The belief that scientific evidence of the physical development and evolution of the universe can be reconciled with the account of the Creation as given in The Holy Bible and other religious texts.
"If the universe has a finite stock of order, and is changing irreversibly towards disorder -- ultimately to thermodynamic equilibrium -- two very deep inferences follow immediately. The first is that the universe will die, wallowing, as it were, in its own entropy.... The second is that the universe cannot have existed for ever, otherwise it would have reached its equilibrium end state and infinite time ago. Conclusion: the universe did not always exist." -- Paul Davies, God and the New Physics
What really drives me mad about Creation scientists is that they perpetuate the belief that evolution is irreconcilable with belief in a Creator God. This just gives Christians and Christianity a bad name among scientists and labels us all as irrational.
To me, the development of Creation Science speaks of a desperate desire to make Christianity more scientifically acceptable when there really is no need. In fact, it has the opposite effect.
To Tosta Dojen: In your writeup, you take issue with "the knee-jerk reaction to creationism as something that cannot possibly be scientific". You then go on to state that "creationism can be held as a worldview with no supporting evidence".
Many philosophers of science would say (following Hempel; Popper goes even further, and as JerboaKolinowski rightly insists requires falsifiability by the possibility of contradictory evidence) that a worldview with no supporting evidence is ipso facto not scientific. It would help your position if you could explain in what sense you claim something is "scientific" which has no supporting evidence. Also, please note that the converse assertion is not true: something with supporting evidence might still not be scientific (e.g. the folkloric correlation between Yom Kippur in Jerusalem and hotter weather).
In actual point of fact, you can generate reams of supporting evidence for creationism. Say I assert that the world was created (say) 5761 years ago (at the time of writing of the original writeup), but with the appearance of much greater age (complete with oil, coal, fossil record, consistent astrophysics, and other facts indicating a much greater age). Clearly, there is much supporting evidence: all the appearances match a much greater age, which fits my assertion. But it's still not scientific: there is no evidence for the veracity of the most important part of my assertion (which too matches my assertion -- I specifically state that all facts point to a much greater age!). Popper and Popperians could rest at this early stage: such a theory would not be falsifiable. If, for example, my wife pointed out I'd been keeping 5763 year old cottage cheese at the bottom of our fridge, I could still claim that the world had also been created with what appeared to be 2 year old cottage, which had deteriorated slightly in the meantime...
But followers of Hempel are willing to accept more things as scientific than Popper, or at least they have a less stringent set of requirements. Accordingly, we have to go on a bit further to show the oxymoronicity of "Creation science".
In the case of "the world was created 5761 years ago with evidence consistent with earlier creation", it is by no means the simplest thesis consistent with these facts. It requires me to believe in all of modern science (so as to be able to interpret all signs as pointing to a much older world) AND in the specific claim of misleading evidence. This is ad hoccery of the worst kind, and flunks Occam's razor. Hempelians require explanation of all relevant data, but also the simplest explanation of all relevant data.
Finally, please note that many things are not scientific that could be claimed true. Popperians might say this of mathematical truth: despite claims on the lines of 1 cloud + 1 cloud = 1 cloud, which do nothing to contradict mathematics in general and 1+1=2 in particular, 1+1=2 has no possibility for falsifying evidence. Neither does modus ponens. Hegelians might talk of mathematics as being scientific (though I don't). But statements such as "If 1+1=3, then I'm green" are true, though unscientific due to lacking supporting evidence.
"Creation Science" specifically tries to claim scientific status, which implies having to produce supporting evidence, a coherent explanation for observations, and simplicity of the type required by Occam's razor. And without supporting evidence there is no science.
So one might hold Creationism as a worldview. I believe that to do so is a grave mistake, that on the one hand prevents us from properly investigating the world we find around us, and on the other hand forces us to accept many very complex constructs. But it is never a scientific belief.
If one believes in an omnipotent deity, and if in addition one goes by one of several religious beliefs which require it, then one may be forced to accept Creationism into one's worldview. Note that, by accepting Creationism as part of a larger system, the cost of accepting such very complex constructs may be lessened. In effect, one is "amortizing" the costs of belief in Creationism over other ("less expensive") beliefs, maybe a particular moral code, some aspect of the value of human life, or perhaps better chances of avoiding some vengeful God. But it always goes in this direction: because X believes in God and some sect's theology, X accepts their cosmology which includes Creationism. Just don't try to push the theology from the cosmology on scientific grounds: it doesn't work that way.
The essence of creation science, as Isaac Asimov explains in his article "The Threat of Creationism" (New York Times, June 14, 1981, Sunday, Late City Final Edition, Section 6; Page 90, Column 3) is that it is an attempt to gain political power for the religious right. This power centers on advancing conservative religious values through the manipulation of the school curriculum. Asimov gives seven different creationist arguments (parenthetical summaries are mine) along with reasons why the arguments don't hold water:
For the purposes of this node, the most salient argument is "The argument from irrelevance," which essentially states that scientific data are not relevant since all reality is created by God and thus all of our alleged scientific evidence is really arranged in such a way as to make us think that the world is billions of years old. As Asimov persuasively argues, that argument "is itself irrelevant, for it can neither be proved nor disproved." He also adds that such an argument presupposes a creator that is a "cruel and malicious prankster," which no creation scientist wants to assert.
