This being BioLogos and all, a word from Dr. Francis Collins:
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Science is based on methodological naturalism. If special creation according to the Genesis Account is true, naturalism would be falsified and pure naturalist evidence with it, of course. The question, if evolution were true or not, would immediately become obsolete.
But does that mean that literally all science would crumble apart? Clearly not. We would still be able to do computer science, rocket science, medical science, cold-case detection, engineering of whatever kind or branch etc…
Why would special creation not influence these sciences? Because they’re not origins matters!
If you think we would immediately fall back to the Stone Ages, you should reflect on what grounds science stands! It’s based on nature’s intelligibility. Why should it be intelligible, if all it is and all we are was just chemicals in motion?
Our whole process of investigating things would be defective, if nature wasn’t intelligible and because it is intelligible, it indicates special creation by a masterful kind.
So, in short: you’re probably already living in a masterly designed 6-day-creation and lack no branch of science. So what are you complaining about?
Specials creation is not the problem. God is not the problem. Your bias pro evolution due to an ideological commitment to Darwinism is the problem.
“I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after him.” - Johannes Kepler
You’re completely missing the point!
The YEC worldview presupposes a young earth special creation and a global flood and >interprets< the world accordingly.
It’s a belief system - and admittedly so!
Many cornerstones of the YEC worldview cannot be scientifically investigated. Nobody can turn back time, right?
Our presuppositions are the starting points from which we reason.
But guess what: the same is true for the evolutionist worldview, as well!
The evolutionist worldview is built upon presuppositions, as well from which evolutionist scientists reason.
Both views are inherently religious in nature. Your denial of that fact has no influence on its truth.
Science is not limited to the investigation of static entities. Scientists are keenly interested in natural processes, and processes are indeed origins matters.
Absolutely. But the claim that all of science would fall apart, if biblical creationism were true, is demonstrably false.
Scientists are interested in discovering knowledge. And if you exclude all non-natural, but nevertheless possible causes per definition, will you then be able to actually know the true reasons for the existence of certain things, if these are supernatural, for example? No, because you would never allow for explanations exceeding naturalism. And that’s undermining the very basis of scientific research: the longing for finding out about the truth - not just explanations that can’t be falsified.
Processes are governed by natural laws, but processes sustained by natural laws don’t create anything. Mere processes have no generative powers. They clearly lack explanatory power.
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The concern with including supernatural processes is they are not well defined, so what is to exclude invoking magical pixies as an explanation? additionaloy, science likes to know some sort of mechanism or at least constraint that we can experimentally verify, a la physics
once you explain a process with an undefined process that cannot be empirically tested in any way, then that hampers scientific inquiry because we have no means to empirically confirm or falsify the explanation
e.g. if we explain disease with evil spirits, there is no impetus to discover microbiology and hygeine theory
otoh if we assume there is some empirically detectable cause of disease then that gives us some scinetific traction to experimentally narrow down to the root cause
it is like debugging broken software, if i just assume random chance or inscrutible compiler, os, or hw fault causes my problem when really it is my own error, then in most cases i fail to solve a bug due to my own fault
likewise with science, the weight is placed on processes we can empirically examine to avoid giving up on something that realky does have an empirical explanation
now. if we can have an empirically well defined and testable formulation of a supernatural cause, that can be empirically distinguished from alternate causes, then we can include it in science
so far what you have presented per creationism does not meet that requirement, bu I also think evolutionary theory doesn’t meet tgat requirment, so both are equally invalid scientific tgeories
ID and Darwinism are tge only scientific theories that meet tge requirements above, afaik
Sir, thank you for your discourse. Please explain where the YEC view does not have presuppositions? Thanks.
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I said that it has! It’s presupposing 6-day-creation “after its kind” and a global flood.
I apologize! I see it; thank you. I was working, and just had a brief break at the time. I am a Christian, too. However, would you also say that we presume God’s existence, and that the Bible is true? Thanks.
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I think God’s existance is a necessity to even be able to evaluate scientific evidence.
If God didn’t exist, materialism / naturalism would be true.
That means that our wishes, dreams, inner visions and emotions would reduce to nothing else but electrical discharges in the tissue of our brain. We were nothing but molecules in motion. Molecules are governed by the natural laws of cause and effect, so, if we were just molecules in motion, we would only be input-reaction-automata. Moist robots - so to speak.
That’ clearly not in accordance with the evidence that we ourselves obviously do >act< - in sheer contrast to just reacting. Therefore naturalism / materialism cannot possibly be true.
So what’s the alternative? Supernaturalism? Immaterialism?
In short: It’s not just a blind presupposition that God exists. I see great evidence for his existence. I think the world around us would clearly look very different, if God didn’t exist.
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False dichotomy here, for two reasons.
One, God’s existence is compatible with material naturalism as limited to scientific methodology. Newton did not propose gravity was carried on angel wings.
