Pseudo-Science: Creationism Questions on the origin of life and of the universe must have challenged human curiosity and imagination as soon as early man had time for activities other than survival. In 1859, Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species, and since then, people have debated between the creationism and evolutionism theories. For the first time there was a theory that said the universe was not created by a supreme being and so began the debate. Creationists believe in a divine creator, God. Creationism has a broad range of beliefs involving a reliance on God’s miraculous work to explain the origin of the universe, of life, and of the different kinds of plants and animals on Earth. According to the creationist view, God willed everything into existence, and this is how humans came onto the Earth. Creationists say that the evolution theory is biased and incomplete. They believe that the fossil records fail to provide a link between diverse groups. To find out how old fossils are, scientists use a method called radioisotope dating, which measures the amount of uranium or lead lost over the years. Creationists deny evidence from this testing because they assume no uranium or lead has been lost over the years. Creationism grew as a result of the advancement of evolution that was evident after the publication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species. Within two decades, most of the scientific community had accepted some form of organic evolution. Many religious leaders, however, feared that a less-than-literal reading of the biblical story of creation would result in a loss of faith; and well-known spokesmen for the cause--such as William Jennings Bryan--saw modern war and other purported signs of moral decay to be evidence of the damage brought about by the teaching of godless evolution. The issue was argued on a number of platforms, one of the most famous being the Scopes Trial (1925), in which a hig...
