The Creation Science Movement (CSM, founded in 1932 as the Evolution Protest Movement) is a British Creationist organisation which lays claim to the title "the oldest creationist movement in the world". It was a member of the Evangelical Alliance until its resignation in 2008. It is a registered charity. [1]
The Evolution Protest Movement (EPM) had its roots in the Victoria Institute (or Philosophical Society of Great Britain) whose stated objective was to defend "the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture ... against the opposition of Science falsely so called." Although the Victoria Institute was not officially opposed to evolution, it attracted a number of scientists sceptical of Darwinism. It had its heyday in the late 19th century, but by the 1910s had shrunk considerably, and considerable apathy had set in. Prominent Canadian creationist (and long-standing institute member) George McCready Price, attended meetings regularly while living in London between 1924 and 1928, but his views failed to persuade the membership. [2] Before returning to North America, Price noted that British creationists were "scattered and divided into a number of small, weak, and insignificant groups or societies", and called for them to unify. [3]
In 1932 decorated submariner turned free-lance journalist Bernard Acworth proposed the formation of an anti-evolution society that would confine itself "as far as that might be possible, to the scientific rather than to the philosophic and religious plane". The proposal was seconded by barrister and amateur ornithologist Douglas Dewar, and the Evolution Protest Movement was formed at a meeting between them and five like-minded conservative evangelicals with electrical engineer, physicist and Victoria Institute president John Ambrose Fleming as president, Acworth as chairman and Dewar as secretary-treasurer. [4]
The EPM existed as only a paper organisation until it was publicly launched in February 1935, at a meeting attended by over six hundred. In its early years, Dewar was the main driving force within the EPM, publishing a booklet entitled Man: A Special Creation and engaging in public speaking and debates with supporters of evolution. In the late 1930s he resisted the American creationists call for acceptance of flood geology. Dewar's association with the EPM was to span a quarter century, and saw it grow to about two hundred members, with small branches in Australia and New Zealand. However it failed to win the public endorsement of C.S. Lewis, the most prominent Christian apologist of his day (and a personal friend of Acworth's), though he privately admitted to finding their arguments increasingly compelling. [5]
In the mid 1950s the EPM came under control of schoolmaster/pastor Albert G. Tilney, whose dogmatic and authoritarian style ran the organisation "as a one-man band", unwaveringly promoting Gap creationism and reducing the membership to lethargic inactivity. Entomologist William R. Thompson described it as "largely ignored or ridiculed by both the scientific and ecclesiastical establishments", and several prominent Creationists declined to serve as officers. [6]
In the 1970s, the recent publication of an English edition of The Genesis Flood , the EPM's rejection of flood geology, and Tilney's idiosyncratic scriptural interpretations, led to the formation of rival creationist groups such as the Newton Scientific Association and the Biblical Creation Society. During this time the EPM came to grudging acceptance of flood geology, and a number of young Earth creationists (YEC) joined its council and moved the balance away from Tilney and his allies. It was renamed the Creation Science Movement in 1980. By the mid 1980s it had become overwhelmingly YEC, formally incorporated flood geology into their 'Deed of Trust' (which all officers were required to sign), and condemned Gap and Day-Age Creationism as unscriptural. By the early 1990s it had closed down its foreign branches, but had increased its membership considerably. [7]
The current chairman of the CSM is David Rosevear, who has a Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom and was a senior lecturer in chemistry at Portsmouth University. He is a Young Earth creationist, [8] [9] who when interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation has claimed that members of the public are brainwashed by the media into believing in evolution. [10]
The CSM's Genesis Exhibition is sited in the old National Provincial Bank on Portsmouth Harbour. It "consists of 12 dioramas and a clutch of real fossilised dinosaur eggs." [11] The dioramas include a mockup of a gravestone with "Here lies the Theory of Evolution" carved on it. [12]
Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible. It is often presented without overt faith-based language, but instead relies on reinterpreting scientific results to argue that various myths in the Book of Genesis and other select biblical passages are scientifically valid. The most commonly advanced ideas of creation science include special creation based on the Genesis creation narrative and flood geology based on the Genesis flood narrative. Creationists also claim they can disprove or reexplain a variety of scientific facts, theories and paradigms of geology, cosmology, biological evolution, archaeology, history, and linguistics using creation science. Creation science was foundational to intelligent design.
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespread version, YEC is based on the religious belief in the inerrancy of certain literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Its primary adherents are Christians and Jews who believe that God created the Earth in six literal days.
Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolution.
Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not literal 24-hour days, but are much longer periods. The Genesis account is then reconciled with the age of the Earth. Proponents of the day-age theory can be found among both theistic evolutionists, who accept the scientific consensus on evolution, and progressive creationists, who reject it. The theories are said to be built on the understanding that the Hebrew word yom is also used to refer to a time period, with a beginning and an end and not necessarily that of a 24-hour day.
