Difference between revisions of "User talk:Philip J. Rayment/Creationism"

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I think there are two arguments in the creationism versus evolution debate.

(i) Creationism/Intelligent Design is based primarily on the belief that the bible is essentially a revealed text and is accurate. If this is not so, then Creationism per se has no foundation. If you START from the assumption that the bible is correct PLUS there is an omnipotent being who is prepared to do what it takes to ensure that what is written in the bible is correct, then you can, in principle come up with any explanation that you like and claim that you theory is justified. The thesis is not only repugnant to many people as it is profoundly anti-intellectual; it is also intellectually bankrupt, as it does not progress our understanding, either of God or of the world.

(ii) Scientific Understanding (as opposed to the scientific method), is an endeavour which attempts to make sense of what we see around us. One of the features of this, is that God as an explanation appears to recede into ever narrower gaps in our understanding as our scientific understanding expands. You can take one of two opposing views here: either God exists, and he constructed all this so that when reality is inspected through the lens of science it appears as if he is not necessary (i.e there is a load of evidence to suggest that evolution is real, but actually it's a ploy by god to fool us - or to test our faith or something similar), OR on the other hand we might conclude that the scientific expanation is adequate on its own and God is unnecessary. It was on this last point that Galileo had such trouble with the inquisition. They did not per se, disagree that the facts said that the earth apparently moves around the sun, but they vehemently disagreed with what they saw as Galileo's heresy that scientific understanding, per se, can lead you to conclude anything about the true nature of the cosmos. Their viewpoint parallels the argument taken by many young earth creationists, viz: the bible appears to say that the earth is at the centre of the universe, so it must be. If the observable facts disagree with this, then it must be that God has arranged the universe so that it appears as if the sun is at the centre and the earth goes around the sun. I think it is this latter which is the basic stumbling block, and it does come down to belief - either a belief that the universe is fundamentally mysterious and no matter how much we try, we will never understand the mind of God, so stop trying and just worship him, or a belief that the universe IS basically understandible (irrelevant to whether or not god exists, created it, died some time ago or never existed in the first place), in which case we use the simplist theories, the most elegant explanations, to form the most consistent, coherent and logical understandings of the universe that we can, based on currently available best evidence and the most effective and robust of our prevailing theories.

If you believe in the former, you are subscribing to the god theory, and you do not need to look for other explanations, as the single explanation you have is fully satisfying and is the ultimate 'theory of everything'. If you do not subscribe to the god theory, then you will be continually striving for better explanations, which are more elegant, deeper, more powerful and more all-encompassing, as no explanation that you can come up with will be the ultimate 'theory of everything'.

However, just one rider to all this: suppose that 2000 years ago, all of humanity had been witness to Christ's death on the cross, and was totally convinced of god's omnipotence and that the bible reveals all. The quest for scientific understanding would have ceased, as it would have become unnecessary, and we would be living in a theological golden age, but without technology; in fact we could not be having this internet conversation now.

Whatever the creationist might believe about the way that the universe functions, the real challenge is to come up with an explanation of how the pursuit of science per se, has been so successful, has been able to make such excellent predictions, and is able to provide clear, rational and usually mathematical models of the the way that the world operates, then further go on to explain why, in this particular field of science (evolution), where the same principles have been adopted, human beings have got it so wrong. --Felix 05:22, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

That creationism is based primarily on the Bible may be correct (at least if you mean as a starting point), but that's not necessarily true for Intelligent Design.

Creationists do not start from the assumption that "there is an omnipotent being who is prepared to do what it takes to ensure that what is written in the bible is correct". They start from the assumption that the Bible is an accurate historical record, correctly documenting what did take place.

You have provided no evidence of your claim that "you can, in principle come up with any explanation that you like and claim that you theory is justified". I reject that claim.

I was interested in your wording that "...God as an explanation appears to recede...". Perhaps it appears that way because that is, for many, the goal, not because of any necessary result of science.

Your "two opposing views" are not the only two possible views, and neither are what creationists believe. So you have presented a false dichotomy.

Your statements about Galileo are wrong. For the most part, his views were accepted, and there was (again for the most part) strong support from the church for science. Galileo's problem was that he upset someone who was in a position to make life difficult for him, plus he was challenging Aristotle's non-biblical views that the church had adopted.

