Center for Origins Research

The Center for Origins Research (CORE) at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., is dedicated to developing a Young Earth Creationist model of biology. The center was founded in 1989 by college president Kenneth Hanna and was directed by the prominent Young Earth Creationist Kurt Wise until 2006 when Todd Wood, who holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and joined the center in 2000, took the position. CORE promotes research in five areas of biology: design, natural evil, speciation, biogeography and biosystematics. The center’s work in these fields carries an implicit acceptance of the Genesis creation account. For example, CORE research in biogeography focuses on how animals and plants spread around the Earth after the Genesis Flood. Current CORE projects include research into how the diverse life forms of the Galapagos Islands -- which partly inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution -- can fit with Young Earth Creationism and showing that archaeocetes – considered an ancestral link to modern whales – are in fact a different species.

CORE publishes its findings in the journal enCORE. They have also published a series of scholarly monographs in collaboration with Wipf & Stock Publishers called “CORE issues in Creation,” dedicated to the systematic support of a Young Earth Creation model. CORE also houses a public library of more than 2000 scientific and religious texts dating back to 1675 and an electronic database of articles relating to the science-and-religion debate. In conjunction with Bryan College, CORE offers an undergraduate minor is origin studies focused on training new researchers in a Young Earth Creationist view of origins.