The problem with Creation Science

[Vance]

Science, when done correctly, derives its concepts and theories *from* the data and evidence it finds.

Creation "Science" starts with a preconceived concept or theory and then goes and looks for data and evidence to support it.

Of course, when you go specifically looking for something to support your theory, and you are willing to analyze every evidence in the light most favorable to your theory, you will definitely find some bits and pieces here and there which seem to support your theory. You can even develop a form of "model" based on these bits and pieces which, when combined with your preconceived theory, sounds convincing to those who want to be convinced (but to no one else).

YEC’s will insist that science also starts with preconceived concepts, such as the basic tenets of evolution, or of gravity, or hundreds of other building blocks upon which they do their current work. And, to an extent, this is true. But there are a few major differences:

1. These theories or concepts first arose *from* the physical evidence and data. YEC’ist preconceptions arose from a particular reading of Scripture (and one that *only* YEC’s accept).

2. The entire scientific community is set up to encourage challenges and criticisms of theories and concepts. The YEC community states right up front that their preconceived starting points (an old earth, some limitation on God’s ability to create through evolution) are not up for debate.

3. Scientific theories will be abandoned if and when there is sufficient evidence and cogent analysis which shows that it can not be true. In short, the scientific community will go wherever the overwhelming evidence leads them, even if the path is not what they expected or if it upsets their comfort zones. The YEC community has placed a very specific line where they will not go, no matter what the evidence says.

HERE IS THE KICKER: if we took some intelligent investigators and magically took away all the preconceived ideas, simply wiped them out of their brains, then presented them with the world as it is, they would eventually come up with what science tells us now, or something very much like it. They would NEVER, EVER, come up with any theory which has been presented by a Creation "Scientist". An objective, independent view of our earth and universe would never come up with a global flood, a young earth, etc, etc.

So, in reality, the scientific community is seeking for truth. The YEC community is seeking for support. Thus, Creation Science is apologetics, not science.

 

[lucaspa]

So, in reality, the scientific community is seeking for truth. The YEC community is seeking for support. Thus, Creation Science is apologetics, not science.

Unfortunately, Creation Science fails even more miserably at apologetics as it does science. It drives people away from Christianity.

Here is how Karl Popper described how science works:

"1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory -- if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions.
3. Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.
5. Confirming evidence should not count *except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory:* and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. " [emphasis Popper's]
"I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation."

Creation Science does #1. They do not under any circumstances do #4. Darwin had a chapter in the first edition of Origin entitled "Problems with the Theory". Can you imagine any Creation Scientist doing that? Do you ever see any Creation Scientist trying to obtain "a decisive refutation" of Creation Science? They spend all their time making apologetics to try to get around decisive refutations.

The second worst crime in science is to use theory to deny data. Yet this is what Creation Science does all the time. Evolution is tested against the data. Creation Science is not.

 

[Ark Guy]

Evolution assumes we all have a common ancestor...then looks for the evidence..and fails.

 

[Vance]

But that is not the way it happens, for the reasons I stated above. Science looks at the evidence from which they conclude the common ancestor. You have it backwards, you are thinking like a YEC.

Can another YEC do better?

 

[Godzman]

I am an old earth Creationist, so my opinions fall into a different catergory, believe the word of God, and ask questions later

 

[Vance]

I am an old earth Creationist, so my opinions fall into a different catergory, believe the word of God, and ask questions later

Right, but *do* ask the questions.

Also remember to check your ego at the door and be willing to accept that your reading of the word of God can be wrong.

 

[Godzman]

Right, but *do* ask the questions.

Also remember to check your ego at the door and be willing to accept that your reading of the word of God can be wrong.

of course I always do, I always ask questions, but I do not question that the word of God is true.

 

[Vance]

of course I always do, I always ask questions, but I do not question that the word of God is true.

And it is.

It is the holy word of God to us.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Evolution assumes we all have a common ancestor...then looks for the evidence..and fails.

If we don't have a common ancestor, why do all organisms share so much of their DNA?

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

I am an old earth Creationist, so my opinions fall into a different catergory, believe the word of God, and ask questions later

I allow God's Creation to correct my incorrect interpretations of Scripture.

 

[notto]

Evolution assumes we all have a common ancestor...then looks for the evidence..and fails.

You haven't read Origin of a Species, have you. Your statement is absolutely incorrect as to how the theory of evolution came about. At the time of its origin, special creation WAS the assumption made by scientists. Darwin looked at that assumption and found it lacking in its descriptive power of the actual evidence that nature presents. He put together a theory of why nature is the way it is and as he did so, it led him to the hypothesis of a evolution through natural selection. This hypothesis leads to the hypothesis and is supported by the data that there is a common ancestor to all life. There is no assumption of this fact, the data leads to this on its own.

