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The International Conference on Creationism (ICC) is a quadrennial conference in support of young earth creationism,[1][2] sponsored by the Creation Science Fellowship (CSF). The first conference occurred in 1986 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Subsequent conferences have been held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2003 and 2008.[3] The next conference will be held in 2013.[4]
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The 1990 conference at Duquesne University featured a debate between Gregg Wilkerson, a creationist geologist and Steven A. Austin, chairman of geology at the Institute for Creation Research. Wilkerson urged the conference attendees to drop the young Earth viewpoint and accept that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Austin stated that Wilkerson was misinterpreting the data and that a young Earth viewpoint remained feasible.[5]
Writing in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Robert Schadewald emphasised the influence Kurt Wise has had on shaping a more candid and rigorous approach to creationism, particularly praising a talk entitled "How Geologists Date Things" at the 1986 conference:[6]
The talk was absolutely straight Geology 101, except for a few debunking asides. ("You know how creationists often claim that geologists use circular reasoning, that the rocks date the fossils, and fossils date the rocks? Well, that's wrong." And he explained why.)
This influence has, Schadewald suggests, resulted in a progressively higher quality of both presentations and audiences, but that both he and the conference participants agree that this improvement has had little impact upon grassroots creationism.[6]
It is described by Washington D.C. journalist[7] Larry A. Witham as having "become the preeminent meeting of its kind in the world." He states that the conferences express similar disdain for both "slipshod" populist young earth creationism, and for smuggling in "antiquity and evolution", with the latter condemned by a member of the 1998 conference host group as "warmed-over theistic evolution" and "all compromise". Witham continues:[8]
The localized studies could meet the expectations of conventional science guilds. But the large presupposition--that God "used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. We cannot discover by scientific investigation anything about the creative processes used by the Creator" — is what astounds.
Mathematics professor Jason Rosenhouse wrote this review after attending the 6th ICC in 2008:
Sadly, while I have generally been impressed with the personality and temperament of many of the people I have met at these conferences, the fact remains that they are hopelessly ignorant of science. This ignorance is exacerbated by the annoying fact that so many of them fancy themselves highly knowledgeable indeed.[1]