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Scientists of the past who believed in a Creator

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Note: These scientists are sorted by birth year.

* As far as we know, the scientists of the past listed on these pages believed in a literal Genesis unless otherwise stated. The ones who did not are nevertheless included in the list below, because of their general belief in the creator God of the Bible and opposition to evolution. But because the idea that the earth is ‘millions of years’ old has been disastrous in the long run, no present day ‘long-agers’ are included intentionally, because they should know better.

Medieval

The Medieval period or Middle Ages has been dismissed as the ‘Dark Ages’ by the historically ignorant. In reality, this period saw the birth of modern experimental science. Logical thought patterns of the medieval Scholastic philosophers of the Church led to challenges to the received wisdom about nature from Aristotelian dogma. Universities sprang up over Europe, where learning was passed on and debate encouraged. Extensive inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity developed in the monasteries, where optics was researched and spectacles invented. There was an industrial revolution thanks to the development of water and wind power and superior agriculture that supported a population boom. The blast furnace and mechanical clock began in this period. The great Gothic cathedrals were works of architectural genius, with innovations such as the flying buttress to support the walls from outside, enabling a huge spacious interior were worshippers were bathed in light and colour through intricate stained glass windows. In astronomy, medieval scholars knew perfectly well that the earth was a globe and a tiny speck compared to the vastness of the universe. Many scientists of this period were clergymen in good standing. This period also saw the basic ideas of the geokinetic universe and thought-challenges to absolute geocentrism. The cathedrals were also used as gigantic solar observatories, called meridiane, and the research which the Church supported later lent support to the developing Keplerian astronomy.

  • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (Boethius, c. 480 – c. 525) explained sound as a wave motion, taught that the earth was a mere point compared to the vastness of space
  • John Philoponus (c. 490 – c. 570) Physics; he showed that heavy objects fall at almost the same speed as light objects, long before Galileo. Disproved Aristotle’s claim that a projectile is pushed by the medium in which it travels, rather, Philoponus proved that the medium hinders motion
  • Bede, ‘The Venerable’ (672/673 – 26 May 735) Astronomy; Bede showed that tides are mainly caused by the moon, and declared that the earth was a “globe … not circular like a shield but rather like a ball”
  • Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) Astronomy, Optics
  • Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) Astronomy: wrote astronomy textbook De sphaera mundi, which defended a spherical earth in a number of different ways that are still up-to-date (hence the title); pointed out that the moon has no light of its own but reflects sunlight, which is why it was dark during a lunar eclipse where the earth blocks the sun’s light; and taught that the earth was smaller than the smallest star we see, and was a mere speck compared to the distance to the stars
  • Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280) Biology, Mineralogy, Logic
  • Roger Bacon (c. 1214 – 1292) Optics
  • John Peckham (c. 1230 – 1292, Archbishop of Canterbury) Optics, Astronomy
  • Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 26 August 1349) Physics, Logic, Mathematics; one of the Oxford Calculators who proved the Mean Speed Theorem long before Galileo, and his solution to semantic paradoxes influenced Buridan
  • Jean (John) Buridan (c. 1300 – after 1358) Physics, Astronomy, Logic; his concept of impetus was a forerunner of Galileo’s concept of inertia and Newton’s First Law of Motion, he proposed geokinetic ideas as a working hypothesis, and his work on solving semantic paradoxes influenced modern logicians A.N. Prior (1914–1969) and G.E. Hughes (1919–1994)
  • John of Dumbleton (ca.1310 – ca. 1349) Physics, Natural Philosophy, Logic; one of the Oxford Calculators who proved the Mean Speed Theorem long before Galileo
  • William of Heytesbury (c. 1313–1372/1373) Physics, Mathematics; one of the Oxford Calculators who proved the Mean Speed Theorem long before Galileo
  • Richard Swineshead (fl. c. 1340–1354) Mathematics, Logic, Natural Philosophy; one of the Oxford Calculators who proved the Mean Speed Theorem long before Galileo
  • Nicole Oresme (c. 1320 – c. 1382, bishop) Astronomy, Physics, Mathematics; proposed geokinetic ideas as a working hypothesis and answered most objections that would be raised against Galileo, and represented motion with graphs long before Descartes
  • Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464, Cardinal) Astronomy, Mathematics; proposed geokinetic ideas, anticipated the idea of reference frames by Galileo and Einstein