Now, assuming that the bible creation story is fact and then trying to find evidence to support it while ignoring evidene that falsifies it, that would be an accurate description of creation science ministries organizations. They even state it in their mission statements.

 

[Vance]

I allow God's Creation to correct my incorrect interpretations of Scripture.

That is a very good way of putting it.

 

[lucaspa]

Evolution assumes we all have a common ancestor...then looks for the evidence..and fails.

Darwin looked at the evidence first. Remember, he started the voyage on the Beagle as a creationist. It was the evidence collected during the voyage and analysis of the samples after the voyage (the Galapagos finches, for instance) that led Darwin to hypothesize common ancetry.

Ark Guy, every hypothesis is assumed to be true in order to test the hypothesis.

Didn't you read Popper? Let me refresh your memory:

"I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation."

Darwin tried very hard to falsify common ancestry. He failed. Instead, he found data that made sense only if common ancestry were true.

Phylogenetic studies were undertaken to falsify common ancestry. Instead, they supported it.

 

[lucaspa]

of course I always do, I always ask questions, but I do not question that the word of God is true.

Vance said: "Also remember to check your ego at the door and be willing to accept that your reading of the word of God can be wrong." I added the emphasis.

The Word of God is true, but is your reading of the word of God true? See the first quote in my signature.

 

[Vance]

Correct. I think the problem lies somewhat in the statement you qoute in your sig:

"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437

The important word here is "sound". It is not any wild, unsubstantiated scientific claim that should cause us to re-examine our interpretation (although we should always be searching for truth). But, if an assertion by the scientific community is so overwhelmingly researched, supported and found to be consistent in so many areas as evolution, it is exactly the type of sound science that should cause us to seriously consider whether we are the ones in error.

 

[lucaspa]

Correct. I think the problem lies somewhat in the statement you qoute in your sig:

"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437

The important word here is "sound". It is not any wild, unsubstantiated scientific claim that should cause us to re-examine our interpretation (although we should always be searching for truth). But, if an assertion by the scientific community is so overwhelmingly researched, supported and found to be consistent in so many areas as evolution, it is exactly the type of sound science that should cause us to seriously consider whether we are the ones in error.

Right. I'm not going to use Hawking's No Boundary Proposal to go off and say there was no creation, even tho that is the conclusion from the proposal. There simply isn't enough data such that it is perverse not to accept it as (provisionally) true. Evolution, OTOH, does have that overwhelming evidence.

Notice when the quote was written. 1832. It was in 1831 that Adam Sedgwick announced that the data was overwhelming that the Noachian Deluge never happened as a world-wide event and could not be used to explain any geological feature. He was among the last of the Diluvialists. When the evidence was overwhelming to him, it was far, far past the point of "sound science". So the Christian Observer was talking about accepting an old earth and reinterpreting Genesis 6-8 as a local flood.

 

[Vance]

Which, of course, predates the theory of evolution (at least the Darwinian version).

This, then, establishes that the "old earth" and "local flood" theories were not just developed to support evolutionary teaching, as some would have us believe.

 

[mattes]

Creation Science is apologetics, not science.

Excuse me? I don't think you know what your talking about. Creation Science is very much science. In fact the all major branches of science were started by creationists. There has never been one advancement in any field of science that the evolution theory has helped. The evolution theory is useless. So I would say maybe Evolution Science is not science, Evolution is only a thoery a bad one at that it doesnt have legitament evidence to support it.

Before you speak out against Creation Science look at both sides of the story.

 

[Vance]

Oh, believe me, I have looked at both sides. I think you are mistaking Creation Science with science done by scientists who happen to be Creationists. By Creation Science I am talking about that group which attempts to support their theory of Young Earth Creationism by scientific means. This group, by your definition, is entirely useless since it has provided not a single insight which has led to any advancement of any scientific field.

 

[mattes]

By Creation Science I am talking about that group which attempts to support their theory of Young Earth Creationism by scientific means.

Why not? Evolution is a theory and they try to support their theory, and wait isnt that the whole point of science? There is more evidence of Creationism then there is in Evolution. In fact most of evolution's evidence are hoaxes ie. Piltdown Horse, Nebraska Man, Haekel's Embryos, Peppered Moth, and etc. and there still keeping these hoaxes in the textbooks and not to mention there attempts of cover ups. I hate to say it but evolution is a disease to science. Evolution theory has become a religion and people are going to great extremes to try to prove it.