One of the particular things about Natural Science is its effort to look for natural explanations for everything, and not supernatural ones. Supernatural explanations are themselves unscientific, they do not provide knowledge about the world at all. Regardless of anyone's beliefs, you can be an atheist, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on, this is still true.
Creationism, the Beginning of all Scientific Ills
Creationism, as one of the earliest forms of Intelligent Design theories, have been completely unscientific and anti-scientific. First, science is founded on theories that are considered solid but provisional in case a better and simpler theory comes around that explain far more than before. This happened when Newton formulated his theories, that clearly refuted Galileo's and Kepler's, but at the same time explained not only what both of them explained, but also phenomena here on Earth. Then came Einstein, his Special and General Theories of Relativity and refuted the Newtonian theory in essence, and yet could explain everything that Newton could explain, while could explain much more: the way Mercury's orbit revolves around the Sun, how light bends around massive objects, the first twin paradox, the second twin paradox, among others.
With Creationism, Intelligent Design vices came to be. Contrary to scientific practice, they propose as an absolute theory that the world was created in six days as it is suggested in the Bible, just a few thousand years ago. Now, people often forget that there are two dimensions of a scientific theory: 1. A scientific theory must be internally consistent, i.e. logically consistent; 2. A scientific theory must be also consistent with the phenomena they try to explain. Of course, science has not reached yet the full level of internal consistent theories, there are several levels of contradictions and gaps (the biggest one being between the realm of the laws of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics). However, scientists are fully aware that these theories are just provisional and that other ones might come along. Perhaps it will be through String Theory, or other theories being proposed.
Creationism, on the other hand, only accepts one sole theory, the one found in Genesis chapter 1. Well, as it turns out, there are two versions of creation as many Bible scholars have pointed out. The first coming from the Priestly Tradition (P) written at the time of Hezekiah's reforms 714 to 687 BCE (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and then Yahwist Tradition (J) written during the period of 848 to 722 BCE (Gen 2:4b ff.). Both versions of creation are incompatible with each other. For instance, the order of creation in the second story is very different from the first. In the first, the creation sequence is: There are waters and the earth came to be (Gen. 1:1-10), plants (Gen. 1:11-13), animals (Gen. 1:20-25), and man and woman at the same time (Gen. 1:26-31). In the second sequence of events, there was absolutely nothing but earth (not even water) (Gen. 2:4b-5), then water came to be and from the clay God created man (Gen. 2:6-7), then God created the plants (Gen. 2:8-9), animals (Gen. 2:18-20), and then woman (Gen. 2:21-25). These are two stories whose sequences and beginnings are completely incompatible. In fact, not even the number of days coincide. According to the first story it took six days to create everything and then in the seventh day Yahweh rested, but according to the second story, it talks about "the day" God created the earth and the heavens (Gen: 2:4b).
Creationists have adopted the position that such a contradictory theory must be true regardless of the evident contradiction, and try to make intellectual juggling to explain the contradiction away. In the end, the literalist and Creationist conception of creation is not logically consistent. Besides, it is also not consistent with given phenomena. Even if we accept as true the theory that the Grand Canyon and other phenomena can be explained through the universal flood (also another story that is itself a logically inconsistent theory), they would have a very hard time trying to explain how the universe is only thousands of years old, but there are structures and phenomena in space that necessarily took about millions of years to form and keep forming, and even the fact that its light reaches us (which delays millions of years to reach Earth) would have to be explained. Remember, each time we look at the sky, we are watching millions or billions of years in the cosmic past.
The first and second stories of creation were good in ancient Jewish times, but we can safely discard Creationism as obsolete and has been thoroughly debunked. Even Pope John Paul II considered both stories as being mythic in character.
