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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2005
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Claim CA114.2:

Linnaeus was a creationist.

Source:

Morris, Henry M. 1982. Bible-believing scientists of the past. Impact 103 (Jan.), http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=185

Response:

  1. Linnaeus predated the theory of evolution by about a century. His work showing a hierarchical arrangement of plant and animal traits is one of the major pieces of evidence for evolution. He was criticized by the creationists of his day for placing humans in the same order as monkeys.

  2. Linnaeus was very pious and believed that God created all things, but he was, foremost, an objective scientist. He wrote with contempt of a pastor who quoted scripture to prove that clouds were solid objects and of another priest who "reproached me for paying too much attention to worldly vanities at the expense of spiritual matters, and said that many souls were lost through hankering after learning" (Blunt 1971, 59-60). In time, Linnaeus came to doubt the historical accuracy of the Bible regarding the young age of the earth and could not believe in a universal flood or creation in just six days (Blunt 1971, 179).

  3. Linnaeus did believe in evolution within genera: "It is impossible to doubt that there are new species produced by hybrid generation" (Linne 1760).

References:

  1. Blunt, Wilfrid. 1971. The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus. New York: Viking.
  2. Linne, C. 1760. Disquisitio de sexu plantarum ab Academia Imperiali Scientiarum Petropolitana praemio ornata. Amoenitates Academicae 10: 100-131. Quoted in Rieseberg, L. H., 1997. Hybrid origins of plant species. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28: 359-389.

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created 2001-2-18, modified 2005-8-2