Two, one cannot just ignore that properties which are emergent may not be reducible to “just molecules in motion”. The whole need not be the sum of the parts.
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Well, not only - no. A deistic god may be compatible with material naturalism as he is not supernaturally intevening with his creation anymore after he created it, but not so with Jahwe.
If you speak of the christian God, you have to consider the supernatural as well - or you’re talking of another god…or better to say: idol.
If you have a bunch of bricks, you can build a house which is so much more than its parts.
The space shuttle is more than its parts, too.
A computer is more than its parts, also.
But notice something:
All resulting material compositions do not emit immaterial entities like feelings and will, for instance. These are highly unique and of a totally different quality than just the sum of its parts.
If you think, that without God you could be a personal being, you’re reflecting a >belief<. Not a scientifically reasonable option.
You don’t have to consider the supernatural when you are doing science as a Christian, because the scientific method excludes supernatural explanations. You can consider it all you want in other domains of investigation. Obviously science is a limited explanatory framework.
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Sort of like with Pulchroboletus rubricitrinus. A type of Boletus mushroom. Like almost all in that family, when cut open it’s flesh begins to quickly turn blue.
If someone knew nothing about mushrooms, and I sliced it open in front of them they could believe it was from some supernatural magical force. If we had no way to test it, we could just come up with all kinds of reasons on why God turned it blue. Or we could study it out, and over time learn that when the cell walls are broken open, it exposes the colorless variegatic acid to oxygen which turns it into the bluish quinone methide.
I know the reasons why the scientific method has been established. Actually it was a Christian who established it. But nevertheless you cannot explain everything naturally.
For instance the fulfilling of prophecy.
Creation itself is not naturally explainable. What about the cause for the global flood?
Not everything can be found out on the basis of naturalism. And being a Christian means to be a supernaturalist by definition. That doesn’t mean that God manipulates everything we can investigate all the time, of course. Otherwise we couldn’t investigate anything. But that’s not the will of God. He wants us to be able to notice his works in the book of creation. He left his fingerprints in creation for us to be discovered. That’s exactly what Romans 1:20 says.
A little openness for the supernatural should therefore be a must for the scientist. That doesn’t mean that he should always look for supernatural explanations.
I agree with this 100%.
I also agree with this.
I kind of agree with this. Maybe an example from everyday experience will help.
When I see a newborn with her joyful (and maybe tired!) parents, I see evidence of God giving hope and life. Not only to the parents, but also to me and indeed to everyone they know. I’ll bet you’ve had those thoughts, too, @Henry_Dalcke.
Faith is what perceives this evidence. Faith does not exclude the scientific perspective; but it does not necessarily include it either.
When a doctor or a biologist sees the newborn, they see evidence that a sperm from the father fertilized an ovum from the mother, which produced a zygote that implanted in the mother’s uterus and became a fetus. And so forth.
Science is what perceives this evidence. Science does not exclude the faith perspective; but it does not necessarily include it either.
Peace,
Chris
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No one is claiming you can. We are just saying that “explaining things supernaturally” isn’t science. Why is this a problem? Science is not the only method for acquiring knowledge, or for discovering truth.
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I cannot recall having said anything to the contrary!
Empirical science is what can be observed/measured, studied, hypothetically described, used to predict natural phenomena, experimentally verified, and repeated.
Empirical science abduces from cause to effect on the basis of direct observation.
This is a perfect example for empirical science:
Forensic science - in contrast - deduces from effect to cause on the basis of assumptions about the past.
And forensic science is the branch of science that matters in questions of origins. Here’s where the worldview-dependant interpretation of the observable data comes into play.
YEC does not endorse “observational science” either.
The measured decay rates allow only one interpretation of a given sample dating. YEC does not interpret that evidence differently - YEC dismisses that evidence. A huge difference. A conjecture about speeded up decay in not an interpretation but a dismissal.
Assigning a date to an artifact from radiometric dating may be “historical” science, if you please, but it is at least based results from real, solid, repeatable, experimental, empirical, OBSERVATIONAL science in that decay rates have indeed been measured time and again. The YEC speeded up decay conjectures enjoy absolutely zero observational or historical support. It is ironic there is this YEC emphasis on observational science when to much of their literature is based on “how do you know it wasn’t different back then” brush-offs of observational science.
YEC does not know what to do with the cosmological consequences of tinkering with the nuclear forces. YEC does not know how to protect the inhabitants of Noah’s Ark from their own self-radiation. YEC does not know how to stop the Earth from melting or vaporizing from accelerated decay. There is not a shred of science, historical, forensic, or observational, even with numbers worked out on paper, in support of accelerated decay.
If you are going to put out some superficial comment there that there is actual, laboratory evidence for accelerated decay rates [under any conceivable terrestial condition], please do some very deep digging first and have your data and math in order. Be assured, there isn’t.
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