Portal:Creationism/Selected biography
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James Ussher (4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56. He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to establish the time and date of the creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC, according to the proleptic Julian calendar. Ussher's work is sometimes associated with Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created several millennia ago.
Ussher's chronology represented a considerable feat of scholarship – his work in sorting out the genuine from the spurious letters of Ignatius was a milestone in the study of that important early-church father; and his pioneering gathering of sources relating to early Irish church history laid the foundation for much subsequent research. Even his efforts to identify the date of creation, often derided these days, gathered together the most up to date scientific, chronological, historical and biblical scholarship in an impressive synthesis.
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Kent E. Hovind (born January 15, 1953) is an American Young Earth creationist. He is most famous for creation science seminars, many of which have been taped and widely distributed. His seminars, which often make use of humor, aim to convince listeners to believe in biblical creation and to reject evolution. Hovind's views are criticized by the scientific community, and even some fellow Young Earth creationist (YEC) organizations like Answers In Genesis (AIG) criticize Hovind for "persistently us[ing] discredited or false arguments"
Hovind established the Creation Science Evangelism ministry in 1989. Before his incarceration in 2007 for tax offenses, he frequently argued for Young Earth creationism in his talks at private schools and churches, at university debates, and on radio and television broadcasts.
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William Albert "Bill" Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American philosopher and mathematician. He is a proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity. He is currently a Research Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cultural Engagement at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort Worth, Texas, and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of a number of books about intelligent design, including The Design Inference (1998), Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology (1999), The Design Revolution (2004), The End of Christianity (2009), and Intelligent Design Uncensored (2010).
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Michael J. Behe (born 1952) is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Behe is best known for his argument for irreducible complexity, which asserts that some biochemical structures are too complex to be adequately explained by known evolutionary mechanisms and are therefore more probably the result of intelligent design. Behe has testified in several court cases related to intelligent design, including the court case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that resulted in a ruling that intelligent design was religious in nature.
Behe's claims about the irreducible complexity of key cellular structures are strongly contested by the scientific community, including the Department of Biological Sciences at his own Lehigh University. Likewise, his claims about intelligent design have been characterized as pseudoscience.
Portal:Creationism/Selected biography/5 Phillip E. Johnson (born 18 June 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement. A critic of what he calls "Darwinism" and "scientific materialism", Johnson rejects evolution in favor of neocreationist views known as intelligent design. He was a co-founder of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) and is credited with establishing the wedge strategy, which aims to change public opinion and scientific consensus, and seeks to convince the scientific community to allow a role for God in scientific theory (a position he terms theistic realism).
Working through the Center for Science and Culture Johnson wrote the early draft language of the Santorum Amendment, which encouraged a "Teach the Controversy" approach to evolution in public school education, a theme now common to the intelligent design movement. Most of the scientific community dismisses Johnson's opinions as pseudoscience.
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Adnan Oktar (born 1956), also known as Harun Yahya, is an author and Islamic creationist. In 2007, he sent thousands of unsolicited copies of his book, Atlas of Creation, which advocates Islamic creationism, to American scientists, members of Congress, and science museums. Oktar runs two organizations of which he is also the Honorary President: Bilim Araştırma Vakfı ("Science Research Foundation", BAV, established 1990), which promotes creationism and Milli Değerleri Koruma Vakfı ("Foundation to Protect National Values", established 1995) which claimed to promote Turkish nationalism.
In the last two decades, Oktar has been involved in a number of legal cases, both as defendant and plaintiff.
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