Institute for Creation Research

Former HQ of the Institute for Creation Research in Santee, CA

The divine comedy Creationism

Running gags

Biblical literalism Young/Old Earth Intelligent design Creation scientists

Jokes aside

Carbon dating Biogeography History of the Earth Iron

Blooper reel

What About Creation and Evolution? Darwin's Deadly Legacy Texas Citizens for Science Answers Research Journal volume 14

Evolutionism debunkers

Jack Chick Dennis Prager E. Calvin Beisner National Rifle Association v - t - e

“”Groups such as BioLogos and a growing list of Christian schools and universities have bought into the terrible lie that plants are just as much alive as humanity—that we "kill" plants before we eat them. While that idea may seem innocuous (after all, we do kill animals before we eat them), the implications and applications are enormous!

—Henry Morris III

The Institute for Creation "Research" (ICR), a young-Earth creationist faux-research organization, produces voluminous quote-mines and logical fallacies in pursuit of debunking evolution and the concept of an old earth. The ICR, the unholy spawn of San Diego Christian College, consists of a bunch of cranks who want to undermine science education and eventually turn the United States into a young-Earth creationist, dominionist society. Henry Morris founded the Institute in 1972; it has since gone on to become one of the centers of the anti-evolution movement and quite possibly of the general anti-science movement in the US.

Education

The ICR has a variety of projects intended to educate their supporters and provide resources to evangelize to others.

Courses

Beginning in the early 1980s, the institute has offered courses in biology, astrophysics, geophysics, geology, and general science through its online graduate school. The ICR closed its online school after the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board declined to accredit ICR's online graduate school for science or science education. The ICR then began offering online Biblical apologetics courses.

School of Biblical apologetics

“”ICR has consciously decided to prefer institutional academic freedom to provide its Master of Christian Education degree program, as well as its other educational programs, in furtherance of ICR’s biblical creation viewpoint (as summarized by ICR’s tenets), rather than compromise with the accreditation politics now operating in Texas.

—ICR’s special counsel whining about academic accreditation

ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics is an unaccredited fundie school that offers a Bachelors of Christian Education and a Masters of Christian Education, with various minors in Genesis studies, Creation research, Christian school teaching, sacred humanities, creation theology, sacred geography, Christian leadership, and ethics and specialized ministries.

Requirements for Acceptance

• Written testimony showing belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, as well as showing belief in the Holy Bible as the written Word of God
• Either 1) an earned bachelor's degree with a minor (or minor equivalent) in Bible, theology, Christian education, Christian ministry, or similar emphasis; or 2) passing a Bible/apologetics entrance exam to assess the applicant's potential for success in the M.C.Ed. program
• Full payment of the non-refundable application processing fee
• Demonstrated mastery of English (e.g., as shown by the application process)
• Endorsement of ICR’s biblical and creationist tenets (www.icr.org/tenets)
• Two references (academic and ministry)
• Adequate technical skills and computer equipment for using Microsoft Word

Accreditation

The ICR School of Bible Apologetics and their former science education graduate school was accredited by TRACS for a while before moving to Texas. The ICR requested accreditation termination due to the fact that TRACS was not recognized in the state of Texas. Later the ICR tried gaining accreditation in Texas but the Board of Education turned them down; the ICR sued them for religious discrimination but they got laughed out of court.

K-12 blog

In or around October of 2011, the ICR launched a blog entitled Science Education Essentials, although more recent references to it (appropriately) omitted the "Education" part of the name. The blog was written by Rhonda Forlow, who has a PhD in Education, specializing in the "education of students with learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and mental retardation." Any examination of the relationship of Dr. Forlow's stated areas of expertise to the presumed targets of her job advocating for creationism would be politically incorrect. Dr. Forlow did not appear to consider herself limited in what she can offer even to non-homeschooling teachers by their inability to violate the First Amendment by teaching creationism in school.

In October 2012 the by-then trickle of posts at the site dried up, and was eventually redirected to a page on the main site. It was later discovered that Dr Forlow had left the ICR to go "church planting," and that nobody had taken her place. No prior warning of the sites demise has been found, and its departure was abrupt but welcome.

