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 | "Science can be separated from pseudo-science by the Principle of Falsification, the concept that ideas must be capable of being proven false in order to be scientifically valid." James Schombert, University of Oregon 1 |
| "...all genuine facts of science support the Bible." Institute for Creation Research, "Tenets of Creationism." 2 |
Overview:
This essay attempts to answer the specific question: is creation science a form of science or is it a pseudo-science?
| To most conservative Christians, creation science is a valid form of science. It is mainly derived from the biblical book of Genesis, whose authors were inspired by God to write material that is free of error. In fact, it is the only error-free explanation of the origins of the earth's life forms, the earth's geological features, the earth itself, and the rest of the universe. It is also the only complete account of origins; it has no missing information or gaps in knowledge. | ||||||
| To scientists who are not religious conservatives, creation science is
not actually a part of science for a number of reasons:
|
What is science and the scientific method?
It is difficult to comprehend science without first understanding the scientific method. This is a technique that has proven of immense value in wresting knowledge about the laws of nature from nature itself. The method consists of many steps. One description of the scientific method involves five activities:
| Observing nature. |
| Creating one or more hypotheses that might explain the observations. |
| Designing a test that will give predictable results if the hypothesis is true. |
| Conducting the test; check the results. |
| If the hypothesis fails, go back and try a new hypothesis. Otherwise, publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal as a theory. |
Hopefully, other scientists will then conduct similar experiments and verify the theory. Over time, if the experiments can be reliably replicated, then the theory will become generally accepted. If the theory results in many other advances in scientific knowledge, its acceptance will be further facilitated.
Other features of science:
Two important principles affecting scientific work are:
| Only natural forces are at work in the universe: Scientists
believe that the best way to learn about the mysteries of the universe is
to work with the assumption that the universe operates only through natural
forces and processes. Then, they seek to find these forces and processes. Scientists proceed on the assumption
that miracles, which necessarily involve suspension of the
laws of nature, do not happen. They perform experiments and collect observations
as if there are no supernatural forces intruding into
the world causing unpredictable results at random intervals. If they proceeded
otherwise, then they couldn't draw reliable conclusions about the nature
of the universe. They would be unable to develop
theories or laws that would consistently predict how the universe works. Nature
would simply be too unpredictable. This assumption extends only to their scientific work. In their spiritual and religious life, an individual scientist may well believe in a deity or deities who created the universe out of nothing, and who regularly interfere with the laws of the universe and create a miracle. But in their professional life, they work as if nature is predictable. Science is not Atheistic. Scientists are not necessarily Atheists, although many are. But the scientific method assumes either that:
| ||||
| Falsification of theories and laws: Implicit in the scientific method is the belief that nothing is absolutely proven
for all time. Scientists hold that all truly scientific theories are capable of being
falsified. That is, researchers must always be prepared for some future experiment or
investigation that will prove that an existing theory is invalid. Without falsification, the scientific method would not be a self-correcting process. With falsification, any errors are eventually detected and corrected. |
What is pseudo-science:
Pseudo-scientists generally start with a foundation that is based on a certain religious or philosophical point of view. From this, they derive their beliefs about the universe. They don't necessarily conduct experiments to verify their beliefs. Often, a system of belief becomes accepted because of the stature of the person who created it.
One excellent example is the geocentric (earth-centered) view of the solar system:
| Euclid (circa 330 to
circa 265 BCE), an ancient Greek scientist, discovered that there are are precisely
five regular solids. These are three dimensional objects that are made up from a
number of identical two dimensional shapes:
| ||||||||||
|
Plato (428 to 347 BCE) then reasoned that since all matter on earth is made up of a mixture of four elements (earth, air, fire and water) that there must be a correspondence between the four elements and four of the solids. He taught that Earth was tetrahedron; water: cube; air: octahedron and fire: dodecahedron. Where did he get the belief that all matter is based on four elements? From earlier scientists who thought that the concept made sense. It seemed reasonable to Plato that the heavens was thus made of the fifth element, which he called Quintessence. | ||||||||||
|
Later, Heraclides (387 to 312 BCE) developed the first geocentric model of the solar system. He believed that the earth was fixed. The sun, planets and moon rotated around the earth. The paths of the sun, planets and moon were perfect circles. They had to be circular for philosophical reasons: all things in the heavens were believed to be perfect, and the circle is the only perfect shape. | ||||||||||
|
Still later, Ptolemy (c. 85 to 150 CE) combined centuries of astronomical data with the geocentric model and produced a modified solar system model. He taught that the heavenly bodies were attached to crystalline spheres. All of the spheres revolved around the earth. Presumably, the spheres had to exist to prevent the planets, sun and moon from falling to earth. "Alexandria burns, Roman culture collapses, Dark Ages... but the Roman Catholic Church absorbs Aristotle's scientific methods and Ptolemy's model into its own doctrine." 1 |
The geocentric view of the universe ultimately collapsed under its own weight during the late Middle Ages:
|
Copernicus (1473 to 1543 CE), and Tycho Brahe (1546 to 1601 CE), contributed to an earlier heliocentric (sun centered) theory of the solar system. Their theories were based on accurate measurements of planetary motions. | ||||||||
|
Kepler (1571 to 1630 CE) finally developed the Laws of Planetary Motion. He found that:
| ||||||||
|
Galileo (1564 to 1642 CE) confirmed the heliocentric theory. He built a telescope and detected spots on the sun, craters on the moon, the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter. These were considered impossible phenomena in a geocentric solar system. For this, he got into major trouble with the Church and was threatened with torture unless he recanted his heretical views. |
The pseudo-science that produced the geocentric solar system was accepted for almost two millennia, starting with Euclid in the 3rd century BCE and continuing under the support of church authorities into the 16th century CE. It turned out to be a scientific wild-goose-chase because the beliefs which gave rise to the geocentric theory were ultimately based on religious and philosophical beliefs instead of reality. Experimentation and measurements played a minor role. The geocentric theory was composed of little more than guesses piled upon upon earlier hunches, with a foundation of speculation...and they were wrong. Science was stalled for almost 2,000 years. An accurate model of the solar system only emerged when the original religious and philosophical assumptions were abandoned, and true scientists began recording and analyzing observations of the universe.
