The Elusive Scientific Basis of Creation "Science"

Abstract

Is there, as claimed, scientific support for "scientific creationism"? If so, arguments that scientific creationism is a legitimate scientific discipline deserving "equal time" with evolution in public-school science classes would be strengthened. An early study (Cole and Scott, 1982) revealed that 28 prominent creationists did not publish articles dealing with empirical, experimental or theoretical evidence for the scientific creationist "model" in over 4000 journals covered by the data-retrieval system SCISEARCH. To see if other scientific creationists were publishing proofs of creation, we surveyed editors of 68 journals to which scientific creationists would be likely to submit articles on this subject. Out of over 135,000 submissions from 1980 to 1983, only 18 dealt with empirical, experimental, or theoretical support for scientific creationism, and 12 of these went to one science education journal alone. No creationist articles have been published, although three were still under review at the time of this study. Papers were rejected due to poor scholarship, with editors commenting that the articles appeared to have been written by laymen rather than professional scientists. A number of differences are apparent in comparing the scholarship found in "in house" creation science sources and "mainline" scientific journals. Although scientific creationists complain that "completely scientific papers" would be rejected out of hand by "mainline" journals, it is obvious that none have been submitted. Outside of creationism outlets, then, there is no "scientific" creationism. We have documented this as a service to the teachers, professors, and lawyers who are striving to maintain high standards of science education in the face of pressures to introduce non-scientific concepts into the public school classroom.

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