Creationism S Trojan Horse

"First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2007."

‘In this compelling and thoroughly researched book, Benjamin Huskinson demonstrates that just as there is broad diversity within evangelicalism, so too there is broad diversity among “creationists.” His work on the Intelligent Design movement is superb, and he prompts me to rethink my long held conviction that Intelligent Design is merely the most recent evolutionary form of creationism. This is a very fine book.’ —Randall Balmer, Author of Evangelicalism in America and writer-host of “In the Beginning”: The Creationist Controversy ‘Benjamin Huskinson's study of American creationism will be an eye-opener for those who sit on the opposite side of the evolution debate. He shows that far from being a unified assault on Darwinism, the campaign was actually a sequence of separate movements launched by rival evangelical groups competing for influence within their own community.’ —Peter Bowler, Author of Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design ‘A thoughtful and careful analysis that throws as much light on the diversity of American evangelicalism as it does on Christian attitudes to evolutionary theory. Huskinson offers a smart analysis of religious anti-evolution movements which neither demonises nor ridicules but seeks to understand the tenets and beliefs of a movement far more complex and multivalent than most of us appreciate. A must-read for science communicators.’ —Philippa Levine, Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas, University of Texas at Austin, USA This book explores the cultural history of anti-evolution efforts in the United States from 1960 to the present, refuting several popular narratives about creation science in evangelical America. Separating theological terms like “creationism” from cultural movements such as “creation science” and “intelligent design” in an evangelical marketplace of ideas, it contests assumptions that evangelical movements against evolution are homogeneous, and it argues that intelligent design is not an off-shoot of the creation-science movement. It demonstrates that the rationale of creationist groups is relational as well as ideological, showing that the social function of American creationism, which is to establish the boundaries of 'orthodox' religion, is key to understanding the competing strategies of creation-science organisations.

Hypatia Washington is 22 years old; an unemployed widow, living on welfare, and estranged from her four-year old daughter, she is profoundly alienated from life-when she enrolls in a community college course in Philosophy thus beginning a profound journey of the mind and heart. She debates skeptics as well as Christian apologists about Evolution, Islam, Womanism, and God, while lecturing about ethics, science, consciousness, and the meaning of human history. She analyzes not only philosophers such as Russell, Rawls, Wittgenstein, and Sartre, but wrestles with such questions as: Which famous philosophers were racists? Was Heidegger a Nazi? Was Wittgenstein homosexual? Did Foucault know he had AIDS? Were any important philosophers women? Or black? Professor Washington is no "ivory tower" philosopher: she agonizes over the Rodney King trial and its aftermath; The O.J. Simpson verdict; the death of Tupac Shakur; the "Black Athena" controversy, and the publication of The Bell Curve-as well as the horrors of September 11, 2001, and its consequences. Join Hypatia, in her pursuit of the Amor Dei Intellectualis ("intellectual love of God").

Polls show almost half of US adults believe that Earth is only 10,000 years old, whereas scientists consider our planet to be 4.56 billion years old. Examining these conflicting views illuminates aspects of the perceived conflict between religion and science, and helps us understand the battles between “evolutionist” and “creationist” advocates. This book examines how we approach knowledge, and how we look at certainty. It disentangles the threads of the traditional knowledge we are taught from the knowledge we gain from our own investigation of truth. It argues that nature, the basis of science, and scripture, the basis of religion, derive from a single source. Because of their shared origins, religious and scientific perspectives grounded in verifiable truths must be in harmony. The book presents the science behind the reliability of isotopic dates, and critiques young-earth creationist attacks on isotopic studies. Though the nature of time is a philosophical issue, its measurement is a scientific venture that has affirmed that Earth is 4.56 billion years old. The harmony of science and religion, based on recognition of their single source, is a prerequisite for the progress of humanity as a whole.

This book examines why the religion-science skirmishes known as the Evolution Wars have persisted into the 21st century. It does so by considering the influences of mass media in relation to decision-making research and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, one of the most authoritative persuasion theories. The book’s analysis concentrates on the expression of cues, or cognitive mental shortcuts, in Darwin-sceptic and counter-creationist broadcasts. A multiyear collection of media generated by the most prominent Darwin-sceptic organizations is surveyed, along with rival publications from supporters of evolutionary theory described as the pro-evolutionists. The analysed materials include works produced by Young Earth Creationist and Intelligent Design media makers, New Atheist pacesetters, as well as both agnostic and religious supporters of evolution. These cues are shown to function as subtle but effective means of shaping public opinion, including appeals to expertise, claims that ideas are being censored, and the tactical use of statistics and technical jargon. Contending that persuasive mass media is a decisive component of science-religion controversies, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religion, Science and Religion interactions, as well as researchers of Media and Communication Studies more generally.

The evidence for the ancestry of the human species among the apes is overwhelming. But the facts are never “just” facts. Human evolution has always been a value-laden scientific theory and, as anthropology makes clear, the ancestors are always sacred. They may be ghosts, or corpses, or fossils, or a naked couple in a garden, but the idea that you are part of a lineage is a powerful and universal one. Meaning and morals are at play, which most certainly transcend science and its quest for maximum accuracy. With clarity and wit, Jonathan Marks shows that the creation/evolution debate is not science versus religion. After all, modern anti-evolutionists reject humanistic scholarship about the Bible even more fundamentally than they reject the science of our simian ancestry. Widening horizons on both sides of the debate, Marks makes clear that creationism is a theological, not a scientific, debate and that thinking perceptively about values and meanings should not be an alternative to thinking about science – it should be a key part of it.

Those opposed to the teaching of evolution often make well-rehearsed claims about science that sound powerful and convincing. This work seeks to serve as a resource for addressing over 400 of the most prevalent claims made by creationists. Each claim is followed by a scientifically valid rebuttal.

The controversy over Intelligent Design (ID) has now continued for over two decades, with no signs of ending. For its defenders, ID is revolutionary new science, and its opposition is merely ideological. For its critics, ID is both bad science and bad theology. But the polemical nature of the debate makes it difficult to understand the nature of the arguments on all sides. A balanced and deep analysis of a controversial debate, this volume argues that beliefs about the purposiveness or non-purposiveness of nature should not be based merely on science. Rather, the philosophical and theological nature of such questions should be openly acknowledged.