Renaissance to Newton

  • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543, Canon) Astronomy, Mathematics
  • Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) Cartography; inventor of the Mercator projection, the standard map for navigation because a course at a constant bearing corresponds to a straight line. He wrote “When I saw that Moses’ account of the world’s origin was in many ways different from that of Aristotle and the other philosophers, I began to doubt their teaching and set about studying nature’s secrets instead.” He was in prison for 7 months suspected of being a Lutheran and his great life’s work, his atlas, contained a thesis on the first chapter of Genesis where he defended God’s word against the philosophers. (Thanks to Catherine Olaussen, Norway)
  • Francis Bacon (1561–1626) Scientific method, motivated by trying to regain the encyclopedic knowledge he believed that Adam possessed before the Fall. However, see also Culture Wars:
    1. Part 1: Bacon vs Ham
    2. Part 2: Ham vs Bacon
  • Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) (WOH) Physics, astronomy (see also The Galileo ‘twist’, The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography?, and Galileo Quadricentennial: Myth vs fact)
  • Johann Kepler (1571–1630) (WOH) Scientific astronomy
  • Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680) Inventor, ‘The Master of a Hundred Arts’, defended reality of Noah’s Ark and variation from the animals kinds after it landed
  • John Wilkins (1614–1672), founder of the metric system and the first secretary of the Royal Society, argued that all the varieties of cattle today, including the American ‘buffalo’ or bison, would have arisen from two (or probably seven) cattle ancestors on the Ark
  • Walter Charleton (1619–1707) President of the Royal College of Physicians
  • Blaise Pascal and article from Creation magazine (1623–1662) Hydrostatics; barometer
  • Sir William Petty (1623 –1687) Statistics; scientific economics
  • Robert Boyle (1627–1691) (WOH) Chemistry; gas dynamics
  • John Ray (1627–1705) Natural history
  • Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) Professor of mathematics
  • Nicolaus Steno (né Niels Stensen, 1631–1686) Stratigraphy; see also Geological pioneer was a biblical creationist.
  • Thomas Burnet (1635–1715) Geology
  • Increase Mather (1639–1723) Astronomy
  • Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) Medical doctor, botany

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The age of Newton

  • Isaac Newton (1642–1727) (WOH) Dynamics; Co-inventor of calculus; Gravitation law; Law of Cooling, Reflecting telescope; Spectrum of light (wrote more about the Bible than science, and emphatically affirmed a Creator. Some have accused him of Arianism, but it’s likely he held to a heterodox form of the Trinity—See Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian? Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997)
  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) Mathematics, Co-inventor of calculus
  • John Flamsteed (1646–1719) Greenwich Observatory Founder; Astronomy
  • William Derham (1657–1735) Ecology
  • Cotton Mather (1662–1727) Physician
  • John Harris (1666–1719) Mathematician
  • John Woodward (1665–1728) Paleontology
  • William Whiston (1667–1752) Physics, Geology
  • John Hutchinson (1674–1737) Paleontology
  • Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Physics, Meteorology, Pathology
  • Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) Taxonomy; biological classification system
  • Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) Mathematics, Physics, Optics, Astronomy, Structural engineering
  • Jean Deluc (1727–1817) Geology
  • Richard Kirwan (1733–1812) Mineralogy
  • William Herschel (1738–1822) Galactic astronomy; Uranus (probably believed in an old-earth)
  • James Parkinson (1755–1824) Physician (old-earth compromiser*)

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Just before Darwin

  • The 19th Century Scriptural Geologists, by Dr Terry Mortenson
  • Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) Educator
  • William Kirby (1759–1850) Entomologist
  • Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826) Geographer
  • Benjamin Barton (1766–1815) Botanist; Zoologist
  • John Dalton (1766–1844) Father of modern atomic theory; chemistry
  • Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) Comparative anatomy, paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
  • Samuel Miller (1770–1840) Clergy
  • Charles Bell (1774–1842) Anatomist
  • John Kidd (1775–1851) Chemistry
  • George Young (1777–1848) Geology
  • Humphrey Davy (1778–1829) Thermokinetics; safety lamp
  • Andrew Ure (1778–1857) Chemistry
  • Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864) Mineralogist (old-earth compromiser*)
  • Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) Physician; physiologist
  • Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Professor (old-earth compromiser*)
  • David Brewster (1781–1868) Optical mineralogy, Kaleidoscope (probably believed in an old-earth)
  • William Buckland (1784–1856) Geologist (old-earth compromiser*)
  • William Prout (1785–1850) Food chemistry (probably believed in an old-earth)
  • Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
  • John Murray (1786?–1851) Geology
  • George Fairholme (1789–1846) Geology
  • Michael Faraday (1791–1867) (WOH) Electro magnetics; Field theory, Generator
  • Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872) Telegraph
  • John Herschel (1792–1871) Astronomy (old-earth compromiser*)
  • Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
  • William Whewell (1794–1866) Anemometer (old-earth compromiser*)
  • William Rhind (1797–1874) Geology
  • Joseph Henry (1797–1878) Electric motor; galvanometer

