Abstract
This paper attempts a sympathetic but critical understanding of creation-science and its attack on ‘normal science’ and the school curriculum. The claims of creationism to scientific status are examined from an unproblematic perspective on science and from that of several major contemporary theories of science. Questions of rights in a democracy are also considered. An understanding of the force of the creationist attack on science and the curriculum is sought through an examination of the social sources of fundamentalism. Creation-science is seen as an attempt to restore the unity of science and belief in a society where instrumental and normative knowledge have fractured and social cohesion and community are weakened.
Three cheers to the fundamentalists in California who succeeded in having a dogmatic formulation of the theory of evolution removed from the textbooks and an account of Genesis included (but I know that they would become as chauvinistic and totalitarian as scientists are today when given the chance to run society all by themselves. Ideologies are marvellous when used in the company of other ideologies. They become boring and doctrinaire as soon as their merits lead to the removal of their opponents.)—(Feyerabend, 1981, p. 163)
Keywords
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