The Author – Bart Busschots
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Aug
11
There is no such thing as ‘Creation Science’!!!
Filed Under Science & Astronomy on August 11, 2005 at 10:49 pm
There is a lot of talk about ‘Creation Science’ and ‘Intelligent Design’ ATM because Kansas is yet again showing it self to be run by nutjobs. This entire debate is ridiculous because science and religion have nothing to do with each other and to try to force science teachers to teach the beliefs of one religion as science is just barmey since Intelligent design is philosophy not science!
Science is about devising a theory, devising an experiment to test that theory and then carrying out that test to see if the theory holds true. Key to this is ‘falsifiability’, if no experiment can be devised to possibly disprove your theory then it is not science!
Let me explain with an simple example first, and then a more complex one. Take Newton’s third law of motion, "for ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction", to test this is elementary, you get into a boat with a cannon, fire the cannon and if you go back with as much acceleration as the cannon ball then Newton’s theory gains support, if not Newton was definitely wrong! To further support the theory you need to carry out more tests, each test that passes adds more weight to the theory but all it takes to kill a theory is one failure. This same concept still holds true at the very cutting edge of science, take the ‘Big Bang’ as an example, if there was a big bang there mush still be residual energy left over from it and that energy should be all pervasive but have cooled as the universe stretched, or to be more scientific, if there was a Big Bang there must be Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) with given properties, if scientists find this then that supports the big bang theory, if they look and it isn’t there then the big bang theory is falsified and we need to come up with a new theory.
That is how science works, we are never 100% sure of anything but each experiment that agrees with the theory adds more weight to it and our confidence in it rises but at all times it just takes one failure to falsify it and send the scientists back to the drawing board!
So, how does ‘Creation Science’ or the entirely equivalent ‘Intelligent Design’ theory fare in the cold light of science? Well it falls at the first hurdle because both theories have at their core the assumption that there is a God. That is an un-testable assumption, hence it is not possible to falsify it and hence it is not science. Simple, creationism is not science, it is a belief, hence all this rubbish about forcing it into the science curriculum is utter rubbish. This kind of tripe has been tried before in the times of the inquisitions, the church were wrong to fight science on the shape of the earth based on a literal interpretation of the bible and the religion right in America today are exactly as wrong to fight Evolution based in a literal interpretation of the bible.
Of course to me the ultimate irony is that science and religion don’t have to clash, if you read the bible bearing in mind that it was written by men thousands of years ago and then re-translated by more men over the millennea you can get the true message it contains out of it without getting hung with excessive literalism. Reading the bible while ignoring it’s history and context is a stupid thing to do and will result in you missing the whole bloody point, it’s not about a literal interpretation of the creation myth but a book about how to live!
I remember talk of an Evolution vs. Creation debate a year or two ago where the theology representatives were making exactly the same point, that the two need not necessarily be at odds with each other…unfortunately, they hadn’t reckoned on the presence of such devout biologists on the other side of the lecture theatre and so the debate was apparently less than satisfactory as reason and blinkered fanaticism clashed in the most non-stereotypical way possible.
“Key to this is ‘falsifiability’, if no experiment can be devised to possibly disprove your theory then it is not science.”
using your definition of science, can you devise an experiment to disprove macro (not to ber confused with micro) evolution?
Bob, no, I can’t because I’m a Physicist, an Astronomer, and a Computer Scientist, but not a Biologist. That’s a question you’ll have to ask someone in that field.
However, I see no relevance to this discussion at all. Even if we assume that you can’t find support for macro evolution in observation or experiment then it still tells us nothing about ID or Creationism. Evolution and creationism are not opposites, disproving one does not prove the other. Hence the rediculusness of ID arguments, they all focus on shedding doubt on evolution and then jump head-long to the conclusion that if there is doubt about evolution then ID/Creationism must be right which is utter tripe.
Since evolution can’t be proven, yet many beilieve it to be true, what does that say about the basis of the evolution agruement? Is it science or is it something else? like faith?
Bob, this is where you’re utterly missing the point. Evolutions is not PROVEN, nothing can be! But it is very heavily supported and as more evidence comes to light the theory of evolution adapts to our increased understanding and learning. Science is a fluid and dynamic current best-guess based purely on observation and experiment. It is not faith because scientists KNOW their theories are not perfect, they understand that they are constantly learning more and refining their theories. Creationism is taking something as a given fact simply because some guys a few thousand years ago wrote it in a book which we only have via loads of translations.
Bart, please forgive my ignorance. All the textbooks from which the teachers teach, assume that evolution is fact. But you’re telling me that scientists KNOW that the thing which they teach is “not PROVEN?†How can that be? That’s not the message in the classroom. Do I detect an element of hypocrisy on the part of science teachers and professors, or are they as ignorant of the facts as you have pointed out that I am?
Science is not well thought. It is thought as a series of laws and facts when that is not accurate. I’ve touched on that problem in another one of my posts which you may be interested in reading: http://www.bartbusschots.ie/blog/?p=330
Scientists out doing the science understand how science works. They are not being hypocritical. The problem is with the way science is presented to students in schools by non-scientists.
Hi Bart,
You say that evolution is heavily supported, which either indicates that you have given the matter much thought or that you are dogmatically accepting the party line. Which fits your perspective? And if you have come to an acceptance of evolution by means of an examination of its tenets, what aspects of evolution are the most compelling and why?
(by the way, Bart, I’ve changed my email adress because I’ve discovered that the old account, which I’ve used in earlier posts, is no longer effefctive.)