The problem is that creationists will always cling to this theory, it doesn't matter what: Genesis is true by default. Their way of supporting it is through a negative approach: since X theory failed in such and such hypothesis, then Genesis is true by default. And it does not matter if there is a continuous progress of scientific theories that are able to explain phenomena better through natural means, if it fails in some way, then by default the creation account of Genesis is true. One deep problem they have is that they don't have a positive evidence of Genesis, it is just a negative response by default.
This is one of the vices that still persist in Intelligent Design. There are more sophisticated theories of Intelligent Design that do not require a literalist interpretation of Genesis. If a theory cannot explain 100% and completely everything from a natural standpoint, then the response that you have from Intelligent Design people is the exact opposite of scientific practice, instead of doing HARD SCIENCE and provide better theories that are natural explanations, they incur into what I call "intellectual laziness", they just say that God is the "only" explanation possible. Just like creationists, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then Genesis is true; in these more sophisticated forms of Intelligent Design, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then the God hypothesis is true, or the "design by an intelligence" is true.
Of course, once they have adopted this lazy point of view, then they have to think "hard" and "deep" about how to support their intelligent design theory, giving an appearance of doing science, when in reality they are not doing science, but actually acting contrary to it.
I'll talk more about this in my next post.
Creationism, the Beginning of all Scientific Ills
Creationism, as one of the earliest forms of Intelligent Design theories, have been completely unscientific and anti-scientific. First, science is founded on theories that are considered solid but provisional in case a better and simpler theory comes around that explain far more than before. This happened when Newton formulated his theories, that clearly refuted Galileo's and Kepler's, but at the same time explained not only what both of them explained, but also phenomena here on Earth. Then came Einstein, his Special and General Theories of Relativity and refuted the Newtonian theory in essence, and yet could explain everything that Newton could explain, while could explain much more: the way Mercury's orbit revolves around the Sun, how light bends around massive objects, the first twin paradox, the second twin paradox, among others.
With Creationism, Intelligent Design vices came to be. Contrary to scientific practice, they propose as an absolute theory that the world was created in six days as it is suggested in the Bible, just a few thousand years ago. Now, people often forget that there are two dimensions of a scientific theory: 1. A scientific theory must be internally consistent, i.e. logically consistent; 2. A scientific theory must be also consistent with the phenomena they try to explain. Of course, science has not reached yet the full level of internal consistent theories, there are several levels of contradictions and gaps (the biggest one being between the realm of the laws of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics). However, scientists are fully aware that these theories are just provisional and that other ones might come along. Perhaps it will be through String Theory, or other theories being proposed.
Creationism, on the other hand, only accepts one sole theory, the one found in Genesis chapter 1. Well, as it turns out, there are two versions of creation as many Bible scholars have pointed out. The first coming from the Priestly Tradition (P) written at the time of Hezekiah's reforms 714 to 687 BCE (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and then Yahwist Tradition (J) written during the period of 848 to 722 BCE (Gen 2:4b ff.). Both versions of creation are incompatible with each other. For instance, the order of creation in the second story is very different from the first. In the first, the creation sequence is: There are waters and the earth came to be (Gen. 1:1-10), plants (Gen. 1:11-13), animals (Gen. 1:20-25), and man and woman at the same time (Gen. 1:26-31). In the second sequence of events, there was absolutely nothing but earth (not even water) (Gen. 2:4b-5), then water came to be and from the clay God created man (Gen. 2:6-7), then God created the plants (Gen. 2:8-9), animals (Gen. 2:18-20), and then woman (Gen. 2:21-25). These are two stories whose sequences and beginnings are completely incompatible. In fact, not even the number of days coincide. According to the first story it took six days to create everything and then in the seventh day Yahweh rested, but according to the second story, it talks about "the day" God created the earth and the heavens (Gen: 2:4b).