Resources

The ICR has for some time been advertising its "resources" for Students/Parents/Teachers/Leaders/Pastors/Scientists. These are basically just pointers to tangentially related articles on the website, many of which are in the "Evidence for Creation" article group discussed below.

Also bundled into this section are the various books published by ICR associates, and a page called Science Education Essentials which links to the blog above and various DVDs etc that have been produced by the institute.

The ICR's Resource Guide has not been updated since Fall 2009.

Website

“”The Institute for Creation Research is unique among scientific research organizations. Our research is conducted within a biblical worldview, since ICR is committed to the absolute authority of the inerrant Word of God. The real facts of science will always agree with biblical revelation because the God who made the world of God inspired the Word of God.

—Institute for Creation Research, "How we do research"

The ICR maintains an extensive website which shows a truly massive output of BS over the years.

Evidence for Creation

The ICR boasts around 100 pages of what it calls 'evidence for creation'. These pages suggest that, at the present stage of development of scientific creationism, if Creationism was taught in schools high-school students would, in fact, be able to show it for the bad science that it is.

The ICR is notable for being one of few Creationist groups to use both the First as well as the Second Laws of Thermodynamics as an argument against the Big Bang.

“”The evidence for creation is vast. Explore the ever-increasing list of reasons why creation is the best explanation for our intricately designed and precisely balanced universe.

—An introduction from the ICR.

Evidence for God

In the first section the ICR attempts to prove the existence of a supernatural being or god, specifically their God. Examples of this include:

• The First cause argument.
• The universe is Triune, in that it is made up of Time, Space and Matter, reflecting the trinity.

An interesting quote from this particular page suggests an intent to weaken confidence in science by putting it on the same level as religious belief:

"Any effort to determine the cause of the universe is purely hypothetical. No human was there to observe the processes, so any attempt to understand events of pre-history (especially original events) must, therefore, be based on "belief systems," or presuppositions."

• Beauty, Justice etc are defined by God, and for "good" to be better than "evil" that would "logically require the existence of an ultimate Judge."

Evidence for Truth

The ICR feels that it must also prove the existence of objective truth before it plows into the topic of creationism itself.

They claim that Pilate's "What is Truth?" question is "answered" by Jesus' statement "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Pilate, however, is asking what truth is - Jesus, what it does. Just another oddity from the ICR...

The Evidence for objective Truth is:

• Absolute truth is the very foundation of science. Note: "Historical" science is based on "assumptions," and is inherently unreliable and untestable.
• The laws of science need a creator to exist (which seems to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, and to be a case of circular reasoning).
• We have a conscience; we know that good is better than evil, that we have authority over animals and we "acknowledge a spiritual part of life."
• We desire Justice.

Evidence from Nature

This section of articles is hardly evidence for anything much - it is merely a laundry list of amazing things the ICR can't be bothered to think of good explanations for, along with a bit of fine tuning thrown in.

Things that are "awesome":

• Stars
• Water
• The atmosphere
• Food
• Wisdom
• The Earth
• The Moon
• Water again
• The atmosphere, again
• Temperate climatic zones
• The fact that the Sun always rises in the east
• Galaxies

Evidence from Science

But what's the evidence for creation from science?

This section is itself broken up into three groups: the "Physical Science", "The Earth Sciences," and "Life Sciences". Things you might learn within include:

The Physical Sciences

• The Universe has a center, i.e. where we are currently located, because the rest of the universe is rushing away from us specifically.
• Comets and the rings of Saturn could not be here if the universe was billions of years old.
• No wimpy "Big bang" could have created the universe - you would have needed a much greater power, like God.
• The Solar System wasn't formed through nebular accretion.
• Heavy chemical elements couldn't have formed through stellar evolution.
• The First Law of Thermodynamics prevents the Big bang, but this is no problem for God, for He is Beyond Nature.
• The logical conclusion that should be drawn from the existence of entropy is that "an infinite Creator made the universe a finite time ago."
• If there was no creator, chemistry and electromagnetism would not work everywhere in the universe in the same way as it does on earth.
• The argument from fine tuning is cutting edge creation science.

