In some sense, almost all Latter-day Saints (as well as members of numerous other faiths) would call themselves "creationists." They believe in a God who has overseen the creation of this and other worlds, and they believe that the universe, earth, and humans all have some transcendent purpose. A reasonably open-minded philosophy of this sort is entirely consistent with modern scientific knowledge.
This paper will deal with a more specific form of creationism, which is often termed "creation science" or "scientific creationism" (these terms will be used synonymously). As defined in a 1981 Arkansas law, creation science is the belief in (1) sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing; (2) the insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism; (3) changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals; (4) separate ancestry for man and apes; (5) explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and (6) a relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds. Advocates of this view, which is obviously Biblical literalism without explicit references to God, Adam, and Noah, hold that there was no life on earth before Eden (a few thousand years ago), and no death before the Fall of Adam. [From the text]