Survival of Orthodoxy
After Creation Stories on August 31
and September 2
I. Creation myths are stories that explain the origin of life (the subject of chapter 5) and do not necessarily deal with organic diversity (the subject of the class).
A. Everyone contribute the bones of their particular favorite and record the contributions of others.
B. More variations from Joseph Campbell and others --
1. Strickberger’s favorites: All deities are called “God” and countries in parentheses are countries of origin.
a. God arose from the depths of the ocean, created dry land, and then created all creatures on the hill at Heliopolis at the center of the universe (Egypt).
b. God made sky and earth by splitting the powers of evil in half, and then produced humans for the purposes of worship (Mesopotamia).
c. God creates all that is good and struggles with an evil being that creates all that is bad. Each struggle lasts about 3,000 years and will continue until evil is vanquished, at which time creation will be complete and perfect (Iran).
d. God, a female, divided the sky from the sea, and produced a serpent with whom she copulated. She then laid a giant egg out of which came the earth, its creatures, and all the heavenly bodies, as well as the subsidiary powers to rule these various entities (Greece).
e. God created himself from a golden egg, and from the various parts of his body everything was born. After a time, life is destroyed and the cycle begins again (India).
f. God created the universe in six days ending with the creation of humans, according to Genesis 1; or, God first created Adam in the Garden of Eden and then created animals and birds and eventually Eve, according to Genesis 2 (Israel).
g. God was woman who produced twins-the sun and the moon. During various eclipses, the twins came together to create the various gods and spirits of earth and sky that rule over humans (Benin, Africa).
h. God created the world in four distinct periods, each separated by a flood (Yucatan).
i. God created the earth and its creatures from mud gathered in the webbed feet of ducks who swam on a primeval ocean (American Crow Indians).
j. The universe was originally in the shape of a hen’s egg, out of which God emerged and chiseled its main physical features. After 18,000 years God died and the remainder of the world was derived from his body: the dome of the sky from his skull, rocks from his bones, soil from his flesh, rain from his sweat, plant life from his hair, and humans from his fleas (China).
C. Are there any common themes? Hint: Make a table.
II. What is Orthodoxy?
III. Creationism in the United States: A very isolated phenomenon?
A. Can we call it science?
1. Empirical evidence? Why not in the scientific literature? Conspiracy?
2. Predictive power?
B. Some highlights of creation "science"-
1. From the debate guy of 1993
2. Guest lecturer of 1994
3. The legal trail: Reviewed in American Biology Teacher (reference in class) and continuing in Michigan today.
4. Creationist world view:
IV. Why does Orthodoxy survive?
Selected References
Campbell, J. 1962. Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God. Penguin Books, NY. 561 pp.
-----. 1968. Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God. Penguin Books, NY. 564 pp.
Futuyma, D.J. 1982. Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution. Pantheon Books, NY. 251 pp.
Hull, D. L. 1988. Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago. 586 pp.
Kitcher, P. 1982. Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism. MIT Press, MA. 212 pp.
Mayr, E. 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA. 974 pp.
Montague, A. (ed.) 1984. Science and Creationism. Oxford Univ. Press, England. 414 pp.
Strickberger, M. W. 2000. Evolution, 3rd ed. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, London.
Tax, S. and R. Callender. 1960. Evolution After Darwin. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago. 310 pp.