Constructing the Beginning Discourses of Creation Science

248 Pages·2014·4.812 MB·English

by  Locke, Simon

Constructing "The Beginning"
Discourses of Creation Science
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Constructing "The Beginning"
Discourses of Creation Science
Simon Locke
Kingston University, United Kingdom
Ö Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Copyright © 1999 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means,
without prior written permission of the publisher.
First published by Lawrcncc Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
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Mahwah. NJ 07430
This edition published 2013 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Locke, Simon.
Constructing “the beginning" : discourses of creation scicnce / by
Simon Locke.
p. cm. — (LEA's communication series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-2346-8 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8058-2347-6
(alk. paper: pbk.)
1. Creationism. 2. Science—Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
BS651.L63 1998
231.7’652—dc21
98-13598
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Myradh
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Contents
Preface ix
1 Let There Be Rationalization 3
2 Creating "Creation Science" 44
3 Science— After Its Kind(s) 71
4 Why God Made Evolutionists 100
5 Constructing "The Beginning" 144
6 Science—Variation in Species 173
7 Rhetoric as Usual 197
References 209
Bibliography of CSM Pamphlets 219
Author Index 223
Subject Index 229
vii
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Preface
Creation science is the target of much attack these days, from both within
and without of the orthodox scientific community. In this book, however, I
have tried to take a different approach. This is not an attack on creationism;
but this should not be taken to mean it is a defense, either. In some respects,
my interest is not really in creationism at all; rather, it is in questions of the
role and significance of science in modernity, or, broadly, the public
understanding of science. My approach to this issue is a discursive and
rhetorical one. Creationism is treated as a case study of the argumentative
engagement between science and nonscience (an argument that incorpo­
rates disputes over this boundary), which, in my view, is as central to the
commonsense lifeworld of modernity, as it is to the lives of its intellectuals.
An important dimension of the public meaning of science in modernity is
its limits and its relations with other modes of thought and belief, which
continue to survive as discourses in the wider culture. Creationism is merely
one example of this general feature.
The book is made somewhat like a sandwich. The inner layers consist of
a detailed empirical analysis of the discourse of creation scientists, as
represented in pamphlets published by the British Creation Science Move­
ment. This analysis is enclosed in two layers of theoretical discussion,
addressing issues in the public understanding of science and, more broadly,
the representation in sociological theory of the role and position of science
in relation to modem society and culture.
There are various ways of eating a sandwich, and there are various ways
of reading this book. Chapter 1—the top slice—sets out the theoretical and
methodological background. It discusses current issues in the public under­
standing of science in relation to traditional sociological views of the impact
of science on modernity, through rationalization, and the contrasting view
derived from the sociology of scientific knowledge, which points to the
likelihood of a much more complex and variable relationship than ration­
alization proposes.
I use this contrast to highlight what I call the dilemmatic of science in
modernity. This refers to the tension between the universal knowledge