Origins science - Darwinism, Intelligent Design and Creation Science - To the blackboard!

In the world of operational science, origins usually really is meaningless.   So not every scientist is terribly concerned about origins science.  Medical doctors do not use origins science to treat patients nor do surgeons consider it while planning an operation.   

Origins science is difficult because one cannot hop into a time machine and set it to "The Beginning" and observe what happened.   We cannot go back in time and the historical records of mankind don't go back very far.  So while logic and inductive and deductive reasoning come into play in modern science, in the world of origins science testing is limited.   We can see what is happening now.   We can test and observe the modern world.  But we are forced to make assumptions in order to do origins science and we must make hypotheses and test them against what can be observed and also run them through the scrutiny of logic and common sense and, even then, what comes out of the other end is not likely going to be provable.   

If someone tells you Darwinist evolution is proven fact they are wrong.  They may not be lying because they might believe it, but that statement is a lie and whoever has convinced them of it was lying for sure.  If someone tells you that the concept that God created is proven fact, that is also false.  You cannot actually test that statement so you cannot prove it either true or false.   

Don't believe me?  Let's go to the blackboard:

 
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Science as we know it now was simply one component of philosophy in the BC days.   Men would simply state a philosophy they considered workable to explain life or existence or whatever subject being discussed and if people generally agreed that it sounded workable, good enough.  This is what we call axiomatic science.  Axiomatic thinking dominated the world until we had passed 1000 AD.  The definition of axiomatic:


axiomatic [ˌæksɪəˈmætɪk], axiomatical

adj

1. relating to or resembling an axiom; self-evident

2. containing maxims; aphoristic

3. (Philosophy / Logic) (of a logical system) consisting of a set of axioms from which theorems are derived by transformation rules Compare natural deduction

axiomatically  adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Thesaurus 

Legend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Adj.	1.	axiomatic - evident without proof or argument; "an axiomatic truth"; "we hold these truths to be self-evident" self-evident, taken for granted obvious - easily perceived by the senses or grasped by the mind; "obvious errors"
	2.	axiomatic - containing aphorisms or maxims; "axiomatic wisdom" aphoristic
	3.	axiomatic - of or relating to or derived from axioms; "axiomatic physics"; "the postulational method was applied to geometry"- S.S.Stevens axiomatical, postulational

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

So if it was "self evident" to many of the Greek philosophers that all things were made of four different ingredients, so be it!  Little by little people like Archimedes found that observations and tests were useful in seeking to learn things about the world around us.   Aristotlean axiomatic science would eventually be pushed aside to the curb as methodological investigation became a scientific norm.   It was not a quick or an easy process.   As David Coppedge chronicles in THE WORLD’S GREATEST CREATION SCIENTISTS From Y1K to Y2K,  the process was painstaking.   For many centuries, scientists were largely either in the axiomatic or the investigative camp but, eventually, investigative science won out.   Investigative science was spelled out by Roger Bacon and the "Scientific Method" was popularized by Sir Francis Bacon.   Both of these men were Creationists.   But they were not called Creation Scientists because most folks took the concept of a created world made by God for granted.   Scientists who believed in creation were the movers and shakers of science, giants of discovery, the men who advanced the cause of learning for many centuries from the superstitious world of 1000 AD to a world which, in the 1600's and thereafter, methodological investigation had become standard scientific procedure.

Most people who we call scientists of days past by were men who had been trained to be ministers or perhaps philosophers.   Men of letters might be lawyers but there were not entire schools devoted to the study of science.  As Coppedge notes at the beginning of his online version of the aforementioned book:

"THE NEW MILLENNIUM is a unique time to look back over a thousand years and ponder how far civilization has come. The comforts, conveniences, health and prosperity available to most of us is due in large measure to the rise of modern science. Today, science is an almost exclusively secular enterprise, presented by the media and universities as the opposite of faith, and therefore intrinsically hostile to religion. But, historically speaking, this is a gross distortion! Did you know that most of the greatest scientists of history were Bible-believing Christians? This pictorial research presentation will demonstrate three surprising facts about the history of modern science (see the Introduction for explanation and definitions of terms): 

Most of the greatest scientists of the past 1000 years were Christians and creationists. To these scientists, Christianity was the driving force behind their discoveries. The Christian world view gave birth and impetus to modern science."

