Creationism/Intelligent Design

Topic Editor: Steven Novella Sections: Topic Overview Index of NESS Articles and Blog Posts Index of Relevant SGU Episodes Outside Resources Summary of Key Research Topic Overview There are many forms of creationism but at their core they all share a denial, to some degree, of evolutionary science. Creationism is therefore a pseudoscience and a […]

Evolve This – Why We Should Care About Evolution and Creationism

October 2004 by Steven Novella, M.D There are different versions of the dangerous error known as creationism. “Young earth” creationists believe the world was created ten thousand years ago in six days; others gallantly admit the earth is older. But all creationists deny one scientific fact: life on earth is the product of evolution, slow […]

Non-Science in Dating the Earth

May 2004 Chuck Roche, PhD One topic for skeptics involves the age of the earth. Many creationists have argued for a young earth, one less than 15,000 years, while others allow for just a few million years. Most do not realize the scientific community is rather unified on the earth being several billion years in […]

Buchanan’s Inane Rant Against Darwin

July 2006 by Steven Novella, MD Linus Pauling was a brilliant Nobel laureate chemist but his name is probably more recognized today for his touting of the amazing curative powers of Vitamin C and orthomolecular medicine. It is unfortunate that Dr. Pauling fell victim to a common intellectual pitfall – wandering with undue authority into […]

Responding to Behe and “Irreducible Complexity”

April 1999 by Steven Novella, MD I received the following question regarding Michael Behe book, Darwin’s Black Box: I recently read a book called “Darwin’s Black Box” by Behe. It’s thesis is that there are systems called “irreducibly complex systems” which appear to have no evolutionary advantage until all of their parts are present, and […]

Intelligent Design – Response to Behe

November 2005 by Robert Novella & Steven Novella, MD A Response to New York Times Op-Ed Promoting Intelligence Design by Michael Behe Despite a string of past legal victories by defenders of evolution, supporters of creationism who deny evolution in favor of the notion that all life was divinely created are tireless and undaunted in […]

The Design Interference

October 2002 by Steven Novella, MD Over a century ago Charles Darwin convinced the scientific community of the fact that life on Earth is the product of organic evolution and that natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolution. Since that time scientists have been almost completely united in their support of evolutionary theory, which […]

Creationists Run Afowl of the Evidence

January 1999 by Steven Novella, MD I have long been fascinated by creationism, for it is the purest and most developed pseudoscience in our culture. The scientific community, after more than a century of mounting evidence and vigorous debate, remain solid in their collective conviction that life on Earth did in fact result from the […]