WCreationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation.
WThe Acámbaro figures are about 33,000 small ceramic figurines allegedly found by Waldemar Julsrud in July 1944, in the Mexican city of Acámbaro, Guanajuato. The figurines are said by some to resemble dinosaurs and are sometimes cited as anachronisms. Some young-Earth creationists have adduced the existence of figurines as credible evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, in an attempt to cast doubt on scientific dating methods and potentially offer support for a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative.
WIn creationism, a religious view based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis and other biblical texts, created kinds are purported to be the original forms of life as they were created by God. They are also referred to in creationist literature as kinds, original kinds, Genesis kinds, and baramins (baramin is a neologism coined by combining the Hebrew words bara and min.
WThe status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there is a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have legislation that mandates only evolutionary biology is to be taught in the appropriate scientific syllabuses.
WAn ongoing, recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute 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.
WA creationist museum is a facility that hosts exhibits which use the established natural history museum format to present a young Earth creationist view that the Earth and life on Earth were created some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in six days. These facilities generally promote pseudoscientific Biblical literalist creationism and contest evolutionary science, which has led to heavy criticism from the scientific community.
WMichael A. Cremo, also known by his devotional name Drutakarmā dāsa, is an American freelance researcher who identifies himself as a Vedic creationist and an "alternative archeologist" and argues that humans have lived on Earth for millions of years. In case of artifacts allegedly found in the Eocene auriferous gravels of Table Mountain, California and discussed in his book Forbidden Archeology, Cremo argues for the existence of modern man on Earth as long as 30 to 40 million years ago. Forbidden Archeology, which he wrote with Richard L. Thompson, has attracted attention from mainstream scholars who have criticized the views given on archeology and describe it as pseudoscientific.
WThe crocoduck is a fictitious hybrid animal with the head of a crocodile and the body of a duck proposed by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron.
WDating creation is the attempt to provide an estimate of the age of Earth or the age of the universe as understood through the origin myths of various religious traditions. Various traditional beliefs held that the Earth, or the entire Universe, was brought into being in a grand creation event by one or more gods. Once these cultures developed calendars, many began to ponder the question of precisely how long ago this event happened.
WEvolutionary creation, also presented as Evolutionary creationism, is the religious belief that God as Creator brings about his plan through processes of evolution. It is a type of creationism which, like theistic evolution, accepts modern science, but there are theological differences. Its proponents, who tend to be conservative evangelical Christians, hold that God is actively involved in evolution to a greater extent than theistic evolutionists.
WThe Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim creates the heavens and the Earth in six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh. In the second story, God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden, where he is given dominion over the animals. Eve, the first woman, is created from Adam as his companion.
WThe 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.
WThe creation–evolution controversy has a long history. In response to theories developed by scientists, some religious individuals and organizations questioned the legitimacy of scientific ideas that contradicted the literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis. Interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible had long been the prerogative of an orthodox priesthood able to understand Latin who traditionally held that Genesis was not meant to be read literally and taught it as an allegory. With the advent of the printing press, the translation of the Bible into other languages, and wider literacy, sundry and more literal understandings of scripture flourished. This allowed some religious persons and groups to challenge scientists who supported evolution, such as biologists Thomas Henry Huxley and Ernst Haeckel.
WInherit the Wind is a 1960 American film based on the 1955 play of the same name written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The film was directed by Stanley Kramer. It stars Spencer Tracy as lawyer Henry Drummond and Fredric March as his friend and rival Matthew Harrison Brady. It also features Gene Kelly, Dick York, Harry Morgan, Donna Anderson, Claude Akins, Noah Beery Jr., Florence Eldridge, and Jimmy Boyd.
WAn intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypothetical willed and self-aware entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" is also used, implying their teleological supposition of direction and purpose in features of the universe and of living things.
WJohan's Ark is a Noah's Ark-themed barge in Dordrecht, Netherlands, which was built by the Dutch building contractor, carpenter and creationist Johan Huibers. It is a full-scale interpretation of the biblical Ark, featuring animal models, including cows, penguins, a crocodile, and a giraffe. It opened to the public in 2012.
WThe level of support for evolution among scientists, the public, and other groups is a topic that frequently arises in the creation–evolution controversy, and touches on educational, religious, philosophical, scientific, and political issues. The subject is especially contentious in countries where significant levels of non-acceptance of evolution by the general population exists, but evolution is taught at public schools and universities.
WThe London Hammer is a name given to a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas in 1936. Part of the hammer is embedded in a limey rock concretion, leading to it being regarded by some as an anomalous artifact, asking how a man-made tool could come to be encased in Lower Cretaceous rock.
WNeo-creationism is a pseudoscientific movement which aims to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well received by the public, by policy makers, by educators and by the scientific community. It aims to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture. This comes in response to the 1987 ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism is an inherently religious concept and that advocating it as correct or accurate in public-school curricula violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
WThe discovery of nylon-eating bacteria has been used to educate and challenge creationist arguments against evolution and natural selection. These bacteria can produce novel enzymes that allow them to feed on by-products of nylon manufacture which did not exist prior to the invention of nylon in the 1930s. Observation of these adaptations refute religious and pseudoscientific claims that no new information can be added to a genome and that proteins are too complex to evolve through a process of mutation and natural selection. Apologists have produced reactionary literature attempting to deny that evolution occurs, in turn generating input from the scientific community.
WObjections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution initially met opposition from scientists with different theories, but eventually came to receive overwhelming acceptance in the scientific community. The observation of evolutionary processes occurring has been uncontroversial among mainstream biologists since the 1940s.
WThe Omphalos hypothesis is one attempt to reconcile the scientific evidence that the universe is billions of years old with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative, which implies that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. It is based on the religious belief that the universe was created by a divine being, within the past six to ten thousand years, and that the presence of objective, verifiable evidence that the universe is older than approximately ten millennia is due to the creator introducing false evidence that makes the universe appear significantly older.
WA polystrate fossil is a fossil of a single organism that extends through more than one geological stratum. This term is typically applied to "fossil forests" of upright fossil tree trunks and stumps that have been found worldwide, i.e. in the Eastern United States, Eastern Canada, England, France, Germany, and Australia, typically associated with coal-bearing strata. Within Carboniferous coal-bearing strata, it is also very common to find what are called Stigmaria within the same stratum. Stigmaria are completely absent in post-Carboniferous strata, which contain either coal, polystrate trees, or both. The word polystrate is not a standard geological term. This term is typically found in creationist publications.
WIn creationism, special creation is a belief that the universe and all life in it originated in its present form by fiat or divine decree.
W"Teach the Controversy" is a campaign, conducted by the Discovery Institute, to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. Scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, note the institute to have manufactured a controversy, where there exists none.
WTheistic science, also referred to as theistic realism, is the pseudoscientific proposal that the central scientific method of requiring testability, known as methodological naturalism, should be replaced by a philosophy of science that allows occasional supernatural explanations which are inherently untestable. Proponents propose supernatural explanations for topics raised by their theology, in particular evolution.
WThe theology of creation and evolution is theology that deals with issues concerning the universe, the life, and especially man, in terms of creation or evolution.
WIsaac Newton Vail was an American Quaker, schoolteacher, and pseudoscientist supporting the theory of catastrophism. His ideas were taken up by creationists including Jehovah's Witnesses.
WThe Wedge Strategy is a creationist political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document. Its goal is to change American culture by shaping public policy to reflect politically conservative fundamentalist evangelical Protestant values. The wedge metaphor is attributed to Phillip E. Johnson and depicts a metal wedge splitting a log.