These are facts.   We know from reading the works of men like Newton and Bacon and Maxwell that faith in a Logical Creator gave them the faith to devote their lives to studying creation, in the expectation that logical processes could be identified and understood.  Methodological investigation was based upon the concept that the world was not randomly generated and therefore processes would not be random, either.  That was then and this is now.  We now have seen science go from a world in which everyone was seeking to understand the world and the Universe and comparing ideas and concepts to one in which there are giant walls set up based on metaphysical concepts that separate people and concepts and often censor and punish those who do not line up metaphysically with the secular majority.   Freedom of investigation has not been destroyed, but it has been badly hampered.   Here is the scorecard of the battle of ideas that separates scientists and academics from each other and often from truth:

1. Naturalistic Materialists aka Darwinists
2. Creation Scientists aka Creationists
3. Intelligent Design proponents aka ID

There are subgroups within the three major schools of thought, but I can assert confidently that the reason that these groups exist is primarily metaphysical in nature and not from the preponderance of evidence.  Let's see what happened and then take them in reverse order:

There have been believers in the Creator God as long as human history has been kept.  Most scientists were believers in God before the 19th Century, when men like Marx and Malthus and Darwin and Lyell and Hutton and various Huxleys, etc. caused a "disturbance in the force" so to speak.   We tend to think that Darwinism swept through the world of science during his lifetime but in fact it was not until early in the 20th Century that Darwinism became popularized along with various philosophical movements like communism/socialism/fascism and eugenics.   Both Social and physical Darwinism found dominance in the 20th Century and contributed greatly to the outbreak of two world wars, Jim Crow laws, various atrocities and genocides accomplished in the name of science or progress.   By the 1950's many of the excesses of social Darwinism were noted and rejected by society (but continued to sneak in the back door of ideas) while Naturalistic Materialistic Darwinism took over science.   It was at this point where science reached a crisis stage.  Believers in God found themselves being first shunned, then actually cast out of peer reviews and conventions and schools and technical positions.   From this dynamic situation came three easily identified schools of thought, two of them based on metaphysics before evidence.

Creationists.  

Dr. Henry Morris, the founder of the Institute for Creation Research, was a hydrologist who found that the rock layers appeared to be the result of a massive flood and soon came to be a spokesman for both Christ and Creation.   The Genesis Flood (written by Morris and John Whitcomb) was a landmark book that announced to the world that there were scientists who did not buy into Darwinism and had evidence to bring to the discussion.  Because science had been co-opted and dominated by Darwinists, Creationists were to face an uphill battle to be heard and published.   Creationists had trouble having their papers peer-reviewed for philosophical rather than scientific reasons.   Thus, Creation Science was born.  There had always been scientists who believed in God and some of them were so respected (like Werner Von Braun) that they were bulletproof and moved easily in the world of science and academics because of their well-deserved reputations.   But by 1960 a young scientist who identified himself with God would find it hard to succeed in either academia or the scientific establishment in general.  

Creation Scientists use the classic Scientific Method of Investigation to study the Universe.  They consider the Bible as part of the evidence available.   They continue to expect to find natural causes for natural processes and do not believe that God makes everything happen.  On the contrary, they look first to natural causes for every process and only resort to the supernatural where it is logical or Biblical.  Their assumption is that God created the Universe and all within it, but that the systems and processes operating in the world will almost always have natural causes and will be testable and often can be used or copied for human applications.  It used to be that most scientists were Creation Scientists but people didn't have to label themselves as such because the world of science was a level playing field.   Now Creation Scientists who believe they can afford to reveal their beliefs are joining together in organizations to provide peer review and discussion and interaction as they explore the world as scientists should.

Intelligent Designers.

In contrast to the bad press many ID scientists receive, those who are working from the basic concept of design are not necessarily Creationists or even believers in God.   There are Christians and Jews and Muslims and Agnostics and, well, frankly the idea is to check your metaphysical point of view at the door and look only at the evidence with no regard for the metaphysical consequences.  Darwin is ignored, the Bible is not considered, it is all about what can be observed in the world around us now.   Naturally, to me, if you study organisms and come to the conclusion that they are designed and if you see the same thing in the Solar System and even the Universe, you must then consider the identity of the Designer.   ID doesn't speak to this.   ID simply studies the Universe and those who agree will argue that the Universe and particularly the world of organisms display design features that cannot be explained as the result of random and undirected processes.

 Cartoon by Sidney Harris

Naturalistic Materialists

If you look at this belief system logically, you see that it is extremist.   Creationists do not say that all processes are supernatural nor do they assert that all events have supernatural causes.   They in fact say that most processes and events are the result of natural processes.  But they allow for the concept of the supernatural and when discussing origins, assert that the Supernatural God is the only logical source of life, existence, time, information and existence itself.   But Darwinists are extreme because they claim that ONLY naturalistic materialistic causes are allowed.   They have revised the scientific method and renamed it "Methodological Naturalism" which is certainly NOT what classic science used before the times of Darwinism.  Because Darwinists will not consider any supernatural forces or causes at all, they must credit random and completely undirected processes for causing the Universe and all that is in it, no matter what.   In doing so they have denied laws established by science years before like the Laws of Thermodynamics or Biogenesis for purely metaphysical reasons and not because of observed processes at all.   Some of these Darwinists are so pretentious that they label their sub-group of scientists as "Science" as if they owned the concept!  