Again with reference to the Earth and the sun being at the centre, creationists do not subscribe to the Omphalos view that God made things look contrary to the way they are.

You referred to a "belief that the universe IS basically understandible". What you don't seem to realise is that this belief came from Christianity! A review of Rodney Stark's book For The Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts and the End of Slavery says the following:

India, China, Persia, Greece and Rome all had venerable traditions of scholarship but why did only Christian Europe develop science? Stark’s answer is simple but profound—the Christian God was rational, responsive, dependable and omnipotent and the universe was his personal creation in which his divine nature was put on display for man’s benefit and instruction. Among the passages most commonly cited by medieval scholars was: ‘Thou has ordered all things in measure and number and weight.’ Christians believed that science could be done and should be done.[1]

I might agree that we should use the simplest and most elegant theories, etc., as you said, but I might disagree with which theory best fits that "requirement".

Your claim that subscribing to the "god theory" means that you need not look for other explanation contradicts the quote in the box above, and the fact that many if not most of the early scientists were Christians (creationists). It did not stop them looking for explanation; in fact it encouraged them to look for explanations. The same response applies to your following paragraph about all quest for scientific understanding ceasing. The claim is simply contrary to the facts. Much of the technology behind the Internet (electricity, for example) was discovered and/or developed by Christians. So again, your assertions are contrary to the facts.

With regard to your final paragraph, the difference is that the science that developed technology is empirical or experimental science that is able to observe, test, and measure results. If I don't believe that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, I can test it for myself. Goo-to-your evolution, on the other hand, is a story about the past, which we do not have available to observe, test, and measure. If I believe that reptiles changed into birds 65 million years ago, what tests can I run to see if that happened?

Philip J. Rayment 07:31, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Some Further Thoughts--

One of the major issues in attempting to debate these topics, is that not only are the terms 'creationism' and 'evolution' loose conglomerations of a whole load of actually quite diverse theories eg Creationism could involve strict biblical creation, young earth creation, intelligent design, creation over an extended timescale, creation and then some evolution, creation by extraterrestrial material via comet etc., whereas Evolution may involve Lamarkian or Darwinian forms, macro evolution, microevolution, random DNA mutations; non-random DNA mutations, environmental changes to metatags within the DNA code or whatever. This means that it is always, on both sides, possible to put up straw men to be knocked down, and equally, to hide behind a slightly different version of the theory when one particular version is under threat.

There is also the other issue of the bible versus science, and this debate is riddled with the same sort of contingencies: in quoting the bible, you are inevitably interpreting what one particular section might say; in a book of this nature, there will be other passages which appear to contradict or at least are not totally consistent with each other. Any argument that you give builds not only on what you think the passage means, but on what you have read about what other people think it means. In science too, there is no real consensus about what the scientific method actually is. Logical positivists take the fairly stark view that it's only about making predictions and not about explanations; however many scientists these days would claim (like Galileo) that science actually reveals truths about the world. However, many science educators take a constructivist view of knowledge, that is, knowledge and understanding are created by our brains via a process which is akin to the scientific methodology of theorising + falsification proposed by Popper. Radical Constructivists claim that we cannot in general know the content of another's brain and therefore are in no position to judge whether another's understanding of the world is is valid or invalid, merely whether it appears to be consistent with our own.

All of this is like trying to juggle with fog.

However the debate is fascinating, and it serves to expose what on the surface are two entirely different types of thinking, but in essence have many similarities. I personally believe that the essential difference between the two viewpoints is the one I have alluded to above, and that is your starting point, namely in one case, the bible is the only valid source of universal truths, and the other, scientific methodology is the only way of exposing universal truth. The fact is, on both sides whe have people using pseudoscience to justify, support and refute arguments, and this does not help.

