Of audience, expertise and authority: The evolving creationism debate

Abstract

The persistence of “scientific creationism” is a curiosity in an age where the epistemic authority of Darwinian evolution is virtually a commonplace. Rather than conceptualizing creationism as strictly a technical discourse or appealing to psychological explanations, this essay explores a rhetorical account for creation‐ism's appeal. It argues that creationism endures not only in spite of the response of the scientific community, but also, in part, because of it. An analysis of the creationism controversy between 1975 and 1990 indicates that the scientific response to creationism misconstrues both the scientific pretensions of creationism and the relative insularity of scientific decision making on questions of public policy. The response ultimately proves unresponsive to the public appeal of creationism which is grounded in an empiricist folk epistemology. This study has implications for our theoretical understandings of the relationships between technical and public discourses and the related relationship between technical expertise and rhetorical authority.

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