A person who believes that the biblical account of
Genesis is a literal, scientific document, and that all scientific knowledge of evolution and geology are mistaken and/or misrepresented by biased scientists. According to Creationists, the world was created in 6 days some 4 to 6 thousand years ago, God placed fossils into various depths of the Earth for no apparent reason (or that, since fossils are so rare, not all co-existing animals were fossilized together) all species where created individually (with allowance for individual variation and common design themes, but no common anscestry), that all life was harmonious before the fall of man (hence carnivores ate
grass), that dinosaurs (which are said to be referred to in the bible as "leviathan" and "behemoth" and are supposedly represented in ancient art) lived at the same
time as humans, and that they were whiped out in the biblical flood because they couldn't
fit into
Noah's Ark (or that he only
fit the small ones, in which case some dinosaurs might be alive today).
To promote these views, creationists often misrepresent the data themselves, in an effort to discredit
science and abuse it to validate their own beliefs. Hence, they are extremely critical of any and all (overwhelming) evidence that does not support their views while using bogus or equivocal data to prove theirs.
This doesn't
work.
Any close, unbiased examination of the evidence reveals that nearly all of the creationist's claims are found wanting. I will not list those reasons here but
will instead include a few links below.
Creatonists aim to keep the American public ignorant of evolution and
science (which they have done a pretty good job of doing, as recent polls suggest) and desire that creation be taught in public schools along with evolution.
This would be about as ridiculous as teaching two different versions of the Holocaust in history classes (as some
people claim that it never happened, and can back up this claim with phony evidence) or teaching an alternate flat earth theory (which another
society can find "evidence" for) in geography.
That is not to say that there isn't a place for
Genesis in the sphere of public education, but that would most likely be in courses involving theology, religion, culture, anthropology, and philosophy.
The moral here, of course, is that one shouldn't look to
science to back up theology and vice versa.
Here are some links to learn the truth and why "creation scientists" are wrong (the links themselves can't be included because this site can't have words with more than 50 characters--wtf??). Go to a search engine and type in:
www.talkorigins.org
And perhaps
Karl Thornley's page on Theistic Evolution for a few more good links.
"Did I tell you about my trip to the American Museum of Natural
History?" I asked.
"No," she said, "That sounds wonderful."
"Yeah, I have a profound interest in all things prehistoric."
"I know," she said with a smile.
"You know, I really liked the section on human evolution," I began, almost immediately noticing her tense up a little.
"I
don't believe in human evolution," she said.
"Fossils
don't lie," I said.