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CREATIONISM: not just a phantom menace!

Why we are reprinting these articles

The American educational system has been under attack for some time as doing a poor job of educating students; many of the criticisms are very justified. However, parts of the cure are worse than disease. One of the cures that religous Christian fundamentalists propose is the teaching of creationism as a viable alternative to evolution. Creationists generally state that they do not deny the tenets of science, just that evolution did not occur. Unfortunately, this comment is generally not true: if you are a true Creationist, you also deny some fundamental principles of physics. Once this is accepted, science becomes witchcraft.

Many creationists wrap themselves in the robe of rightousness claiming their belief in the name of God. Several years ago, the Pope declared that the Catholic Church accepts the fact that religion must agree with science. I can not think of any single fact which shows more clearly that one has nothing to do with the other. The following is taken from the New Orleans Geological Society LOG (March, 2000):

As a postscript to Cuffey's article, I have chosen to print the concluding paragraph from a pamphlet printed in 1984 by the American Geological Institute entitled "Why Scientists Believe in Evolution." The text was written by Norman D. Newell, Curator Emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History and Professor Emeritus of Columbia University in New York City.
Ed Picou, Jr., Editor - NOGS LOG

Evolution is Not Anti-Religous. The hostility of creationists toward the sciences that deal with human and cosmic origins stems from fundamentalist conviction that evolution threatens religion. This is not true.

The sciences concerned with the past can discover much of what happened long agol how, where, and when events occurred. But they can not discover the purpose or destiny of human existence. Such ideas lie within the mind of each individual and are the domain of religion, mortality, and philosophy. Science can not, and does not, pretend that it will ever be able to answer all the questions of life.

The great philosopheers and scientists who illuminated the 17^th and 18^th centuries- so called Age of Reason- taught that science was a way of learning about God by studying His creation, and this view is still held by many religous Americans today. To attack science in the name of religious orthodoxy is detrimental to both science and religion.

Because of the seriousness of the situation, the New Orleans Geological Society has published two articles on the subject written by Clifford Cuffey. We salute their foresight and courage. We are pleased to reproduce the articles here with their permission.

• Evolution, Scientific Creation, Uniformitarian Geology, and Flood Geology
• The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation"

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