The Earth Sciences

• Geologists still believe in uniformitarianism. Thus, because there is plenty of evidence that catastrophic events have taken place in the past, mainstream geology is all wrong.
• The "defining features" of the fossil record are predictions of young earth creationism and the genesis account.
• People (specifically men) and Dinosaurs coexisted. (Bet you'd never heard that one before.)
• Diamonds contain ¹⁴C.
• There is too much Helium in zircons for the Earth to be older than x thousand years.
• There is not enough salt in the sea for the Earth to be old.

The Life Sciences

• Life didn't originate through chemical processes.
• DNA is a "reservoir for the information of life."
• Natural selection preserves, rather than creates.
• Life naturally degenerates due to mutations.
• Life was clearly designed.
• Man is very different from animals.
• Human behavior isn't the result of evolutionary processes.
• The "instability of the mitochondrial genome" shows that we are all descended from a single couple. Also, Mitochondrial Eve was the real Eve.
• We Are Totally Not Apes.
• Mutations will eventually mean that life will be unable to continue to exist: the fact that this hasn't happened yet means that life cannot be very old.
• Living fossils disprove evolution.
• "Soft tissues" in fossils prove that they can't be very old.

Evidence from Scripture

The ICR seems to believe that it must provide evidence for Creation from the Bible itself, and that the Bible is completely accurate in every way (i.e Circular reasoning). They inform us that:

• The Bible is "Authentic"... That is, we have closer-to-the-source copies of it than we do a number of cherry-picked contemporary texts.
• The Bible is totally better than the holy books of everyone else — for example, other religions require that you actually do something to be saved, more than just be 'holy'.
• The Bible is historically and scientifically accurate and testable; the authors were all trustworthy eyewitnesses and consistent.
• "Not a single prophecy from the Bible has been proven false."

Climate Change Denialism

On top of spreading misinformation regarding topics like the Big Bang, abiogenesis, evolution, and other topics regarding origins, ICR has dedicated a significant amount of article dedicated to spreading misinformation about climate change, outright denying the phenomenon, human's involvement in the process, and what course of political action should be taken to mitigate the devastating consequences.

Homophobia and Transphobia

The ICR is vehemently homophobic, believing that being gay is an immoral "lifestyle" that is "caused by choices and influences". The ICR believes that being gay shortens your lifespan by 20 to 30 years. They incorrectly believe that "sexual orientation can be changed with therapy". The ICR has repeatedly fear mongered about the teaching of the "homosexual agenda" in schools.

The ICR also promote the gender binary, accusing "the government, media, and scientists" of pushing a large-scale "institutional lie" by recognizing trans people as their gender. They have called the removal of Venus symbols from Always period products, in order to be more inclusive and less dysphoria-inducing for trans men and non-binary people, "total nonsense". The ICR have also promoted the pseudoscientific theory of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, claiming that teenagers identify as trans due to "online misinformation".

Daily Science Updates

Variously called Daily Science Updates or ICR News, the ICR puts out near-(week)daily articles on the subject of recent science news that has the potential to corrupt the faithful. These articles are most commonly authored by the Institute's "Science Writer," Brian Thomas, a former Biology teacher with a Masters in biotechnology.

Conferences and talks

The ICR tours the US doing talks and attending conferences. In 2012, they started their own, Your Origins Matter (also a blog).

Radio

“”Great men like George Washington and John Adams founded America on biblical principles. However, through the years evolution and atheistic thinking have steered us off course from our biblical foundation. Just how far have we deviated from the original intent of the Founding Fathers? Listen in as we discuss creation and the Constitution and see what happened in America that changed the way our founding documents are viewed.

—Promo for the Science, Scripture, & Salvation episode Creation and the Constitution

The ICR produces a weekly radio program called Science, Scripture, & Salvation, which was originally begun by Henry Morris himself in 1972. It also produces a few other programs including current President John Morris' daily one-minute Back to Genesis. Originally broadcast on Harold Camping's Family Radio network, this has expanded to include innumerable unaffiliated stations in the United States. The ICR boasts that their programs are aired on most of these stations without them having to pay for the privilege, "except in a few cases of local sponsorship." Note that Science, Scripture & Salvation episodes are often repeated, and that there are no Back to Genesis episodes on the Radio page as of April 2012.

