, did not. Some, like botanist Asa Gray,
creationism
blended evolutionary theory into their religious views. Others,
such as the prominent theologian B. B. Warfield, defended
evolutionary science even while championing the divine
inspiration, and the inerrancy, of the Bible. Some evangelical
Christians even found alternatives to a literal interpretation
of Adam and Eve. Geologist Alexander Winchell, for example,
believed that the Genesis genealogies referred only to the
peoples of the Mediterranean area, not the whole world; he,
and many others, accepted the possibility that Adam and Eve
were neither the first nor the only human ancestors.
Even those prominent scholars who opposed Darwinian
evolution in the late 19th century seldom did so from
the standpoint of biblical literalism that characterizes modern
creationists. One of the prominent antievolutionists of
the 19th century, Louis Agassiz, was a Unitarian (see Agassiz,
Louis). Paleontologist and anatomist Sir Richard Owen
studied the comparative anatomy of vertebrates and saw
God’s signature in the ideal themes upon which animals were
designed, rather than upon the details of supernatural creation
(see Owen, Richard). Swiss geographer Arnold Henry
Guyot rejected evolution but continued Hugh Miller’s tradition
of saying that the creation days of Genesis 1 may have
been long periods of time. Guyot did not believe in human
evolution but admitted nevertheless that the ape was a perfectly
good intermediate form linking humans to animals,
conceptually if not by origin. Geologist and theologian John
William Dawson preferred Paley’s natural theology to Darwin’s
evolution. He admitted that these designs did not flash
into existence and may have developed over long periods of
time. Historian and theologian William G. T. Shedd insisted
that God created different “kinds” of animals, but that these
kinds were categories such as birds, fishes, and vertebrates,
rather than species. Within each of these kinds, he believed,
transmutation was possible.
For the first 70 years after Darwin’s book was published,
there was very little opposition to evolution that resembled
modern creationism. This began to change between 1910 and
1915 when a series of books, The Fundamentals, was issued.
These books proclaimed biblical inerrancy; it is from these
books that the term fundamentalist is derived. Several prominent
scholars contributed essays to these books. Some of the
essays were antievolutionary, but two contributors (theologians
George Frederick Wright and James Orr) accepted some
components of evolutionary science. Therefore even the book
from which fundamentalism gets its name did not have a unified
antievolutionary stance.
The earliest creationist writers of the modern variety
were George McCready Price, a teacher and handyman from
the Seventh-Day Adventist tradition, and Harry Rimmer, a
Presbyterian preacher. Supported by themselves and a small
number of donors, they published books and preached creationism
and Flood Geology in the 1920s.
Creationism got a boost to nationwide notice by the
support of William Jennings Bryan, three-time candidate for
president. His opposition to Darwinism was based primarily
upon the abuses to which he thought evolutionary philosophy
was being put, particularly with “survival of the fittest” being