Creationism Vs. Evolution The battle between theories of evolution and those based on creationism has been going on for many years and does not look as if it will be over any time soon. Particularly, this ongoing debate has surrounded the teachings in public schools. As a former public school student myself, I never studied any theories of "creation science;"� in fact, to my surprise, it was not until this year, my junior year of college, where I have been first introduced to the idea of creationism. Given this information, I have decided to focus this paper on various creationist ideas, not only to fulfill the requirements for this research paper, but also to further my own knowledge of this personally unfamiliar topic.
While beliefs of organic evolution have been the general acceptance of the intellectual elite in the late Victorian era, it is also true that, at this time, the majority of Americans were loyal to the concept of special creation.
William Bateson
Evolution
EvolutionMost of these masses said nothing, however, some vocally supported such persons as Charles Hodge, a Princeton theologian who preached that Darwinism was atheism.
John William Dawson and Arnold Guyot, two of the last reputable nineteenth-century creationists attempted to oblige science by interpreting the days of Genesis "as ages and by correlating them with successive epochs in the natural history of the world"� (Ruse, 229). Dawson and Guyot cited several supernatural interventions, particularly in their theories of the first humans; however, they attempted to keep such paranormal citations to a minimum, thus focusing on a maximizing of operations of natural law.
Between 1910 and 1915, The Fundamentals was published to rejuvenate and reform Christianity throughout the world. These booklets were mass-produced, and, at the time, posed a bigger threat to orthodox faith than did evolution. According to Numbers,