Modern culture is completely soaked in Darwinism.  Evolution and "millions of years" are a continual boilerplate repeated ad nauseum by various scientific and pseudo-scientific organizations and cable channels.  In fact, evolution is tagged on practically every discovery made these days, no matter what the discovery actually is.   Article after article declares the wonders of evolution while not actually giving any explanation as to how evolution has anything at all to do with, for instance, the algorithms built into bees that help them navigate to flowers or the remarkable echolocation methods used by bats or even the amazing ATP engine that powers the cell.  

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I can see no reason for anyone with any common sense at all to adhere to Darwinism after the amazing discovery of DNA and the revelations of both the wonders of the cell and reproduction and the nuts and bolts of photosynthesis, for instance.   As we have observed organisms for many centuries now and very carefully studied thousands of generations of bacteria and hundreds of generations of fruit flies we find that they remain what they are.  No one has ever observed classic Darwinist evolution happening.   We simply see variation within kind.  I have presented hundreds of articles and links with observable evidence for a created world based on what we can see now and the logical conclusions a normal person would reach based on those observations. 

Now that we have had several satellites visit or fly by the planets of our Solar System it is obvious that the planets are not very old.   The gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter put out more energy than they absorb from the Sun.  There are moons that are gushing volcanoes on a regular basis!  There are planets with magnetic fields that should not have them and planets with spins that cannot have happened by natural means.  Some moons have craters everywhere and some have almost no craters at all.   Every single planet in the Solar System is inexplicable by Darwinists for usually several reasons. 

Darwinists cannot explain where the Universe came from, where life or information came from, how and why mankind can think abstractly while the rest of living beings do not and innumerable other problems.   ID explains that organisms and in fact the Universe must be designed.   But only Creationists can explain Who designed everything and why God did it.   Creationists have the answers for not only what but also why.  We cannot necessarily always know how and pinpointing when is difficult, but Who is where we find many of the answers.   The only real problem Creationists have to deal with besides the matter of age questions is the dogmatism, the censorship, the blatant tyranny of thought that comes with the power that Darwinists yield by dominating the world of academia and the world of scientific grants.  This is simply wrong, obviously wrong, and frankly the reason for it must be fear.   Darwinists fear the discussion of evidence for evidence doesn't support their position.   This is what I have concluded.  So normally evidence is what I provide to the readers.

So I would love to see Darwinists drop the pretension and the air of superiority and the continual derision and just talk about the evidence.   We certainly could put down our swords and exchange ideas instead.   I for one would be delighted to do so.   For all the years I have been writing this blog I have been working like the Children of Israel had to work when rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah.   I have had a trowel in my hand but a sword by my side and a trumpet ready to sound when attacks come.   It is not my desire to protect myself because if it was, the blog would have moderated comments and I would weed out those I didn't like.  I am seeking to promote what I believe to be the Truth, that God created the Universe, that we can see the evidence that He did this clearly and that God desires to have a genuine relationship with His creatures, the crown of creation, mankind.   In order to do this I would like to keep the comments thread free from censorship.   Bad language will get comments deleted and, if commenters began to do it on a regular basis then I would have to moderate the blog comments.   Since I have so many responsibilities, even if 99% of posts would eventually be published, the discussion would come in fits and starts rather than in real time.

I don't check comments every hour and in fact some days go by without looking because despite the incivility of some the commenters on this blog have kept it rated PG.   No matter how much I may disagree with you, I will allow your comments to be posted freely as long as you keep it clean.  If you are rude I will call you out and as this is sometimes a fight I will not always be terribly kind to the unkind.   Until God tells me I can put the sword away it will remain by my side.  But for those who comment, frankly, the more information we exchange that does not involve personal attacks the better the comments thread will be.  It is one thing to attack ideas but when you attack people you have entirely left science behind and have moved into another realm altogether.   If you think Creationism is dumb, fine, but it is time to bring some better reasons to the table. 

I consider the Bible to be evidence and I will use it as such.  That makes me just as "dumb" as Sir Isaac Newton was or Jonathan Sarfati is (in this one area that is) and I am fine with keeping that kind of company.  I am sorry for Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, smart and creative men who could not "grok" God.  Ironically, Robert Heinlein didn't "grok" God either although his most famous book title was a scriptural quote and the main character of that book was presented as a Messianic character.  But although I do consider the Bible to be true, I will continue to post evidence that focuses primarily on what we can observe in the real world of today rather than what we can read that was written beforehand.  That way in the end it will be the evidence that drives science.  Sometimes science lags behind evidence but I believe that it will catch up again and the 19th Century ideas will yield to the findings of 21st Century science!