Flood geology is a pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, the flood myth in the Hebrew Bible. In the early 19th century, diluvial geologists hypothesized that specific surface features provided evidence of a worldwide flood which had followed earlier geological eras; after further investigation they agreed that these features resulted from local floods or from glaciers. In the 20th century, young-Earth creationists revived flood geology as an overarching concept in their opposition to evolution, assuming a recent six-day Creation and cataclysmic geological changes during the biblical flood, and incorporating creationist explanations of the sequences of rock strata.
Progressive creationism is the religious belief that God created new forms of life gradually over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of old Earth creationism, it accepts mainstream geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth, some tenets of biology such as microevolution as well as archaeology to make its case. In this view creation occurred in rapid bursts in which all "kinds" of plants and animals appear in stages lasting millions of years. The bursts are followed by periods of stasis or equilibrium to accommodate new arrivals. These bursts represent instances of God creating new types of organisms by divine intervention. As viewed from the archaeological record, progressive creationism holds that "species do not gradually appear by the steady transformation of its ancestors; [but] appear all at once and "fully formed."
Recurring cultural, political, and theological rejection of evolution by religious groups exists regarding the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. In accordance with creationism, species were once widely believed to be fixed products of divine creation, but since the mid-19th century, evolution by natural selection has been established by the scientific community as an empirical scientific fact.
The history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on the premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally. The term creationism in its broad sense covers a wide range of views and interpretations, and was not in common use before the late 19th century. Throughout recorded history, many people have viewed the universe as a created entity. Many ancient historical accounts from around the world refer to or imply a creation of the earth and universe. Although specific historical understandings of creationism have used varying degrees of empirical, spiritual and/or philosophical investigations, they are all based on the view that the universe was created. The Genesis creation narrative has provided a basic framework for Jewish and Christian epistemological understandings of how the universe came into being – through the divine intervention of the god, Yahweh. Historically, literal interpretations of this narrative were more dominant than allegorical ones.
The Creation Research Society (CRS) is a Christian fundamentalist group that requires of its members belief that the Bible is historically and scientifically true in the original autographs, belief that "original created kinds" of all living things were created during the Creation week described in Genesis, and belief in flood geology.
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young Earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris that, according to Ronald Numbers, elevated young Earth creationism "to a position of fundamentalist orthodoxy".
The Creation Museum, located in Petersburg, Kentucky, United States, is a museum that promotes the pseudoscientific young Earth creationist (YEC) explanation of the origin of the universe and life on Earth based on a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative of the Bible. It is operated by the Christian creation apologetics organization Answers in Genesis (AiG).
Henry Madison Morris was an American young Earth creationist, Christian apologist and engineer. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research. He is considered by many to be "the father of modern creation science". He coauthored The Genesis Flood with John C. Whitcomb in 1961.
Rejection of evolution by religious groups, sometimes called creation–evolution controversy, has a long history. In response to theories developed by scientists, some religious individuals and organizations question the legitimacy of scientific ideas that contradicted the young earth pseudoscientific interpretation of the creation account in Genesis.
Harold Willard Clark was a prominent creationist in the middle of the twentieth century.
Douglas Dewar was a barrister, British civil servant in India, and ornithologist who wrote several books about Indian birds. He wrote widely in newspapers such as The Madras Mail, Pioneer, Times of India and periodicals such as the Civil and Military Gazette and Bird Notes. He became an active anti-evolutionist and was a founding member of the Evolution Protest Movement.
Captain Bernard Acworth DSO was an English submariner, writer, evangelical Christian and creationist.
The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design is a history of the origins of anti-evolutionism by Ronald Numbers. First published in 1992 as The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, a revised and expanded edition was published under the current title in 2006.
The Biblical Creation Society (BCS) is a United Kingdom-based creationist organisation founded in 1977 by Scottish minister Nigel M. de S. Cameron (now President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies and a group of evangelical students, who were concerned about the popularity of theistic evolution among conservative Christians, but were repelled by the "wholly negative" attitude of the Evolution Protest Movement. Although inspired by the scientific creationism of John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, it refused to limit its membership to only Young Earth creationists, and in its name rejected American attempts to separate scientific creationism from its Biblical roots. The organisation is based in Rugby, Warwickshire.
Lewis Merson Davies FRSE RGS was a soldier, geologist, palaeontologist and author. He is noted for his controversial re-awakening of anti-evolutionary debate in Britain, following the Scopes Trial of 1925 in USA. He was described as "the most knowledgeable geologist and palaeontologist in the world of creationism". Davies was an advocate of Gap theory, and one of the few geologists to attempt to reconcile issues such as the geological effects of The Flood with contemporary geological understanding.
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