Taken as a whole, however, Asimov is saying that creation science is an unfair attempt to smuggle religion into the classroom as the dominant idea. He asks rhetorically, "Do you suppose their devotion to 'fairness' is such that they will give equal time to evolution in their churches?"
The idea that creation science is not science does not discredit religion or science. It merely states that the two endeavors are separate, and that in order to do science one must agree to base one's arguments on verifiable evidence and falsifiable theories.
I've got two points to make about Creation Science, coming from my little corner of things.
I hear these arguments that go something like this.
Well, there are all of these gaps in the fossil record and attendant evidence that evolution hasn't explained yet, so clearly evolution is basically a load of hooey.
To which I, as an evolutionist, reply: bingo.
This is a problem with the teaching of science in general that I see. Science is not, as I experienced ever so delightfully, having an extremely large book thrown at you and being told to more or less memorize it. Science is not about books.
Science is about discovery and experimentation. Of course it hasn't explained all the evidence. If it had, Steve Gould would be out of a job, among other nasty consequences.
The thing you do with a imperfect theory is improve it, not roundfile it. This makes me belive Asimov's idea that Creation Science isn't about science, but something else, whether it be politics or something else more or less nefarious. Either way, it doesn't merit being called science.
So a lot of the creation scientists now can just call what they're doing "improving" evolution and it'll all be good, right? Thus, my second point.
I'm no biologist, but I've spent more time than I care to admit among them and in biology classes. And one of the things I noticed is that evolution isn't just a branch of the tree, it's the trunk. I'm not sure you can say that you think that the rest of biology is all cool, and you'd like to keep all the nifty genetics and taxonomy and other neat stuff, but not evolution. The logic and structure just wouldn't make sense; the scientific equivalent of a pink elephant in the room.
I've got nothing against creation science as a theory. It's a perfectly good theory. It is, however, a poor science. I find it no small oxymoron to teach the scientific method in one month of a class and creationism in the other.
Well, the writeup that prompted me to make this roundup of ideas regarding creation science has since, justifiably, been nuked. Still, let's sum up the argument:
The basic hypothesis of creationism goes along the lines of:
We know from biblical evidence that the Universe is about 6000 years old. Therefore God created it 6000 years ago with fossils in the ground and light on its way from distant stars, so that there is no way of telling the real age of the Universe simply by looking at it.
To find out how to put out a scientific hypothesis you can start by reading the node on the scientific method.
But what about the missing links and simmilar holes in the evolutionary tree?
Yeah, what about them? In any scientific theory there are unexplained parts. For example, science has absolutely no idea how such a basic thing as gravity works. We do have a model theory that predicts its behaviour in detail though. It's called The Theory of General Relativity. But filling out such holes in our knowledge is what science is all about. This is where creation science is actually counter productive in that it points out that there are things we don't know, but does nothing to illuminate our knowledge of those things. Instead it offers some ad hoc explanation without a thread of evidence to back it up.
You can test for yourself whether it is possible to find such a person. Try looking up "creation" or "bible" in journals on biology and paleontology.
No, there are absolutely no biologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists or chemists that support any such claim. Anyone stating otherwise is quite simply either an ignorant or lying through his teeth.
Editor note - That's nice, but andersa why don't you just come clean and say what you really think about creation science?
Well ok, since you put it that way, let me give you a clue. Even though I feel strongly about this, I hope you notice the wink in my eye.
RANT ON
Creation science is a real and present danger to modern society!
Through hard work and rational thinking, the scientific community has singlehandedly build our civilization from scratch. Now these damn small minded individuals are on a fucking crusade that eventually will bring the whole world into complete and utter chaos.
Those idiots are a much greater danger to society, than those poor souls that are locked up on an american military base in the caribbean. They are aiming to seed our world with the idea that you are not supposed to think for yourself. Apparently we are all better off as mindless drones, destined to wander through a wasteland of mud huts, because once we stopped thinking a single rational thought, we have all forgotten how to build a proper housing for ourselves.
Don't for one moment think that this will stop with biology and evolution. No no. Once they have that screwed up, the heathen physicists, with their particle accelerators, trying to unravel the secrets of creation itself, will be the next to have to face this modern day inquisition, or maybe the doctors with their abominable medicines, stem cell research and their disregard for the benefits of prayer? And before you know it, it will even be a crime to simply teach science in schools!
If we were real smart, these kind of people would be registered in a central database and kept under close scrutiny by the relevant authorities, and not be allowed to spread their dangerous ideas to normal people.
RANT OFF
Not all creationists are creation scientists. A creationist is, at his or her core, someone who believes that a Deity individually created the animal and plant species we see on the world today. There are Apache creationists, African tribal creationists, Christian creationists, Muslim creationists, etc. and these groups have wildly incompatible beliefs.
Likewise, not all scientists are atheists. I knew many churchgoing biology professors at my college who had no trouble reconciling their religious beliefs with the fact of evolution; one scientist told me, "Science explains the how, religion explains the why." These men and women understand the power of a metaphor. Evolution contradicts nothing in the Bible on a metaphorical level (of course fundamentalist Christians insist on reading the text literally, which creates all manner of sticky continuity issues).
Creation science is a pseudoscience aimed at "proving" the religious belief that their God literally created all life on the planet in a more or less immutable form. For the purposes of this writeup, the creation science I'm referring to is the variety propagated by American Christian