What is creation science?
Among the religions of the world, there are hundreds of creation stories:
| The vast majority of religions have their own account of the origin of the earth, its life forms, the stars. etc. Almost all were believed to have been created by supernatural beings. | ||||
| However:
|
Although there are many points of similarity among the creation stories of some religions, there are also great differences. Most creation stories are mutually exclusive. For example if the biblical creation story is true, then all of the hundreds of creation stories of the other religious holy books and oral traditions are are wrong.
Many people believe that their own religion's creation story is an accurate account of events. They often believe that all of the creation stories of other religions are myths, legends, and fables. They are viewed as fantasies devoid of any accuracy -- as legends made up by humans without any knowledge of the real events. 3,4 A maximum of one religion can have an accurate portrayal of the creation of the world and its life; perhaps none do.
Various Christian groups promote different creation science theories. Although many deny that their findings are religiously based, we have never found a statement by any of these organization which contradicts their interpretation of any Bible passage. All of the groups that we have studied believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. They all believe that the universe was created as described in the book of Genesis, and did not evolve due to natural forces. But they have not agreed on a single interpretation of Genesis. This has led to conflicting theories of creation such as: Biblical creationism, Old earth Creationism, Gap theory creationism, Day-age creationism, etc. All use Genesis as their starting point, but have reached conclusions that vary widely in their estimate of the duration of the creation process, and when in the past that it occurred. Their time intervals vary over almost a million to one range.
For this essay, we will focus on the most popular form of conservative Christian creation science. We will use Section 4(a) of Arkansas law #590 as a guide. It states:
" 'Creation-science' means the scientific evidences for creation and inferences from those scientific evidences. Creation-science includes the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate:
- Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing;
- The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism;
- Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals;
- Separate ancestry for man and apes;
- Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and
- A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds." 5
This definition appears to have been adapted from a nearly identical seven point scientific-creation model written three years earlier by lawyer Wendell R. Bird. 6,7
Persons familiar with the Bible text will be able to associate many of these points with specific biblical passages. For example:
| Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:3 describes the sudden creation of the universe. |
| Genesis 1:20-25 describes the creation of all the "kinds" of animals. Between Genesis 1:11 and Genesis 7:14, there are 17 references in the King James Version of the Bible to "kinds." |
| The separate creation of humans is described in Genesis 1:26-27. |
| The flood of Noah is described in Genesis 7. |
| The concept of a young earth is implied in Bishop Ussher's estimate of 4004 BCE for the first day of creation -- a commonly held belief among conservative Christians. |
Is creation science a science or a pseudo science?
Scientists and jurists generally reject creation science as a valid form of science:
| Falsification: Scientists always accept the possibility that
their conclusions may be proven incorrect in the future. A biologist might
base her/his entire life's work on the assumption that the theory of
evolution is accurate. But, if they are true scientists, they must always
consider the remote possibility that some future finding will prove that
species did not evolve. Creation scientists do not accept falsification;
their fundamental belief in the inerrancy of Genesis is fixed,
non-negotiable, and unshakable. The Bible says it; they believe it; case
closed. They refuse to consider that the Bible might be proven false. The
inerrancy of the Bible is one of their basic
assumptions. In order to assess the degree of resistance to falsification among creation scientists, we attempted to dialog with fifteen creation science webmasters. Each of their web sites contained a number of "proofs" that the earth is young -- i.e. less than 10,000 years old, not 4.5 billion years of ages as scientists estimate. One of their proofs was based on the rate of deceleration of the earth's rotation. In each case, their argument was based on a miscalculation published in a creation science book. Yet even though the error was obvious, and was carefully pointed out to them via E-mail, none of the fifteen webmasters were willing to remove the false proof. In one case, the webmaster admitted that the proof might be false. But he considered his essay to be part of an archive of previously published materials. Thus, accuracy was unimportant. For the remaining 14 webmasters, their minds appeared closed to the possibility that one of their proofs was false. Since it lacks the principle of falsification, creation science is not generally considered a form of science, except by some conservative Christians. | ||||||||||
| Invalid conclusions: Scientists also reject creation science as
a part of science, because they generally regard its basic conclusions to
be wrong, proven false by the available evidence. Based on a literal
interpretation of Genesis, creation scientists have concluded that:
Scientists have generally rejected all of these beliefs. |
References:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- James Schombert, "Order and Science," University of Oregon, at: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/
- "ICR tenets of creationism," Institute for Creation Research, at: http://www.icr.org/
- D. Leeming & M. Leeming, "A Dictionary of Creation Myths", Oxford University Press, New York, NY, (1994)
- B.C. Sproul, "Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World," Harper Collins, San Francisco, CA, (1979), Page 192 to 194. Quoting W. Theodore de Bary, Ed, "Sources of Indian Tradition"
- U.S. District Court Judge William R. Overton, "McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education." A text of the decision is online at: http://cns-web.bu.edu/
- W.R. Bird, article in Acts and Facts, published by the Institute for Creation Research, 1978-DEC.
- Niles Eldredge, "The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism," W.H. Freeman, (2000), Pages 92 to 94. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
Copyright 2001 to 2005 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Latest update: 2005-AUG-30
Author: B.A. Robinson
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