creationism acceptance of the early chapters of Genesis taken literally. Genesis claims that the universe and all of its living creatures including humans were created by God in the space of six days. The need to find some way of reconciling this story with the claims of science intensified in the nineteenth century, with the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). In the Southern states of the United States, the indigenous form of evangelical Protestant Christianity declared total opposition to evolutionism, refusing any attempt at reconciliation, and affirming total commitment to a literal ‘creationist’ reading of the Bible. Because of this, certain states passed laws banning the teaching of evolutionism. More recently, literalists have argued that the Bible can be given full scientific backing, and they have therefore argued that ‘Creation science’ may properly be taught in state-supported schools in the United States without violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. This claim was challenged in the state of Arkansas in 1981, and ultimately rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The creationism dispute has raised some issues of philosophical interest and importance. Most obviously, there is the question of what constitutes a genuine science. Is there an adequate criterion of demarcation between science and nonscience, and will it put evolutionism on the one side and creationism on the other? Some philosophers, arguing in the spirit of Karl Popper, think that such a criterion can be found. Others are not so sure; and yet others think that some such criterion can be found, but shows creationism to be genuine science, albeit already proven false.
Philosophers of education have also taken an interest in creationism and what it represents. If one grants that even the most orthodox science may contain a value component, reflecting and influencing its practitioners’ culture, then teaching a subject like biology almost certainly is not a normatively neutral enterprise. In that case, without necessarily conceding to the creationist anything about the true nature of science or values, perhaps one must agree that science with its teaching is not something that can and should be set apart from the rest of society, as an entirely distinct phenomenon.
See also DARWINISM, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOL- OGY, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION , PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE , TESTABILITY. M.Ru.