Dave Matson, in his attack against Hovind, remarks that Lyell did not support evolution, "Such was the age of the great creationist geologists". Lyell did not support evolution, but not because he was a creationist. He discovered "deep time" and argued against supersititions of religious scientists. In fact, Stephen Jay Gould states in his book "Time's Arrow Time's Cycle" that the majority of the geologists of that time were not creationists and had abandoned biblical literalism by that time. Even the catastrophists Lyell opposed were not creationists. They argued an ancient Earth as well. Lyell's former anti-evolution stance was not due to religious views, but to his support of non-progressive cyclic time. Katy

Dave E. Matson

At some point in time, scientists moved from Bible-based beliefs (a 6000 year old earth, a special act or acts of creation, and a literal acceptance of Noah's flood) to an aged earth and evolution. That was the last time that respectable, mainstream scientists debated such matters. Geologists were probably the first to sense the old age of the earth, but most of those early geologists were creationists in that they still held to Noah's flood and a special creation of life forms. Around the 1820s there was a lively debate as how to reconcile the new geologic facts with the biblical account of Noah's flood. (Even the great French naturalist, Cuvier, was a creationist, though he held that the fossil record reflected several cycles of creation and destruction.) In light of this, I used the phrase "Such was the age of the great creationist geologists."

Charles Lyell was still a special creationist, initially, because he felt that evolution (the prevailing form being Lamarckism)left man no better than an improved animal. Thus, he attacked evolution in his great book "Principles of Geology" (1830-33). "Principles of Geology" made a hit partly because deep time was still a new concept. Lyell made it believable and respectable.

Katy, your reply was a response to point G2 in my book "How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?" The point that G2 addressed is the claim that the entire geologic column is based on the assumption that evolution is true. However, given that most of the geologists who developed the geologic column were firm believers in special creation, as versus evolution, the charge becomes ludicrous. Indeed, by the time Darwin published his book, most of the geologic column had been filled in. That's my whole point -- not that the early 19th century, creationist geologists were strict, biblical literalists.

Sincerely,
Dave Matson

-DM-

[Copied here from Feedback at the request of lpetrich. -Don-]

lpetrich

I think that part of the confusion here is imprecision of definition; we ought to make a taxonomy of categories of beliefs.

* Young-earth creationism: the Earth is only about 6000 years old and all species were created about when the Earth was created.

Most present-day "scientific creationists" are young-earth creationists.

* Old-earth creationism: the Earth is at least 100,000 years old and is likely several million years old. All species are separate creations, though separate creations performed across geological time.

There are many early-19th-cy. geologists who had had views like that. Lyell himself had believed something like that, as did Cuvier, Buckland, Agassiz, and other early-19th-cy. notables. Cuvier was notable for demonstrating that extinction had happened, and Agassiz was the last reputable "scientific creationist".

One common view was that the Earth had suffered big catastrophes, which had caused all the extinctions that had happened; Noah's Flood was viewed as simply the most recent such catastrophe. These catastrophes would then be followed by the special creations of new species.

A few "scientific creationists" advocate that opinion, notably Hugh Ross. The "intelligent design" theorists also seem to support this position, though they usually do not say much on this subject.

* Evolution: this was first proposed in detail by Lamarck early in the 19th cy., but it did not get widely accepted until Charles Darwin published his magnum opus in 1859, which practically founded the science of evolutionary biology.

So, in summary, the progression of opinion was

young-earth creationism -> old-earth creationism -> evolution

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>