Niebezpieczeństwa kreacjonizmu

Abstrakt

Although evolution is the most fundamental concept that unifies the entire science of biology, it has repeatably been facing challenges from creationists. While realism and methodological naturalism constitute the minimum assumptions of science, creationism rejects evolution as a natural process in favour of supernatural explanations. Modern creationism has evolved into a variety of different forms, representing a spectrum from young-earth creationism to so called intelligent-design theory. The latter was introduced as a result of conducting the "wedge strategy" of the Discovery Institute. The strategy is aimed at undermining the trust in the methodological naturalism of science, including evolution, and introducing the intelligent design theory to school curricula as an alternative concept. This form of creationism appeared in the US because of unique constitutional circumstances but, afterwards, it has dispersed all over the world, including Poland. A common feature of all forms of creationism is that they deny scientific evidence again and again. They also try to find so called gaps in knowledge and if they can not find ones, they just fabricate them. Their arguments range from extremely naive to more sophisticated, like the concept of "irreducible complexity". No form of creationism has ever produced any positive scientific research programme or any results that could be presented as scientific evidence. Consequently, having no scientific basis for their claims and yet challenging the way evolution is being thought, creationists pose a political, not scientific, threat.