384 CREATIONISM social practices, such as child labour, ‘laissez-faire’ capitalism, and exploitation of workers and immigrants The erroneous association of evolution with World War I German militarism further tainted evolution in the eyes of many Fundamentalism remained an almost exclusively American religious movement, not attracting much interest in Great Britain or Europe However, the Bible-based religious view proved to be a fertile ground for anti-evolutionism, and science was pressed into service by a number of Fundamentalist evangelists to support the cause Harry Rimmer, Arthur I Brown, and others hammered evolution before large public audiences, and anti-evolution tracts and books sold well The target audience of these evangelists was the general public, not the scientific community; the latter remained staunchly evolutionist, and professional scientists were scarce indeed among the anti-evolutionists associated with the growing Fundamentalist movement Into this environment came a Seventh-Day Adventist and self-trained geologist named George McCready Price, who was to develop the first version of the most influential creationist perspective of the twentieth century Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess, Ellen G White, had claimed visions of a 6-day Creation and a universal Flood; Price sought to scientifically validate her views He recognized that geology was the key to disproving evolution because, if it could be demonstrated that the Earth was young, then biological evolution would be impossible He therefore concentrated on attacking conventional interpretations of the geological record For decades, he vigorously argued that fossils could not be used to determine the order of geological strata, because there were instances where fossils were ‘in the wrong order’ He accused geologists of trying to ‘shore up their theory’ of evolution by proposing ‘highly unlikely’ theories, such as overthrusting A favourite example was the Lewis Overthrust Extending from central Alberta to the eastern edge of Glacier National Park in Montana, this massive structure is composed of Precambrian limestone overlying Cretaceous shales Price argued that a limestone slab of such immense size could not have been positioned by natural forces In general, Price ascribed all geological features to the days of Creation, the period between Creation and the Flood, or the Flood itself, and called his view Flood Geology Price tried to distinguish his ‘new catastrophism’ from earlier catastrophic geological views, such as those proposed by Cuvier He worked tirelessly to promote Flood Geology, and was given a boost when William Jennings Bryan referred to him as a noted scientist during the Scopes Trial By the 1940s, Price’s views had a wide influence on evangelical Christian views of creation and evolution His major rivals within that community were the gap and day-age theories, but some evangelicals also believed in progressive creationism or theistic evolution Price rejected all of these as being insufficiently biblical, and clung to the literalism of a young Earth and a global Flood Seventh-Day Adventists were considered to be theologically suspect by many conservative Christians As a result, Price did not always receive the credit his pioneering work deserved By the 1950s, Flood Geology had begun to slip out of favour with evangelicals, especially with the 1954 publication of Bernard Ramm’s The Christian View of Science and Scripture, which promoted progressive creationism rather than the 6-day Creation and a universal Flood The popularity of Ramm’s book generated a backlash from more conservative evangelicals Theologian John C Whitcomb and hydraulic engineer Henry M Morris presented the basics of Price’s Flood Geology – without mentioning Price – in their 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, which proposed a universal Flood, Flood Geology, biblical literalist Genesis theology, and a young Earth as the only acceptable scientific and religious position for a true Christian In some respects, The Genesis Flood was even more conservative in its presentation of a purportedly scientific foundation for Genesis than were Price’s publications Whitcomb and Morris argued that the entire universe was created between 5000 and 7000 years before the present, whereas Price argued that only the solar system, the Earth, and living things were created during the Adam and Eve creation Whitcomb and Morris revived the vapour canopy theory, an earlier view that, on the second day of creation, the Earth was shrouded in a canopy of water vapour This provided the source of the ‘waters above the firmament’ that produced the forty days and nights of rain at the beginning of the Flood, and also produced a greenhouse effect enhancing the ‘garden’ of Eden By shielding the surface of the planet from ionizing radiation, the vapour canopy also reduced cellular damage, allowing Methuselah and his contemporaries to have lifespans of hundreds of years Consonant with creationists’ objections to radiometric dating, the vapour canopy was also claimed to alter the ratios of 14C in the atmosphere, making age estimations based on 14 C inaccurate The Genesis Flood also presented the familiar young Earth model with the Flood as the source of sedimentary features around the planet, and reprised Price’s idea of the fossil record being the result of ‘hydrodynamic sorting’ Regular and streamlined animals would be naturally sorted by the Flood waters into lower strata; irregular (and more intelligent) fauna