TalkOrigins Archive

TalkOrigins Archive

The TalkOrigins Archive is a website that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of young-earth, old-earth, and "intelligent design" creationists. With sections on evolution, creationism, and hominid evolution, the web site provides broad coverage of evolutionary biology and the socio-political antievolution movement.

Origins and history

The TalkOrigins Archive began in 1994 when Brett J. Vickers collected several separately posted FAQs from the talk.origins newsgroup and made them conveniently available from a single anonymous FTP site. In 1995, Vickers created the TalkOrigins Archive web site. Vickers, then a computer science graduate student at the University of California at Irvine, produced a distinctive, spare "look" for the web site. Certain creationist web sites have utilized elements of the style Vickers established. Vickers established an easily browsed site, coded a feedback system, and handled all the updates to the Archive from 1995 to 2001.

In 2001, Vickers transferred the TalkOrigins Archive to Wesley R. Elsberry, since Vickers's work demanded much of his attention, leaving little time to maintain the web site. Elsberry organized a group of volunteers to handle the maintenance of the Archive, now including Troy Britain, Reed Cartwright, Mike Dunford, Kenneth Fair, David Iain Greig, Mike Hopkins, David Horn, Kathleen Hunt, Mark Isaak, Adam Marczyk, Larry A. Moran, Ross Myers, Steven Pirie-Shepherd, Douglas Theobald, Brett Vickers, and John Wilkins.

In 2004, Kenneth Fair incorporated the TalkOrigins Foundation as a Texas 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. [cite web|title=The TalkOrigins Foundation|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/foundation/index.html|accessdate=2007-05-08] The Foundation's purposes include funding and maintaining the TalkOrigins Archive and holding copyrights to Archive articles, thereby simplifying the process of reprinting and updating those articles. The copyright issue has posed a particular problem since the FAQs started off as a small collection with little thought given to copyright but have since mushroomed. In 2005, the Foundation was granted tax-exempt status by the IRS. [cite web|title=IRS Letter announcing 501(c)(3) status|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/foundation/IRS/IRSExemptionLtr.pdf|date=March 8, 2005|accessdate=2007-05-08]

Features

The FAQs and FRAs (Frequently Rebutted Assertions) on the TalkOrigins Archive cover a wide range of topics associated with evolutionary biology and creationism. These include Mark Isaak's "Index to Creationist Claims" [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/] , a list of creationist positions on various issues, rebuttals, and links to primary source material. The "TalkDesign" sister site [http://www.talkdesign.org/] fulfills a similar role with the Intelligent Design movement. Also hosted is Jim Foley's "Fossil Hominids" sub-site [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/] which studies the evidence for human evolution and has an extensive list of links to websites on both evolutionary biology and creationism. Lastly, the "Quote Mine Project " [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/contents.html] , examines the use of Quote mining - taking quotes out of context - by creationists.

The archive maintains a feedback system [http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/] involving reader comments and posts a compilation of these, along with responses, each month. The "Awards" page [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/awards/] lists the notice given to the Archive by scientific societies, journals, magazines, and also lists college courses that make use of materials from the Archive.

Awards

Talkorigins.org has gained many awards and achieved substantial recognition. [cite web|title=Awards, Honors, and Favorable Notices|author=The Talk.Origins Archive|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/awards/|accessdate=2007-05-08]

* In August 2002 Scientific American recognized Talkorigins.org for its "detailed discussions (some of which may be too sophisticated for casual readers) and bibliographies relating to virtually any objection to evolution that creationists might raise." [cite web|title=Other Resources for Defending Evolution|author=John Rennie|url=http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000276B7-6792-1D0A-8E49809EC588EEDF|date= June 17, 2002|publisher=Scientific American|accessdate=2007-05-08]

* The webpages of the National Academy of Science, Smithsonian Institution [cite journal|title=Teacher Resources: Human Evolution Websites|journal=AnthroNotes|volume=21|issue=2|date=Winter/Spring 1999-2000|url=http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro/outreach/anthnote/Spring00/anthnote.html#TEACHER|author=Smithsonian Institution|accessdate=2007-05-08] , [http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/ The Leakey Foundation] [cite web|title=The Leakey Foundation - Recommended Links|url=http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/resources/r3.jsp|accessdate=2007-05-08] , the National Center for Science Education [cite web |title=Critiques of Creationism-Links|url=http://www.ncseweb.org/link.asp?category=7|author=NCSE|accessdate=2007-05-08|quote=The main site for arguments refuting the "science" of creation science.] and other organizations recommend Talkorigins.org.

* Biomednet gave the Archive four stars.Specify|date=December 2006

The Archive is also referenced in college-level textbooks [cite web|title=Science Textbooks that Use the Archive|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/awards/#textbooks|author=The Talk.Origins Archive|accessdate=2007-05-08] and has had material from the archive incorporated into over 20 college or university courses. [cite web|title=University and College Courses that Use the Archive|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/awards/#courses|author=The Talk.Origins Archive|accessdate=2007-05-08]

ee also

*talk.origins
*Evolution

References

External links

* [http://www.talkorigins.org The TalkOrigins Archive]
* [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ Fossil Hominids]
* [http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/ Mark Isaak's Index to Creationist Claims]
* [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html Quote Mine Project]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Objections to evolution — Part of a series on Evolutionary Biology …   Wikipedia

  • Доказательства эволюции — Ископаемый археоптерикс, обнаруженный вскоре после публикации « …   Википедия

  • Критика эволюционизма — Карикатура 1872 года, предлагающая быка в качестве промежуточного звена происхождения человека от свиньи: «Происхождение видов путем естественного отбора. Чарльзу Дарвину от Чарльза Беннетта» Критика эволюционизма появилась сразу после того, ка …   Википедия

  • Creation-evolution controversy — The creation evolution controversy (also termed the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) is a recurring political dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe, [See harvnb|Hovind|2006, for example.]… …   Wikipedia

  • Young Earth creationism — Part of a series on Creationism History of creationism Neo creationism …   Wikipedia

  • Creation–evolution controversy — A satirical cartoon from 1882, parodying Darwin s theory of evolution, in response to the publication of The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms. The creation–evolution controversy (also termed the creation vs. evolution… …   Wikipedia

  • Creationism — can also refer to creation myths, or to a concept about the origin of the soul. For the movement in Spanish literature, see Creacionismo. Part of a series on Creationism …   Wikipedia

  • Creation science — or scientific creationism is a movement within creationism which attempts to use scientific means to disprove the accepted scientific theories on the history of the Earth, cosmology and biological evolution and prove the Genesis account of… …   Wikipedia

  • Creation Science — Creationism can also refer to creation myths, or to a concept about the origin of the soul. For the movement in Spanish literature, see Creacionismo. Part of a series on Creationism …   Wikipedia

  • Irreducible complexity — This article covers irreducible complexity as used by those who argue for intelligent design. For information on irreducible complexity as used in Systems Theory, see Irreducible complexity (Emergence). Irreducible complexity (IC) is an argument… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”