A 90-second Spanish version of Back to Genesis, called De Regreso a Genesis, also exists.

Online video

Starting, like the Science Essentials blog, in October 2011 the ICR began a video channel called That's a Fact on the vimeopro website. The channel was described on its launch as "aimed at delivering fascinating facts about science, the Bible, and more in an entertaining manner — in two minutes or less."

The two minutes consist of compressed factoids, logical fallacies, PRATTs, and the odd completely incorrect statement. They are not exactly intellectual in content - this can perhaps be best demonstrated by the promo for the first video:

“”The first episode in the series, "Measuring Billions," shows just how big the number one billion is, from how many trips around the world one billion frequent flier miles will get you to how long it would take someone to count from one to one billion. (Hint: a little over one billion minutes have passed since the time Jesus walked the earth!)

—Christine Dao, That's a Fact

The videos are presently scheduled to come out on a weekly basis, but the actual rate is more like fortnightly.

Publications

The ICR distributes a number of magazines and similar publications - along with various books and other resources - both on their site and in hard copy.

Acts & Facts

Their flagship magazine, Acts & Facts, is published monthly, and is effectively the newsletter of the Institute. They publish the magazine prominently on their site and the ICR offers free subscriptions of printed versions in the mail, apparently worldwide.

In recent times, the first page of the magazine after the front (page 2 by their counting) is an advertisement for one or more of the ICR's various books. The magazine proper usually begins on the next page with an introduction from the editor, Lawrence E. Ford, who introduces much of the contents of the magazine. The next article in the magazine is the "featured article," which gives its name to the edition of the magazine itself. This article has no fixed authorship - pieces by the long-dead Henry M. Morris himself have been known to feature, but this does not appear to be the norm.

Other regular sections include: updates from the Institute's "research" program(s); an article from current president John Morris, which may-or-may-not be related to his field of geology; an article from Mr Thomas, adapted from one of his Daily Science Updates mentioned above; various ICR members showing their profound ignorance of evolution in general and natural selection in particular, not uncommonly via the use of an irrelevant metaphor or analogy; the schedule for the places that the ICR's speakers will be visiting over the next month, along with write-ups of past events; information about new projects that the ICR is launching; and a plea for donations.

Attacks on Intelligent Design etc for 'compromising core doctrines' have been known to appear in the magazine, as well as other irregular pieces.

Days of Praise

Days of Praise is a series of theology related articles for the purpose of bolstering the faith of the devout. They are apparently recycled endlessly, in little noticeable order. Fifteen year old articles by the late Dr Morris are frequently republished. Notably, for each republication a new page is made for the article, and typos are fixed and replaced with new ones. The formatting of the article is also often changed, with in more recent times hyperlinks given to referenced bible verses.

Defender's Study Bible

The Defender's Study Bible is a study Bible authored by the ICR's founder, Henry M. Morris, originally published in 1995. It was updated in 2005, the year before his death, as the New Defender's Study Bible. If CreationWiki is to be believed, at one point in time the physical copy of the NDSB "Include[d a] CD for Windows!"

The book seems to just be a KJV with annotations in attempt to explain away the contradictions etc. It is allegedly riddled with typos. An online version of the NDSB is available on the ICR's website.

Past and Present Staff

Various creationists, both well known and less so, are or have been attached to the Institute for Creation Research. These include:

