Creation science
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
Creation science or Scientific creationism is the study of creation which presupposes that the universe and life on Earth were created. The terms are also used to describe the defense of creationism on scientific grounds.
While the philosophical stance existed long before evolutionism, (i.e. creation cosmology, scriptural geologists), in modern times it is best known for putting forth many challenges against evolutionism.
Much of the research of creation scientists focuses on issues related to the supernatural origin or history of the universe, Earth, and life. Each of these core realms of scientific inquiry are viewed by creationists from vastly differing axioms depending. Some believe the cosmos to be old, others hold it to be much younger that modern science asserts.
In contrast to religious creationism, intelligent design (ID) is a form of creation science that is not governed by no presuppositions of creation. ID has instead developed as a field of inquiry to study the empirical scientific evidence of design that has been discovered in nature.
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Premises
- Main Page: Philosophy of science
Creation science is premised on several ideas:
- Science is by definition a human effort to understand the universe.
- There is nothing "unscientific" about believing that life was deliberately created. Just as it is scientific to study the Pyramids and Parthenon as having been created at a particular time by a particular creator, it is scientific to study life as having been designed at a particular time by a particular creator.
- The historical book of Genesis provides a verifiable, falsifiable record of events which can be evidenced and understood scientifically. In particular, the Great Flood had an extraordinary effect on the Earth's geology which can be evidenced and studied.
Much of the creation vs. evolution conflict revolves around determining which ideas are "facts" and which are "interpretations" of fact. For the most part, the same actual facts, observations, and repeatable phenomena are common to scientists of all philosophies. The divergence comes in the approach to them, and in the interpretation of them. Creation scientists use the same scientific method, but simply operate under the presupposition that God designed and assembled our world when forming theories. The number of scientists populating the creation paradigm has risen sharply in recent decades, and hence the issues in scientific creationism have abounded.
Beliefs
Biblical creationism derives its information primarily from the book of Genesis in the Bible, while some also reference apocryphal literature such as the Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch. Islamic creationists use the Islamic Qur'an. All of the above books contain nearly parallel accounts of a six-day creation, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and Noah's flood.
Young earth creationism has three basic beliefs drawn from a literal interpretation of the Bible:
- All living things were created by God
- This creation was relatively recent
- A Great Deluge occurred some time after the initial creation
Secular scientists find the first statement unscientific in the sense that it is based on observations that cannot be reproduced, and thus exclude it a priori. Creationists usually respond that this argument relies on an inadequate definition of science, because it excludes as unscientific a possibility that could still be historically true, and because it admits abiogenesis as scientific, even though it also cannot be reproduced. The second and third claims are vigilantly attacked on the basis of uniformitarianism, or the idea that the geology of the Earth is the result of slow processes, rather than the catastrophism of creation science.
Topics in creation science
Creation science is limited in scope, focusing on issues relevant to the origin of things. As such, it does not differ from mainstream science on many issues that are observable today, such as the function of gravity or the composition of the sun.
Principal subjects of research in scientific creationism are:
- Philosophy of science
- Age of the universe
- Age of the earth
- Flood geology
- Evolution
- Baraminology
- Cosmology
- Biblical Archaeology
Disclaimer
A few notes are in order regarding this topic due to its controversial nature.
- It is patently impossible to adequately discuss creation science without referencing creationist journals. It is practically impossible for a scientists to publish a creationist paper in a secular journal, and it is claimed that journals have even pulled support for papers post-approval when it was discovered that one or both of the authors had creationist leanings. Therefore, be advised that, while many of the papers under discussion are peer-reviewed, they are peer-reviewed by scientists who are themselves generally creationists, possibly removing one bias for another.
- When used here the term theory refers to a model which describes evidence, and hopefully, makes predictions. It is therefore not meant in the informal sense of conjecture, but neither is it meant to implied that has gained currency in the mainstream. hypothesis could easily be used instead.
- This site describes the principal work of creationists, which typically revolve around showing difficulties with the superstructure of modern science. In general, creation sciences do not attempt to prove creation directly anymore than secular scientists attempt to prove uniformitarianism or abiogenesis. The research of creation scientists falls into two general areas
- Showing that their beliefs are not incompatible with known observations
- Showing that modern day observables challenge some basic tenets of modern science (e.g. an old earth, evolution, abiogenesis)
- Both of these basic areas of research are treated here, but it must be understood that creationists typically rely on a type of argument from silence. They suggest that if the universe is young, abiogenesis is untenable, or the modern-day diversity of life cannot be explained via evolution, then their general axioms are more reasonable than any other way of explaining our modern earth. This argument by silence is, of course, not air-tight, but neither is it the case that, for example, a young earth theory of evolution exists.
See Also
- Science and the Supernatural
- History of creationism
- Creation vs. evolution
- Age of the universe
- Age of the earth
- Philosophy
- Is the Bible testable?
- Is Creation Science, scientific?
- Creationist prediction
External Links
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