Creationists have adopted the position that such a contradictory theory must be true regardless of the evident contradiction, and try to make intellectual juggling to explain the contradiction away. In the end, the literalist and Creationist conception of creation is not logically consistent. Besides, it is also not consistent with given phenomena. Even if we accept as true the theory that the Grand Canyon and other phenomena can be explained through the universal flood (also another story that is itself a logically inconsistent theory), they would have a very hard time trying to explain how the universe is only thousands of years old, but there are structures and phenomena in space that necessarily took about millions of years to form and keep forming, and even the fact that its light reaches us (which delays millions of years to reach Earth) would have to be explained. Remember, each time we look at the sky, we are watching millions or billions of years in the cosmic past.
The first and second stories of creation were good in ancient Jewish times, but we can safely discard Creationism as obsolete and has been thoroughly debunked. Even Pope John Paul II considered both stories as being mythic in character.
The problem is that creationists will always cling to this theory, it doesn't matter what: Genesis is true by default. Their way of supporting it is through a negative approach: since X theory failed in such and such hypothesis, then Genesis is true by default. And it does not matter if there is a continuous progress of scientific theories that are able to explain phenomena better through natural means, if it fails in some way, then by default the creation account of Genesis is true. One deep problem they have is that they don't have a positive evidence of Genesis, it is just a negative response by default.
This is one of the vices that still persist in Intelligent Design. There are more sophisticated theories of Intelligent Design that do not require a literalist interpretation of Genesis. If a theory cannot explain 100% and completely everything from a natural standpoint, then the response that you have from Intelligent Design people is the exact opposite of scientific practice, instead of doing HARD SCIENCE and provide better theories that are natural explanations, they incur into what I call "intellectual laziness", they just say that God is the "only" explanation possible. Just like creationists, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then Genesis is true; in these more sophisticated forms of Intelligent Design, if a scientific theory fails in some way, then the God hypothesis is true, or the "design by an intelligence" is true.
Of course, once they have adopted this lazy point of view, then they have to think "hard" and "deep" about how to support their intelligent design theory, giving an appearance of doing science, when in reality they are not doing science, but actually acting contrary to it.
I'll talk more about this in my next post.
2 comments:
I am not going to defend "Creationism" at all, understood in the sense that Protestant Fundamentalists and a small coterie of Catholics and Orthodox understand it: Six day creation 6,000 years ago, etc.
But I do take issue with this statement:
One of the particular things about Natural Science is its effort to look for natural explanations for everything, and not supernatural ones. Supernatural explanations are themselves unscientific, they do not provide knowledge about the world at all. Regardless of anyone's beliefs, you can be an atheist, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on, this is still true.
I think that philosophically - logically, rationally - this is statement deserves some refinement. You state, categorically "Supernatural explanations are themselves unscientific, they do not provide knowledge about the world at all."
I accept science's "procedural atheism" as a matter of course. Otherwise, empirical science wouldn't exist. We would all still be mired in animism.
However, there are problems whose solutions transcend natural explanations, hence they are called "supernatural" or "beyond nature" in the strict sense. Just because these transcend empirical science doesn't necessarily mean these solutions are irrational or incapable of communicating truth about the world.
Let me give you an example: evil. Evil is a natural "thing," happens among people and happens in nature, or better, people interpret such-and-such natural events as evil due to their impact on people. Evil is grounded on our natural, material experience.
But there's also "good." Some "good" is, of course, naturally experienced: good health, a good night sleep, satisfaction after a good meal; but other "good" serves no selfish purpose: altruism, humanitarianism, philantropism, these clearly serve no "selfish gene." Which is to say that, though evil is clearly established in nature, some "good", perhaps the "best" good, stands "above" nature, super natura.
One more argument which, as a "practicing, devout Catholic" you will probably relate to: how do you explain the Cross? How do you explain that all-encompassing Love if it isn't, of itself, super natura? Are you saying that the Cross is senseless and that His suffering bore no "real knowledge" to us about the nature of the world, and of good, and of evil?
I believe your reasoning suffers from significant gaps that you must bridge if you want to develop your own synthetic, coherent view of the world.
I mean no condescension. Developing such a view takes time, but it is possible.
-Theo
Nice post.
Gwen
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