The Creationists: From Scientific
Creationism to Intelligent Design,
Expanded Edition by Ronald L.
Numbers
A Quintessential History Of A Controversial Subject Written By A Skilled And Non-
Partisan Historian
In light of the embattled status of evolutionary theory, particularly as
intelligent design makes headway against Darwinism in the schools and in
the courts, this now classic account of the roots of creationism assumes
new relevance. Expanded and updated to account for the appeal of
intelligent design and the global spread of creationism, The Creationists
offers a thorough, clear, and balanced overview of the arguments and
figures at the heart of the debate.
Praised by both creationists and evolutionists for its comprehensiveness,
the book meticulously traces the dramatic shift among Christian

fundamentalists from acceptance of the earths antiquity to the insistence of
present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noahs
flood and its aftermath. Focusing especially on the rise of this flood
geology, Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the remarkable resurgence of
antievolutionism since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movements
tangled religious roots in the theologies of late-nineteenth- and early-
twentieth-century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Adventists,
among others. His book offers valuable insight into the origins of various
creation science think tanks and the people behind them. It also goes a
long way toward explaining how creationism, until recently viewed as a
peculiarly American phenomenon, has quietly but dynamically spread
internationally--and found its expression outside Christianity in Judaism
and Islam.
(20071201)
Personal Review: The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism
to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition by Ronald L. Numbers
Originally published in 1992, this superb history of the evolution of
creationism, mostly in the United States, by University of Wisconsin-
Madison professor Ronald L. Numbers fills a major gap in the literature on
the subject. The landscape of the evolution/creationism debate is filled with
polemical works attacking evolution and advancing the cause of
creationism/intelligent design, or vice versa, but there are few serious,
sophisticated, and dispassionate histories of the debate. "The Creationists"
is the gold standard if one is seeking to understand the history of the
interplay between competing world views--evolutionary biology versus
Judeo/Christian understandings of human origins--rather than learn
arguments for the polemical battles currently taking place. While complete
objectivity is beyond the capability of anyone, Numbers seeks to tell the
story of this debate impartially as possible. To a very great degree he
succeeds, and we all benefit.
In "The Creationists" Numbers pulls back the curtain beyond the high-
profile Scopes Trial of 1925 and the recent textbook battles to focus on a
less well-known but a remarkably interesting and complex story of how
those firmly believing in the inerrancy of the Bible sought to deal with
Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. There is an extraordinary cast of
characters in this effort ranging from George Frederick Wright, who
published "Man and the Glacial Period" in 1892, to Wendell R. Bird who
developed a political strategy to demand the teaching of creationism
alongside evolution in the public schools in the 1970s. These divergent
characters, the organizations they created, and the religious traditions they
represented all competed amongst themselves on how best to counteract
the effects of evolution. One of the virtues of this book is Numbers'
commitment to unraveling the complex differences among those
advocating creationism. He found a stormy history as creationists fought
among themselves to define their ideas and make their arguments to
others.

One of the revelations of "The Creationists" is that for the three-quarters of
a century after the publication of Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" in
1859 most of those involved in the creationist debate sought to rationalize
the two belief systems. As Numbers' concludes, "by the late nineteenth
century even the most conservative Christian apologists readily conceded
that the Bible allowed for an ancient earth and pre-Edenic life. With few
exceptions, they accommodated the findings of historical geology either by
interpreting the days of Genesis 1 to represent vast ages in the history of
the earth (the so-called day-age theory) or by separating a creation `in the
beginning' from a much later Edenic creation in six literal days (the gap
theory)" (p. x). As an example, William Jennings Bryan, the creationist
advocate in the Scopes trial, subscribed to the day-age theory.
This approach changed, slowly at first but then with accelerating support
among evangelical Christians, as they sought to compress the age of the
Earth into less than 10,000 years during the second quarter of the
twentieth century. They did so by attributing the fossil record and
geological disjuncture to the biblical flood and its aftermath. Thus was born
the idea that humans and dinosaurs roamed the Earth together. By
denying that the record of flora and fauna in the stratified rocks did not
represent millions of years of the Earth's history, and that the flood
explained everything found by scientists, the creationists found an
argument for a young Earth convincing to many evangelicals. George
McCready Price first developed the primacy of flood geology in
creationism, publishing the "New Geology" in 1923 to lay out this position.
Price's argument, with modification and elaboration over time, became the
dominant theory for most creationists. As the book "Scientific Creationism"
argued in 1974, "The Genesis Flood is the real crux of the conflict between
evolutionist and creationist cosmologies. If the system of flood geology can
be established on a sound scientific basis, and be effectively promoted and
publicized, then the entire evolutionary cosmology...will collapse" (p. xi).
Numbers documents the manner in which Price's "new catastrophism"
gained adherents among the creationists and became the dominant theory
among those questioning evolution in the middle part of the twentieth
century. As Numbers concluded, "By the 1980s the flood geologists had
virtually co-opted the name creationism to describe the once marginal
views of Price" (p. xi).
A recent update of this book allowed Numbers to add material on the
recent intelligent design argument that emerged in the 1990s. Building on
the concept of a young Earth and flood geology, this idea suggests that
evolution cannot explain the ultimate complexity of many features of the
universe and of living things, those are best explained by deliberate
causation.
"The Creationists" goes far toward helping readers understand how
creationism has come to its present status in the United States, as well as

elsewhere. Ron Numbers is to be congratulated on a superb historical--as
opposed to a polemical--study of this important subject in science and
society. It is a model of historical scholarship and a testament to the
enlightenment non-partisan analyses offer to the reading public.
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