From: waynebro@juliet.caltech.edu (Broughton, Wayne Jeremy)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Future evolution of Creationism
Keywords: future
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:51:00 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: juliet.caltech.edu
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Thanks to all who have replied on this thread so far.  Most replies seem to
have been about the *nature* of the Creationist movement in the USA, the
motivations of the fundamentalists, and the origins of fundamentalism.
But there wasn't much attempt to extrapolate the current situation to
the future, although Jim Acker seems to think the deliberate efforts of
the ICR and other fundamentalists will keep Creationism alive far into
the future.

Be a bit bolder: do you really think Christian fundamentalism will succeed
in dominating the US government?  The impression I get is that Pat Robertson
and co. are considered more of a burden on the Republicans than a help.  As
others have said, their real strength seems to be at the local, grass-roots
level.  But even if they succeed in some aims such as re-introducing school
prayer, legislating various aspects of their morality, etc. (which is all
kind of irrelevant to this thread anyway), I think the precedents of the
Arkansas and Louisiana cases make it unlikely that they will be able to
succeed in legislating Creationism into the classroom.  More likely is a
local, soft-sell approach;  I have heard that various teachers around the
country already introduce creationist ideas into their biology classes.
But will this last?  No effort of the Creationists will make science 
abandon evolution for Creationism.  I still think it is only a matter of
time until the majority of the general public is as comfortable with the
fact of evolution as they are with the fact that the Earth revolves around
the sun.

(This actually raises an interesting point: IS the general public in fact
comfortable with Copernican astronomy?  I wonder if a large percentage of
the population is as ignorant of that as they are of evolutionary theory.
I have been appalled to hear people admit gross misunderstandings of the
structure of the solar system or the nature of stars and planets).

There is an important distinction between Creationism and the anti-Copernican
reaction: there were genuine scientific problems (in the Aristotlean 
"paradigm") with Copernican theory that could only be resolved by adopting
a Galilean/Newtonian point of view, and in many ways Copernican theory was
just a simpler alternative to Ptolemaic astronomy to explain the known
observational data.  Modern Creationism has no genuine scientific support
and is not just an alternative explanation of the available data.  It's
current success rests on ignorance of science (as Jim Acker points out)
and fundamentalist religious motivations (as Tim Chow and Bill Hamilton
point out).

So perhaps the question I am really considering is: will the general
public eventually accept science?  Maybe I am being too optimistic in
my faith that the general public can eventually be swayed by scientific
evidence.  After all, why should the current fundamentalist motivations
that reject science go away?  My answer: because eventually evolutionary
theory will become too real and palpable to be denied.  Current technology
lets us see other planets up close and personal on a screen, land people
on the moon, etc., all in terms of a Copernican solar system.  With the
completion of the Human Genome project, genetic engineering, maybe even
a human/chimp cross (is this even theoretically possible, ie. if we could
cut up and rearrange the chromosomes?), I think more people will be 
able to become more familiar with the concepts of evolution and hence
find it more difficult to reject it outright.  

Again, I should clarify that I am more concerned in this thread with the
future of Creationism as a belief rather than as a particular political 
movement (though of course each influences the other).  I think Hugh 
Ross' version of Creationism, which is much more scientific, could  be
gaining ground already: the Trinity Broadcast Network, a (the?) major
Christian TV station in the USA, seems to endorse his views.  Does 
anybody know any more about this?

Also, could anybody respond to one of my other original questions, the
status of Creationism world-wide?  Say in Islamic countries? Catholic
Central and South America?  Non-Islamic Africa?  Hindu India?  Buddhist
and Communist Asian countries?  Does the new religious resurgence in 
post-Communist Russia include a Creationist element?  Is Creationism
growing in Europe?

And finally (at last!), does anybody know if the Ronald Numbers' book
"The Creationists" that is being discussed on another thread speculates
about the future of Creationism?

Thanks!

Wayne.
Newsgroups: talk.origins