In this debate, which is essentially about whether you believe that the bible or science is the more valid way of interpreting the world, you essentially take your pick. However, once having chosen, you then throw away all sorts of stuff. Science has got to be devoid of teleological explanations; life has no purpose etc. And the bible must be the source of all wisdom. However, this is often problematic. For example what does the bible tell you about the speed of light? What does the bible tell you about lasers? If it is quiet on these things, then you have to explain why this is. Furthermore you need to explore how you can ever be certain that you are simply failing to interpret the word of god effectively? For if you start going off and using scientific methodology to develop and extend your world view, how can you ever be certain that the Answer wasn't in Genesis somewhere, but that you failed to spot it? This is a major problem for creation scientists as the bible is clearly not all-encompassing: where are the boundaries to biblical knowledge? Where does the bible leave off, and where should scientific reasoning begin?

However, (and this is probably where I really diverge from creationists): I believe that in attempting to claim that creationism is a science, the biblical creation argument becomes fatally flawed; if science is actually about uncovering ever more sophisticated explanations which grow, develop and eventually become the prevailing paradigm, then creation science must either challenge its own underlying beliefs (just as science has done via the work of Aristotle, Hume, Popper etc.) and in doing so ultimately develop scientific explanations which are on a par with evolution, and are as elegant as those of evolution. Challenging its underlying beliefs means taking seriously the notion that the world was not created less than 10000 years ago, and weighing the evidence for it, with the possible conclusion that it is very much older than this, despite what it might say in the bible If it does this, then it could conceivably supercede evolution as an explanatory framework for how the universe actually works. If it does not do this, it will simply demonstrate that no matter how convincing the arguments become for evolution, and no matter how much evidence and argument weighs in against creationism, it sticks doggedly to its position, unmovable, and will never convince anyone in the scientific community, as it is merely demonstrating by any accepted philosophical criteria that it is not a science. (unless of course it creates a new definition of science which has by then become the prevailing paradigm!) --Felix 08:19, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree with your first paragraph about the way terms are used. That is why on my user Creationism page I particularly said that I was talking about Young Earth Creation (which I would equate with Biblical creation). And why I mentioned "goo-to-you evolution" to clarify that I wasn't talking about a change in gene frequencies or some other definition.

Your characterisation of the Bible as a book "of this nature" that is subject to interpretation is unfair. That could be said of pretty well any book, and I don't see why it could be said of the Bible in particular.

Creationists do not believe that the Bible is the "only" valid source of information. It provides a basis/outline/foundation, on which we can build our knowledge. The fact that the Bible doesn't say anything about the speed of light or lasers is irrelevant. Your "major problem for creation scientists" is in your imagination, it seems, because I know of no creation scientist who has that problem.

Science is not "about about uncovering ever more sophisticated explanations which grow, develop and eventually become the prevailing paradigm", but about learning about the world we inhabit. It might result in what you said, but that is not its purpose.

Your assessment that creation science must end up challenging its own underlying beliefs presumes that there will be some conflict there. Perhaps evolutionists should challenger their beliefs that the world is older than 6,000 years, despite what atheists say (not only atheists, of course).

It seems to me that evolutionists stick doggedly to evolution took, despite all the evidence offered by creationists that is more consistent with creation than evolution. See I can spout rhetoric too!

Evolutionists have already done what you predict creationists might do—they have redefined science to be a search for natural explanations, thus ruling creationism out by definition, despite its origins in a Christian worldview.

Philip J. Rayment 10:31, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

An interesting debate

Philip, I can tell we will eventually agree to disagree with one another, but you seem to be missing the point of what I am saying. If creationism is to be a science, then it must demonstrate it scientific credentials or be condemned as a non-science. That to me is a given.

Therefore it seems to me that there are two paths forward for 'creation science'

1. to redefine what science is, and have that accepted by the scientific community, or
2. to use scientific principles in a root-and-branch manner in order to develop a single coherent creationist theory, which will then be accpted by the scientific community.

I really think that (1) is probably off the agenda, as from the level of creationist debate that I have seen, there are very few people writing on the topic who have the scientific and philosophical clout to be able to convince the holders of the current paradigm that they have it wrong. (I could be wrong, but I don't think so).

