Creationism

The word creationism has a variety of meanings. Two on-line definitions:

The belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution.

—Oxford dictionaries

"Creationism" is the name given to the belief that the creation story of Genesis is the literal truth about how the world came into being. According to Christian creationists, the universe and everything in it was created by God in six days, at a time which biblical scholars have calculated to be just over 6000 years ago.

— Margaret Wertheim writing at Counterbalance

The Wikipedia page for Creationism gives a good outline.

History of creationist movements

Matzke, N.J. The Evolution of Creationist Movements. Evo Edu Outreach 3, 145–162 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-010-0233-1 Matzke describes the evolution of four creationist movements:

1. Banning Evolution (1920–1968)
2. “Creation Science” (1968–1987)
3. “Intelligent Design” (1989–2005)
4. In the 21st Century, in the wake of the ID movement’s Kitzmiller defeat, a fourth creationist movement is emerging, which is rehashing old arguments but avoiding mention of ID or design.

Changes in the late 20th Century

—According to Ronald L. Numbers writing at Counterbalance the term "creationism" narrowed its meaning during the second half of the 20th Century:

About 1970, in an effort to sell their views as science and gain entry to public-school classrooms, these young-earth creationists [i.e. the Creation Research Society formed by John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris] renamed their beliefs creation science and dropped the label flood geology. Although two states, Arkansas and Louisiana, eventually passed laws mandating the teaching of creation science whenever evolution science was taught, the U. S. Supreme Court in 1987 ruled that such laws violated the First Amendment to the Constitution, requiring the separation of church and state. Despite this setback, the creation scientists flourished to the point that they virtually co-opted the term creationism for the formerly marginal ideas of Price.

— Bruce (talk)

The embarrassment of "Answers to Creationist Nonsense"

Those of us who consider ourselves to be "creationists" in the old sense of the word are easily embarrassed by the common new meaning, on account of the assumption that "creationists" reject many aspects of mainstream science, especially biological evolution — "Macroevolution" as some creationists, and others, call it.

Thus it is embarrassing to read a succinct and helpful web page of the "Scientific American" magazine called 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. The fifteen "creationist" statements that they take issue with are listed in this wiki at Scientific American's "Fifteen answers" — if you find any of them persuasive, you might like to check the magazine's refutation! (You might need to sign up for their newsletter to get access.)

— Bruce (talk)