• Henry Morris (1918-2006) was the founder both of the Institute and, to a degree, of the entire creationist movement. He was president of the ICR until his death in 2006. He had a Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering, and was thus an example of the engineers and woo phenomenon.
• John D. Morris is the son of Henry Morris and is the current President of the Institute. He has a Ph.D. in Geological Engineering and has led numerous expeditions in search of Noah's Ark on Mt Ararat.
• Duane Gish (1921-2013) —of "Gish Gallop" fame—was formerly the vice-President of the ICR. He had a Ph.D. in biochemistry and published many peer reviewed papers in his field in "secular" academic journals.
• Timothy LaHaye is the author of the Left Behind series of bad apocalyptic novels and other fundamentalist screeds.
• Jason Lisle, formerly of Answers in Genesis, is now the ICR's "Director of Research"—whatever that means in this incompetent organisation. He has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and has done perfectly good scientific research in this field.
• Jeffrey Tomkins is a 'research associate' at the ICR and has a Ph.D. in genetics. He has done (rather poor) work for the ICR on the genetic similarities between humans and chimpanzees.
• Nathaniel Jeanson gained his Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology at Harvard in 2009, and was quickly snatched up by the ICR—also as a research associate. He openly admits to have made his choice of education for purposes of credentialism.
• Lawrence Ford is the Institute's Director of Communications, which makes him the editor of their publications and in charge of their social medjia platforms.
• Brian Thomas is the Institute's main Science Writer, and is responsible for the majority of the ICR News articles (the frequency of which makes his incompetence rather more noticeable than other members of the ICR). He also contributes to Acts & Facts, more regularly than many of his peers at the ICR. He has a masters in biotechnology and was formerly a schoolteacher.
• Frank Sherwin is also a 'Science Writer', but writes much less often than Brian Thomas above. He is also a research associate and a "Senior Lecturer" for the ICR. He has a Masters in Zoology.
• Brad Forlow was the Associate Science Editor at the ICR. He served on the "life science research team" and has written some pamphlets for the ICR in his stay at the Institute. He has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He apparently left the ICR with his wife in October of 2012.
• Rhonda Forlow ran the ICR's K-12 educational blog, and is the wife of Brad Forlow. She has an Ed.D. in "Educational Leadership—Public School Superintendency."
• David A. Dewitt was a "Biology" instructor who taught courses in cell biology at the ICR Graduate School. After the ICR Grad School went under, he began teaching at Liberty University (At least it is actually accredited)

(Not so) Notable ICR Graduate School Alumni

Note: this is not a complete list.

• Dr. Donald McBride earned a Master of Science degree in Biology from the ICR Graduate School after earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology from University of California. After getting his Masters "degree", McBride earned a Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from the National College of Natural Medicine (which does hold regional accreditation). He is "board certified" by the American Association of Anti-Aging Medicine which is not considered a medical specialty by the American Medical Association or the American Osteopathic Association.

• John Whitmore earned a Master of Science in Geology and ended up becoming a Professor of "Geology" at fundie school Cedarville University.

• Chris Osborne earned a Master of Science degree in Biology, later earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Biology with a Botany concentration from Loma Linda University a fundie Seventh Day Adventist school with actual research departments.

• Pierre Willems first earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Christian Heritage College (Now San Diego Christian College which spawned the ICR), then his Master of Science in Biology from the ICR Graduate School, later an Educational Specialist degree in Religious Indoctrination Science Education from Pensacola Christian College, and even later a Doctor of Education degree from Liberty University. Pierre is a "Professor of Biology" at Pensacola Christian College.

• Dave and Mary Jo Nutting: Dave Nutting earned a Master of Science in Geology from the ICR Grad School; his wife Mary Jo Nutting earned a Master of Science in Biology from the ICR Grad School. They created the Alpha Omega Institute, an educational ministry aimed to teach creationism to children. They claim evolution leads to "moral decay" (whatever that means).

See also

• Answers in Genesis
• Answers Research Journal
• Creation Museum
• Deceit
• E. Calvin Beisner

External links

• Their website
• A Visit to the ICR Museum Collection of two separate visits to the ICR Museum and commentaries on it, from the Talk.origins website.
• Creationist Whoppers Collection of various examples of lies, contradictions, half-truths, and deceit from the Talk.Origins Archive/

References

Institute for Creation Research—the original creationist organisation:

  Nathaniel Jeanson  -  Jeffrey Tomkins  -  Lawrence Ford  -  Henry Morris  -  Brian Thomas  -  Duane Gish  -  RATE  -  Your Origins Matter  -  John Morris  -  Jerry Bergman  -  San Diego Christian College  -  Timothy LaHaye  -  Russell Humphreys  -  Lists of creationist scientists  -  TRACS  -  Andrew Snelling  -  David A. DeWitt  -  Alpha Omega Institute  -  Jason Lisle  -  Danny Faulkner