Hi Bob,
I have taken the time to educate myself rather than to simply take it as fact. I have looked at it from a few angles, firstly from a computer science angle because I am very interested in genetic algorithms and other evolutionary computing ideas. I like the idea of writing a program to evolve programs. I have also taken the time to look at it from a biological point of view. I’m no expert because I simply don’t have the time, I have enough to be keeping myself abreast of in the areas I am doing research in and am employed in. You ask what aspects of it I like, I like how well it ties in with the world we observe around us. When I look at the world and look at the ideas of evolution the two mesh together. The theory is not yet complete but that’s what makes it even more interesting, we are learning more all the time, it is still a dynamic and interesting area of science. It is also the only theory in the running because there is nothing else out there that stands up to the test of reality near as well. BTW, if you want to see the vast vast vast tombs of observational and experimental support for evolution and genetics etc I suggest reading some of the peer-reviewed journals like Nature.
Bart.
Bart, I’m truly disappointed. I stopped at your blog site hoping to engage in meaty dialogue, but found applesauce. Your responses demonstrate that that you have good command of the dogma of evolution and that you have been well indoctrinated in the creeds of the religion of evolution. But there is no evidence of having considered the logic of your position.
Evolution is, in essence, a theory of disorder. Accoring to this theory, all things happen by random combinations of fortuitous events. How is it then, that scientific method is built on the ability to replicate results? It is because the universe is built on ordered sequences. How do you get order from disorder? We expect order: we expect the sun to rise in the east each and every morning, we expect a baby to born when our wives are pregnant (we don’t expect a crap shoot in which every pregnancy could result in something other than human), we expect that every carbon atom will behave as every other carbon atom. The whole universe testifies to order. Again, how do you get order from disorder?
Bart, you would do well to examine the tenants of your religion of evolution. Start by recognizing that it is a religion. The definition of religion as found on dictionalry.com is:
1. A specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects and
2. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Bart, thanks for the dialogue, and may your search for truth go well.
Bob, you are wrong and you don’t understand evolution. Evolution is a massively parallel search through an effectively infinite and ever-changing search-space that heads towards local minima. There are more geneitic operators than just mutation you know! Cross-over is a very organised methodical plod up hill in the search-space. The problem with corssover on its own is that it gets trapped in local maxima so what mutation does is give a random push every now and then to open up more possible directions.
As for how you get order from diss-order. Simple, you give it energy. I’d strongly suggest you have a read of “Complexity: the Emerging Science at the Edge of Order & Chaos” by M. Mitchell Waldrop. It’s not a book about evolution really but it gives an excellent insight into how you can get order from chaos and also details some nice experimental work that shows the ideas in action. Also, the whole universe does not testify to order. The whole universe testifies to order out of chaos.
My belief in evolution is based 100% in observation and experimentation. You may not see the evidence but I see it all around me. You may believe in little cliches like “the universe testifies to order” but that doesn’t stack up with observation at all.
Seriously, give the Waldrop book a read, it’s a very well written book. It builds on the events and theories in another great book called simply “Chaos” by James Gleik that I think everyone should read. It rather shatters the idea that order is the norm and shows you the chaos everywhere you look in the world.
Hi Bart, Next time I’m in the library, I plan to check out the book.
In the meantime, let me ask you a question.
You say: “Simple, you just give it energy”
Where do you get the energy?
Hi Bob,
There are really only two sources of energy on Earth. The most predominant is the Sun which fuels our chaotic yet orderly weather system and our chaotic yet orderly ocean currents. The sun further fuels the biosphere through photosynthesis. The second is the Earth’s internal heat which we fell at the surface in the form of vulcanism in all it’s forms and tectonic events.
Basically, there is a constant stream of energy hitting the Earth all the time from the Sun and that powers the biosphere and all it’s beautifully complex systems.
Bart.
Bart,
It’s all well and good to postulate that the Sun and Earth’s interior provided the energy to drive evolutionalry processes, But, where did the sun come from? and how did the planet come to have internal heat in the first place?
Hi Bob,
Now you’re wandering away from evolution into Cosmology. We could play the game of pushing back the boundaries further and further. We could go into the formation of the solar system, how the planets were formed (which is where the heat comes from), we could go in to the Big Bang and talk about galactic and stellar evolution, how the Sun formed from a cloud of gas and dust etc but I get the idea that’s not what you’re driving at. If you’re asking if science has the ultimate answer as to where the Universe came from then I save us all a lot of time and say no. It doesn’t, and what’s more in my opinion it can’t. The Universe is by definition a closed system (it is everything) so according to Godel’s Incompleteness theorem our understanding must be either incomplete or inconsistent.
I have always said that there is a need for both science and religion and that there is no need for a conflict between them because they are seeking different answers to different questions. Ultimately science tells us how the universe works but not why it works. It gives us the mechanics for existence but not the reasons for existence. That’s where religion comes in. I have always held that it is foolish to look for scientific truths in religion or religious truths in science.
So in short, I don’t know where the universe comes from and neither does anyone else. Sure, people have beliefs but they are purely religious and not scientific.
Bart,
Thank you for your well stated remarks. I wholeheartedly agree that science gives the mechanics but not the reasons. As a young man, my friends were content to disassemble the parts on their jalopies and then reassemble the parts with modifications, but that was quickly boring. I didn’t want to know how the pieces fit together; I wanted to know why they worked. And I sense in your remarks a kindred spirit. It strikes me, that you too are not satisfied with being a mechanic, you want to be an engineer. But you can’t know why the universe works by examining the parts. Despite the current beliefs to the contrary, there is truth in the universe. There are laws that govern its mechanics. But the salient question is: why.