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Just after Darwin

  • Richard Owen (1804–1892) Zoology; Paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
  • Matthew Maury (1806–1873) Oceanography, Hydrography (probably believed in an old-earth*)
  • Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Glaciology, Ichthyology (old-earth compromiser, polygenist*)
  • James Glaisher (1809–1903) Meteorology
  • Philip H. Gosse (1810–1888) Ornithologist; zoology
  • Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) Archaeologist
  • James Simpson (1811–1870) Gynecology, Anesthesiology
  • James Dana (1813–1895) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
  • Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817–1901) Agricultural chemist
  • James Joule (1818–1889) Thermodynamics
  • Thomas Anderson (1819–1874) Chemist
  • Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900) Astronomy
  • George Stokes (1819–1903) Fluid Mechanics
  • John William Dawson (1820–1899) Geology (probably believed in an old-earth*)
  • Rudolph Virchow (1821–1902) Pathology
  • Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) (WOH) Genetics
  • Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) (WOH) Bacteriology, Biochemistry; Sterilization; Immunization
  • Henri Fabre (1823–1915) Entomology of living insects
  • William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) Energetics; Absolute temperatures; Atlantic cable (believed in an older earth than the Bible indicates, but far younger than the evolutionists wanted*)
  • William Huggins (1824–1910) Astral spectrometry
  • Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) Non-Euclidean geometries
  • Joseph Lister (1827–1912) Antiseptic surgery
  • Balfour Stewart (1828–1887) Ionospheric electricity
  • James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) (WOH) Electrodynamics; statistical thermodynamics
  • P.G. Tait (1831–1901) Vector analysis
  • John Bell Pettigrew (1834–1908) Anatomist; physiologist
  • John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (1842–1919) Similitude; model analysis; inert gases
  • Sir William Abney (1843–1920) Astronomy
  • Alexander MacAlister (1844–1919) Anatomy
  • A.H. Sayce (1845–1933) Archaeologist
  • John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) Electronics; electron tube; thermionic valve

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The modern period

  • Dr Clifford Burdick (1919–2005), Geology
  • Dr Larry Butler, Biochemistry
  • George Washington Carver (1864–1943) Inventor
  • Ernst Chain (1906–1979) Shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for co-discovering penicillin. Chain was a devout Orthodox Jew and strongly anti-Darwinian.
  • Dr Donald Chittick, Physical Chemist
  • L. Merson Davies (1890–1960) Geology; paleontology
  • Sir John C. Eccles (1903–1997) Neurophysiology. 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology.
  • Douglas Dewar (1875–1957) Ornithology
  • Dr Duane Gish (1921–2013), Biochemistry (protein synthesis)
  • Howard A. Kelly (1858–1943) Gynecology
  • Paul Lemoine (1878–1940) Geology
  • Richard Lumsden (1938–1997) was professor of parasitology and cell biology at Tulane University (he converted from evolution to creation and then to Christ)
  • Dr John Mann, Agriculturist, biological control pioneer
  • Dr Frank Marsh (1899–1992), Biology (plant ecology); one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and a strong proponent of limited variation within ‘baramins’ (created kinds).
  • Edward H. Maunder (1869–1931) Astronomy
  • Robert A. Millikan (1868–1953) Physicist
  • Dr Albert Mills (1943–2011), Reproductive Physiology, Embryology, pioneered non-surgical embryo transfer in cattle.
  • Dr Henry M. Morris (1918–2006) Hydrologist
  • Prof. Nicolae Paulescu (1890–1960) Human physiology, medicine
  • Prof. Richard Porter (1935–2005), orthopaedic surgeon, human spine and foot expert
  • William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939) Archaeology
  • William Ramsay (1852–1916) Isotopic chemistry, element transmutation
  • Dr Craig Russell (1966–2019), Soil science, plant nutrition, ecology
  • Dr Richard (Rick) Smalley (1943–2005) Nanotechnology. Was Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, USA. Awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research in fullerenes (buckyballs).
  • Charles Stine (1882–1954) Organic Chemistry
  • Dr Arthur Rendle Short (1885–1955) Surgery
  • Prof. J. Rendle-Short (1919–2010), Pediatrics, Autism research
  • Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892–1979) Surgery
  • Prof. Verna Wright (1928–1998), Rheumatology
  • Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915–1995) Three earned science doctorates, over 70 research papers, a creation science pioneer
  • Dr Clifford Wilson (1923–2012), Psycholinguistics and Archaeology

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Helpful Resources

Busting Myths
by J Sarfati & G Bates, edited
US $10.00
Soft cover
The Genesis Account
by Jonathan Sarfati
US $39.00
Hard cover