The history of creationism relates to the history of thought based on the premise that the natural universe had a beginning, and came into being supernaturally. The term creationism in its broad sense covers a wide range of views and interpretations, and was not in common use before the late 19th century. Throughout recorded history, many people have viewed the universe as a created entity. Many ancient historical accounts from around the world refer to or imply a creation of the earth and universe. Although specific historical understandings of creationism have used varying degrees of empirical, spiritual and/or philosophical investigations, they are all based on the view that the universe was created. The Genesis creation narrative has provided a basic framework for Jewish and Christian epistemological understandings of how the universe came into being – through the divine intervention of the god, Yahweh. Historically, literal interpretations of this narrative were more dominant than allegorical ones.
From the 18th century on, various views aimed at reconciling the Abrahamic religions and Genesis with geology, biology and other sciences developed in Western culture. At this time, the word creationism referred to a doctrine of creation of the soul. Those holding that species had been created in a separate act, such as Philip Gosse in 1857, were generally called "advocates of creation", though they were also called "creationists" in private correspondence between Charles Darwin and his friends, dating from 1856.
In the 20th century the word "creationism" became associated with the anti-evolution movement of the 1920s and young Earth creationism, but this usage was contested by other groups, such as old Earth creationists and evolutionary creationists, who hold different concepts of creation, such as the acceptance of the age of the Earth and biological evolution as understood by the scientific community.
The Genesis Flood (1961) became the most successful young earth creationist publication after 1945. From the mid-1960s, creationists in the United States promoted the teaching of "scientific creationism" using "Flood geology" in public school science classes. After the legal judgment of the case Daniel v. Waters (1975) ruled that teaching creationism in public schools contravened the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the content was stripped of overt biblical references and renamed creation science. When the court case Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) ruled that creation science similarly contravened the constitution, all references to "creation" in a draft school textbook were changed to refer to intelligent design, which was presented by creationists as a new scientific theory. The Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) ruling concluded that intelligent design is not science and contravenes the constitutional restriction on teaching religion in public school science classes. In September 2012, Bill Nye ("The Science Guy") expressed his concern that creationist views threaten science education and innovations in the United States.
Creation and Modern science
In the 15th and 16th centuries, discoveries in new lands brought knowledge of the diversity of life. In 1605, Francis Bacon emphasized that the works of God in nature teach us how to interpret the Bible, and the Baconian method introduced the empirical approach which became central to modern science. Natural theology sought evidence in nature supporting an active role of God, and attempts were made to reconcile new knowledge with the biblical deluge myth and story of Noah's Ark. The development of modern geology in the 18th and 19th centuries found geological strata and fossil sequences indicating a very ancient Earth. The diluvial cosmogonies fell victim to their own success, as the spirit of scientific inquiry they had stimulated, gradually led to discoveries that undercut the biblical premises of flood geology and catastrophism.