Narrative for the Proposed Earth & Environmental Sciences Course GLY
135: "Creationist and Secular Views of Science and Earth History"
Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D.
May 24, 2010
Conflicts between young-Earth creationism and science are well known in the United
States. In May 2010, the research team of Craig Venter et al. announced the
development of "synthetic cells", which is a challenge to most creationists that believe
that abiogenesis is impossible without supernatural intervention from God or gods.
During the same week, the Texas State Board of Education passed controversial
guidelines for the state's public school curricula. Although these guidelines dealt with
history and social studies rather than science, members of this Board have promoted the
inclusion of certain forms of creationism into the public school curricula in the past.
Much of the global conflict between creationism and science originates from participants
misunderstanding their opponents' motives and methods. Unfortunately, many nonscientists are scientifically illiterate and have profound misconceptions of science and the
scientific method. Opposition and misunderstandings of biological evolution within
Islamic and Hindu creationism are especially tainted by traditional suspicions of Western
cultures and strong opposition to "imperialism", colonialism, and secularism. Individuals
of all cultures need to realize that the scientific method and scientific accomplishments
(e.g., modern medicine) should be appreciated for their contributions to humanity rather
than politicized or otherwise ostracized. One of the goals of this proposed course is to
introduce a proper understanding of the scientific method, explain the limitations and
abilities of science, and present how science, politics and religion/creationism are
separate disciplines that may be compatible. As part of this effort, Stephan J. Gould's
concept of non-overlapping magisteria should be considered.
At the same time, many critics of Judeo-Christian creationism fail to realize that this is
just one class of many creationist groups in the world that are challenging at least some of
the claims of modern science. Although the Judeo-Christian varieties of creationism are
dominant in the United States, Hindu creationism has hundreds of millions of followers
in India and Islamic creationism is prominent in northern Africa, the Middle East and
parts of Europe. Furthermore, even Judeo-Christian creationism is not monolithic, but
includes "young-Earth", "old-Earth", geocentric, intelligent design, and theistic
evolutionary sects that often distrust each other more than their secular opponents. That
is, the members of these various sects often view their creationist competitors as "wolves
in sheep's clothing", which are considered far more deceptive and dangerous than their
secular critics, which are considered "wolves in wolves' clothing." It is also not unusual
for a creationist sect to side with other creationists on one issue and vehemently oppose
them on another. For example, old-Earth Islamic and Judeo-Christian creationists will
ally themselves with young-Earth Judeo-Christian varieties to criticize biological
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evolution and yet bitterly disagree with the young-Earth creationists and side with
geochronologists on the effectiveness of radiometric dating methods. Therefore,
interactions between various creationist sects are very complex and range from strong
alliances to open hostility depending on the particular issue. This proposed course will
emphasize the diversity and complexity of the various creationist groups. The course will
also demonstrate that, depending on the issue, creationists are not necessarily a threat to
scientific research, but may be powerful allies.
Unlike most other courses in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences (EES),
this proposed course best corresponds with the Global Dynamics template under
Citizenship (IV) of the General Education curriculum. The course will concentrate on
how the major forms of creationism dynamically interact with each other and science.
Instead of concentrating on local or state controversies in the USA, the perspective of this
proposed course is to evaluate how local and regional interactions between science and
creationism in a given culture can have far reaching effects on scientific research, science
education, legislation, and civil order widely outside of that culture. For example, the
multilingual and colorful literature of Turkish Islamic creationist Harun Yahya (a.k.a.,
Adnan Oktar) is having a profound effect on science education in northern Africa, the
Middle East and in Islamic communities throughout Europe. Although natural selection
and other key aspects of biological evolution were actually expressed by Muslim
thinkers, such as Al-Jahiz, as early as the 8th century CE, skepticism for evolution is now
even greater in Turkey and many other Islamic countries than in the USA. On the other
hand, biological evolution, although theistic, is more widely accepted among the Shia
clerics in Iran than liberal Turkey. Some University of Kentucky graduates will be
working as physicians, translators, medical researchers, geologists, and other
professionals outside the US. This course will help them to avoid making premature and
false assumptions about local views on science and religion, and assist University of
Kentucky graduates in better understanding what the citizens of their host nations
actually think about their scientific or other work.
This proposed course will address the Course Learning outcomes of the Global Dynamics
template by:

Discussing the origins and diversity of the major forms of creationism around the
world and how they interact with each other and transcultural science.

Describing how local support for Hindu, Islamic, Judeo-Christian and other
creationist organizations may have far-reaching effects on science, science
education, and legislation in other nations.

Appreciating the important global contributions of geology to our societies,
including a comprehensive understanding of the Earth's history.

Showing how the major forms of creationism have evolved over the centuries and
how they have responded favorably and unfavorably to scientific discoveries.
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
Providing examples of how conflicts between creationist and anti-creationist
groups often involve struggles for power and influence in government, education
and culture.
The course will heavily rely on assignments and discussion groups within the recitation.
Each student will perform a class research project. With guidance from the instructor and
teaching assistant(s), the student will select a research topic on a significant transnational
issue or problem associated with how a particular form of creationism interacts with
scientific research, different cultures or science education. As part of the project, the
student should offer solutions to any problems and explain how the issue or problem has
widespread and potentially global implications. The project will consist of a term paper
that will be posted on the class webpage and an oral presentation in the recitation. The
results of these projects will be used to represent the course in its assessment for the
General Education program.
The recitation will also consist of a number of "hands on" laboratory exercises and
experiments. One of the assignments will be a learning experience that will utilize some
of the fundamental geologic principles established by William "Strata" Smith (17691839) and Nicolas Steno (1638-1686). First, small groups of students will perform
hydraulic experiments involving the aqueous sorting of particles by size, shape and
density on the EES stream table. Based on their observations, each student will write an
essay predicting how fossils should be distributed in the geologic record according to the
Judeo-Christian-Islamic Flood geology model and the actualistic ("uniformitarian")
model of modern geology. Next, the students will compare the vertical distributions of
invertebrate (corals, ammonites, trilobites, etc.) fossil assemblages from two or three
widely separated localities on the Earth. The two to three localities will be selected from
a list of locations that are known to have undisturbed fossiliferous sedimentary rocks
from a large number of geologic periods (such as, the Jiuxi Basin of China, the
Carpathian Basin of Poland, the Bogotá Basin of Colombia, the Williston Basin of North
Dakota, USA, etc.). The assignment will include actual fossils of representative genera
from the EES collection. The students will also look for any biological evolutionary
trends among the fossil phyla, classes, orders, etc. Another task will consist of laterally
comparing the fossil assemblages of the localities and correlating them. After
correlation, the students will then be asked to explain the lateral and vertical fossil
distributions at the localities using the Judeo-Christian-Islamic creationist Flood and
modern geology models. Finally, each student will compare and contrast the
effectiveness of the two models to explain the fossil distributions. This exercise should
provide the students with "hands on" discoveries and learning experiences that would be
a far more effective and profound than what they could obtain from just reading opposing
viewpoints from the geology and creationist Flood literature.
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