Background and Introduction
The Collectio Project is an open-access academic blog and resource archive predominantly focused on content that concerns the origins debate between fundamentalist models like creationism and creation science, and more integrated models based in consensus natural history. This debate has been acted out by laymen, professionals, theologians, scientists, ideologues, scholars and philosophers since at least the mid-1800s, continuing with varying levels of intensity well into the modern age.
My first set undertaking in college was an undergraduate degree in biology, and this was where I first found a particular interest in the evidence for the theory of evolution. Having been raised a young earth creationist and holding to it into my early twenties, the counter-facts that I ran into in my freshman year more intrigued me rather than unsettled me. In spite of this new information, I initially held that young earth creationism was true, and that the evidence to support it really did exist despite the protestations of academia. I engaged in a deep course of research with the end result being that I could no longer rationally justify young earth creationism given the evidence that I had been presented with.
In the typical fashion of a self assured collegiate who thought they could single-handedly change the minds of everyone around them because they had read a few academic articles, I embarked on a crusade attempting to bring those creationists I interacted with around to the idea of evolution. After all, I just needed to convince them with "facts, logic and skepticism" that evolution was a more accurate model, and they would just believe, right? I wasted several years on this with absolutely nothing to show for it other than delusions of grandeur, many wasted hours in Facebook debates and a handful of worthless and amateur blog posts that served no purpose other than the stroking of my own ego.
As I came to understand the world better, my place in it changed, as did my academic pursuits. I took some time off and settled in a purposeless limbo for what felt like far too long. It certainly didn't help that I was trapped in an abusive relationship with someone who completely tore me down concerning my interests (thankfully, I was able to get out of that situation before things got too grim). However, one major positive to come out of this languid period was that I realized I was intensely interested in why people believed in creationism and the nature of belief in general, rather than the hard science that I had initially studied in my freshman year. Additionally, during this same time, I started to realize that a career in the hard sciences was not for me: I was much more interested in people than I was in things. This opened the door to considering a career in psychology - as I am about halfway through my undergraduate degree in general psychology, I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be, after several years of doubt and lack of a set plan for my life or career.
However, I was then left with no idea as to what I should do with the mountains of data, experiences, and research that I had accumulated over the years. It all seemed wasted just sitting in my head / left behind me. I asked a close friend what he thought, and I'll never forget what he said. When I asked if he thought it was wasted, and if I should just consider it a lost period and move on, he took a moment to think and said "Well, as far as I can tell, nothing's really wasted until you've thrown it away." I was struck. As simple as it may seem, his statement made me feel as though I could still find meaning in my previous interests and apply them in a positive way. I still held a soft spot in my mind for other people I had encountered over the years in the same predicament as me, raised to embrace young earth creationism while questioning its validity as a scientific or religious position.
Invigorated with a new sense of meaning, I decided that I would do my best to help those individuals. To me, it seemed necessary, and an avenue where I could genuinely do some good in the world. I decided to reignite my interests and role in the controversy. I planned to spend a year or two creating an online database that I would have needed years ago when I first was introduced to the creation-evolution debate. I decided I would make it informative and accessible, including easy to access key information, summaries of important cases, bibliographic compilations of external resources, and galleries of images for ease of reference, so that people need not spend hours hunting down corroborating data. This was how The Collectio Project was born.
The site began in 2021, and is ongoing and ever updating. At the time of writing (Sept. 2022), sections are not complete, menus are not fully embedded, and many many articles remain to be written. I hope to have the site in a semi-fully functional state by the end of the year, and will update everyone accordingly with intermittent update blogs. I have additional projects surrounding these topics in the future once I have got the website fully functional. If you encounter any difficulties, have any suggestions, questions, concerns, comments or corrections, please feel free to forward them to thecollectioproject@gmail.com.
- N. J. Edmonds, September 2022
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