This means that to claim creationism is a science, you must do (2) , or something very like it. However, this means, as I have said, not sniping at evolution, and saying what is wrong with that, but pursuing an extended project which involves (amongst other things) (i) Examining the essential principles that lie at the heart of the theory, producing a simple account of this, and arguing critically as to why, exactly the simple account is valid. (ii) Using the 'simple account', developing a consistent, coherent theory of how things got to be the way they did, for example, which things were created, when, and what has happened after that? Is evolution (macro or micro) any part of this story? and then going back to (i) to modify the 'simple account' when it turns out that your 'simple account' is not quite right. (iii) Using the theory developed to explain phenomena that have already been explained via other mechanisms, and also demonstrating that the theory has greater explanatory power than anything currently on offer. Being prepared to return to (ii) and modify the theory to take account of the fact that it did not precisely give satisfactory explanations. (iv) Making predictions on the basis of the theory, that can be systematically checked against observation and experiment.Being prepared to return to (ii) to modify the theory when it turns out that your predictions are incorrect.

You say that I presume that creationism will be found wanting. That is correct, because if it really is science, its basic tenets and theories will inevitably be found wanting at some point. All scientific theories are eventually be superceded by something better - either modifications or refutations. I take the pragmatic view. If someone, whether they be evolutionist or creationist, comes up with evidence which invalidates any of the current theories, then that is wonderful! It moves knowledge on, because we can dispense with an inadequate theory and base our understanding one something much better.

If creationism is based on something else, such as a revealed truth, then it is immutable, and will not change. In this case it is not amenable to scientific methodology, and its proponents should not be claiming that it is a science.

--Felix 11:13, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Your argument presumes that other scientists will dispassionately and objectively judge creation science on its merits, whereas the opposite is true. Many scientists reject creationism simply because it includes God in the equation, and they have an ideological problem with that.[2]

Modern science was founded mostly by creationists. Creationism was at the time entirely consistent with scientific thinking. It's not that creationism changed its underlying assumptions or its arguments, but that secular scientists decided that science had to be, by definition, based on naturalism, thus excluding the supernatural even from consideration. So no amount of demonstrating that creation science is science is going to change that mindset.

I'd say that creationists have done all the things that you suggest that they should do. They have developed their own theories, in detail. They have made successful predictions. They have changed their minds on particular proposals as further evidence became available. But the response is often simply to deny that it makes successful predictions, deny that it does any research, deny that there is any evidence that supports it, deny that it can be scientific, deny on that basis the opportunity to publish in the secular science journals, use the lack of publication in secular science journals as evidence that it's not science (see the circular argument?), etc. etc.

Your defence of your presumption that creationism will be found wanting is illogical. You are basically saying that it will be found wanting if it is science because science never has the right answer! ("...if it really is science, its basic tenets and theories will inevitably be found wanting at some point."). It may be true that 99.99% of scientific ideas are wrong, but in theory some idea must be right, so you cannot say with certainty that a particular idea must inevitably be found wanting. And remember we are talking here about the basic premise; I've already said that some of the details (individual propositions) have been found wanting.

Philip J. Rayment 11:34, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

Argument by Bald Assertion

I'll agree that the basic concept of creationism is not falsifiable. That is, nobody can formulate any scientific test of whether God did actually create the world.

And that's why Creationism is not science.

However, neither can anybody formulate any scientific test of whether the basic concept of goo-to-you evolution, or at least its underlying premise of naturalism, is falsifiable.

I keep trying to tell you differently, but you keep not listening. --Gulik5 12:55, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

I don't recall you ever arguing, let alone proving, that naturalism is falsifiable. Nor do I recall you ever arguing that evolution is falsifiable and that creation is not falsifiable in a similar way, i.e. that creation and evolution are qualitatively different in that regard. And if you did either of them, I would almost certainly disagree, but I would not simply "not listen". Philip J. Rayment 17:09, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

Naturalism is a game-rule of science. If you can't play by it, you're not playing science. That said, it could theoretically be disproven---if God was willing to work a miracle on demand in a replicable way that scientists could investigate. Since He's not, it isn't.

And this will make the THIRD time I've pointed out ways to falsify evolution: Find God's copyright information in "junk DNA" (Or better yet, the part that gives human beings their distinct upright gait and big brains.). Apparently, the words I'm writing just aren't the same words you're reading, adn I apologize for that, as I just can't think of how to state what I'm saying more clearly without using LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS. --Gulik5 14:32, 12 April 2008 (EDT)