So the context of the Scopes trial and the emergence of Young Earth Creationism, was clearly a social and historical phenomenon of the early 20th century, namely the growth of fundamentalist Christianity in American Society, led by figures such as William Jennings Bryan, who was one of the main players in the trial. This movement was attempting to establish its conservative brand of Christianity as an intellectual position in its own right, against what was seen to be liberalizing tendencies based on scientific naturalism, especially German Biblical Criticism and Darwinism. The fundamentalist argument was that, these tendencies were examples of a false science, which steadfastly refused to countenance miracles and supernaturalism. True science on the other hand would be open-minded about such things and crucially would support a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation stories, but this fundamentalist kind of true science wasn't to reach his definitive formulation until 1961, when Whitcomb and Morris published their famous book I mentioned earlier. 'The Genesis flood'. This ensured that Young Earth Creationism will thereafter be a statement about the significance of Noah's flood, as much as it was a statement about the age of the Earth, on the failings of evolutionary science. It's no exaggeration to say that this single book has done more to influence the shape of Young Earth Creationism as we know it now, than any other. Effectively, they repackaged the earlier ideas of the Seventh Day Adventists writer George McCready Price, along with the far earlier ideas of Ussher and Burnet, but with barely a nod to either of them, This book made the case that the Biblical Flood provided a catastrophic and divinely caused alternative, to the naturalistic paradigms provided by mainstream geology and paleontology. As with the earlier fundamentalists of the early 20th century, Whitcomb and Morris saw this as a matter of true science, their own, against the false science of the mainstream, especially, evolutionary biology, and for similar reasons as those early 20th century fundamentalists. The Bible must be held as completely trustworthy, maintained Whitcomb and Morris in describing the two divinely caused events, the creation and the flood. The biblical flood is a witness and a warning they believe, and to doubt this, is to doubt God's power to save human souls. In this way, true science must begin with the revelation of Scripture, and must not moderate it through human philosophies such as evolution. Therefore, human beings like all other life were created by God in the literal six days of the initial creation, before the Flood swept them away apart from what was preserved on the ark. This much was a literal reassertion of the biblical texts like the fundamentalists. But unlike those earlier fundamentalists, Whitcomb and Morris in 1961, engaged extensively with the geology and paleontology of their day. Hence, much of there book, 'Genesis Flood' gives a reinterpretation of geological evidence in order to support their view that the flood was a universal capitalism and that the earth is very young. It's not my purpose to assess Whitcomb and Morris' arguments in detail here, many others have done this to great effect, illustrating that Whitcomb and Morris treat the relevant science in a highly selective way better for them to twist it into their version of Burnet's 17th century model of the Earth, and such is the force of their rhetoric that comes over as highly plausible to those Christians who have a little knowledge of mainstream geology and evolutionary biology, but what I do want to highlight however, is the use which creationists such as Whitcomb and Morris make on the philosophy of science. The key here is Francis Bacon's idea that science is principally inductive, that science makes generalized inferences from many direct observations. So in citing Bacon's work of the 17th century, Creationists frequently claim that historical sciences such as paleontology and evolutionary biology cannot be scientific because they can't make direct observations of what actually happened in the past. Instead, the best that such subjects can do is to make untestable and hypothetical speculations goes the argument. Now, it's interesting to note that Darwin himself faced this accusation over 'Origin of Species', but the fact that Darwin and his successors weren't deterred, but slowly built up the enormous edifice of evolutionary science we know today, indicates two things I think. First, the empirical science is more sophisticated than Baconian induction might suggest. Second, that if the creationists true science is strictly Baconian, then it can only bear a passing resemblance to the natural sciences of today. In short, there are good reasons for judging Young Earth Creationism to be stuck in a pre 19th century view of science, both in method and in content. In order to take this point further, Dr. de Pomerai, later presents a brief overview of evolutionary biology as it currently stands.