’Creation-science’
Last edited November 2, 2009
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’Creation-science’
A several decades-old creation of Bible literalists with some scientific background – such a literalist being one who believes that everything written in the (Christian) Bible is literally true, with a reciprocal hostility held towards the central organizing principles of modern biology – in which these “fundamentalists” advance the basic proposition that the universe was brought into being, in its present form including all known species of flora and fauna, some six to ten thousand years ago, and that crucially this is defensible on purely scientific grounds. Those who engage in this pursuit see themselves as ‘creation scientists’.
 
It should be noted that this notion of ’Creation-science’ is distinct from any advocacy of Creationism in that simple Creationism makes no claims to scientific backing or support, and indeed there are those, using this sense of Creationism, who strenuously deny that any appeals to scientific ‘proofs’ are or can be legitimate.
 
Because of these claims made for scientific validity, so-called Creation-science may be subjected to the kind of critical analysis to which any falsifiable, scientific claim is scrutinized.
 
Seemingly paradoxically, some advocates of ’Creation-science’ seek to resist any attempt to discuss a conjectured “divine being” and its (‘His’?) role, concentrating instead – at least in public – on what might be called the ‘divine act’.
 
One Creationist approach is to point to some complex feature of a species and assert that this could not have arisen through the process of evolution, and therefore suppose a simultaneous demonstration that evolution is false and creationism is true. A related technique is for Creationists to demand a clear, complete explanation of how some specific feature of an organism evolved – if such an explanation is not immediately forthcoming proponents assume it follows that the feature must have formed by special creation†, and therefore Creationism is correct – this type of argument is often described in terms of the “residue problem”. For example, the similar argument used by proponents of UFOs as extraterrestrial craft, that if sceptics can’t produce compelling alternative explanations for every single sighting, then UFOs must be (piloted by) extraterrestrial intelligent visitors. As it is almost inevitable that even very thorough investigation is unlikely to ascertain the actual basis of every single sighting, a small number of unresolved cases – a residue – will escape detection or at least remain open. This does not mean, however, that we are receiving visits from intelligent extraterrestrials.
 
Other Creationist lines of reasoning include a claim that the process of evolution violates well-confirmed physics, namely, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and this violation prevents evolution from happening: the short answer to this misplaced contention is that the earth is not a “closed system” – the sun (and all other external energy sources) provides that no violation occurs. It must not be forgotten that at the heart of literalist Creationism is the fundamental notion that proponents assume the (Christian) bible to be inerrant – that is, incapable of being mistaken – so that the basis of their ‘science’ cannot ever, in their eyes, be refuted. This is what is known as an irrefutable* or non-falsifiable hypothesis, and means that there is no conceivable evidence they would accept which could disprove their hypothesis, that is, that life, the world, and the universe is a product of “special creation”. Genuine science does not operate in this way.
 
A frequently-heard refrain of ‘scientific’ Creationists is their demand that their "Creation-science" be accepted as a scientific alternative to Evolution by Natural Selection, claiming that it should be given "equal time" in high school science classes. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it is not scientific at all, and that such a deception should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
 
 
†Special Creation
An imagined act of bringing something (anything, everything) into existence by supernatural means – especially such a ‘miraculous event’ worked by “the hand of ‘god’”.
 
*Irrefutable hypothesis
One against which there can be mounted no evidence – the hypothesis is or has been stated in such a way that no evidence can show the hypothesis to be wrong.
Labels: ’Creation-science’, Creation-science, creation science, 'scientific' creationism, creationism - 'scientific', the residue problem, irrefutable hypothesis, ‘special creation’
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