Real Science

There is a common myth that 99.9% of people fall for in regards to Science. It is the difference between ‘observational’ science, and ‘historical’ science. The two are qualitatively and fundamentally different, and acceptance of this is critical.

‘Observational’ science is the real science, it is the science where you can actually test hypothesises like the spherical nature of earth for example. The object of this hypothesis is an extant factor, this means that we can go out and make verifiable measurements as to the nature of the earth. We can measure angles and actually fly totally around the longitude and latitude lines of the earth. This can be tested and verified both others at any later time.

But ‘historical’ science is qualitatively different. It is an interloper, it barely qualifies as science at all. This sounds harsh, radical and almost heretical to those who haven’t pondered the philosophy of science before.

The fact is that nothing in the past is verifiable, especially events that are prior to the historical record. How can we observe the emplacement of fossils to test the creation or evolution hypothesises? The deposition of fossils occurred in the past, and the past is a place that is impenetrable to observation. So if data is unobservable, then it isn’t verifiable and thus can not be considered science.

We can certainly speculate using the scientific method by examining data like fossils which themselves are extant and therefore verifiable. But any speculation as to the origins of the fossils is totally outside the realm of the scientific method.

The scientific method is only a very narrowly useful tool. It’s power as a explanatory device is prodigious when it is used appropriately within it’s purview, but we must be careful not to extend it’s use to outside natural bounds and try and use it like a omniscient fountain of knowledge.

Interpreting Scripture

It is generally agreed by laymen and Biblical scholars alike that the best way to interpret the meaning of Scripture is to compare it to itself (that is, cross-referencing with itself), and that a good rule is that the Bible should be taken as literal unless it obviously means otherwise, as is obviously the case with Psalms or Revelations.


Yet when the topic of Creation and the Flood is discussed, the rules suddenly change and we are told that Scripture should also be interpreted by "science" whenever the two disagree.



Essentially what is implied-consciously or not- is that the Christian worldview is to be subordinate to all other worldviews, particularly the currently reigning secular worldview. Whenever there is a disagreement between these two, the Bible is always the one that is reinterpreted. It is claimed that the “science” of the secular worldview is the acme of human knowledge and as such all other forms of knowledge must be subservient.



But what is meant by the term 'science'? It seems that the two terms ‘science’ and ‘naturalistic evolution’ are used synonymously. It is certainly true that most of the public have the fallacious impression that ‘science’ inherently means naturalistic evolution to the exclusion of all other worldviews such as YEC, OLC, theistic evolution etc. And vice versa it is believed that naturalistic evolution has exclusive rights over the term ‘science’, to the exclusion of all other worldviews (Hence why so many religious people feel compelled to reject all ‘science’ outright; they wrongly think that in order to reject evolution they must also reject ‘science’).

Science certainly is a powerful explanatory tool for acquiring knowledge. Therefore because naturalistic evolution claims exclusive rights over ‘science’ it is wrongly assumed that ‘naturalistic evolution’ must similarly be regarded as just as powerful and authoritative by synonymous association alone. Thus, it is claimed that the philosophical worldview of naturalism must be the rule to which all other worldviews conform.

It is for this reason alone that the Biblical account of origins is demanded by secularists to be subservient and must genuflect to their own worldview of naturalistic evolution.





What secularists are erroneously claiming is that any Biblical idea that conflicts with science is wrong.

But what they really mean is that any Biblical idea that conflicts with their philosophy of naturalism is wrong! It has NOTHING to do with science at all!



But what mus be remembered is that science is rather like statistics; you can pick or ignore whatever pieces of science that you like to suit whatever worldview you like; YEC, OEC, IDism, theistic evolution, deistic evolution, atheistic evolution etc, the fact is that ALL worldviews have some sort of science behind them.



So in the end we see that scientific evidence actually does comport with Scripture-rather; it is only the philosophical worldview of naturalistic evolution that does not fit with Scripture. And considering that it was originally designed to oppose the Biblical model, the fact that the two conflict should come as no surprise to anyone.

The conflict is not between ‘science’ vs the Bible at all. Instead the real conflict is between the worldviews of naturalism vs the Bible, as well as between naturalistic science vs Biblical science.



So what Christians are actually doing when trying to compromise the Bible with evolution is making the Bible subservient to the most popular worldview of today in a vain attempt to avoid embarrassment in the face of ungodly man, rather than being concerned with truth in the face of God.



Should the perspicacious Word of God really be subservient to the capricious vogue of man?

Man and Dinosaurs Together?

Can you spot the Dinosaur in this ancient carving?

One contentious facet of Young Earth Creationism is the belief that humans walked the earth with dinosaurs only 4000 years ago.



This belief is rubbished by evolutionists because it is in complete contradiction with their own beliefs. They believe that dinosaurs ceased to exist over 65 million years ago.

They come to this conclusion because their interpretation of the earth’s rocks shows no fossilised dinosaurs which is dated by radiometric dating methods to be younger than 65 million years.

The dating methods that produce these dates are not the topic of this particular article, and have been adequately refuted many times by others.



The reason why this logic is fundamentally flawed is that it relies on the absence of evidence, rather than the presence of evidence. This is a logical fallacy called an Argument from Ignorance.





Even if we accept their false dates for the sake of the argument (which I will for this article), the absence of fossils from a certain period of hypothetical time does not mean that that particular animal did not live at that particular time.

Three basic ways that a species of animal could be alive and not leave fossils is if 1) it moved to an environment where the fossilization process just didn’t occur. 2) a species population size temporarily and dramatically decreased to a size where fossilization would never occur. Or 3) we just haven’t found any fossils yet! Remember that palaeontologists have only dug a few miniscule little holes when compared to the vast volumes of fossil-laden soils of the earth’s surface.



But what is even more significant is that even according to the evolutionist’s own models, it is incontrovertibly accepted that species routinely lived for vast amounts of time without ever leaving even a hint of fossil evidence!
Some gaps are so large that when put in context of the whole fossil record, the gaps turn into vast chasms, some as large as three quarters of the whole fossil record!





The fact is that, even assuming the corrupt radiometric dates of the theory of evolution for arguments sake, if the fossil record fails to record the existence of a species for such vast amounts of time, then how can we trust the alleged finely graduated sequence of evolution that is claimed of the fossil record?

Similarly, how can we really trust that dinosaurs haven’t been on earth in the last 65 million years (assuming the evolutionist’s theory) based on an absence of fossils, when other species are claimed by evolutionists to live for hundreds of millions of years without leaving any fossil evidence at all???







So when all this is combined with the corrupt dates ascribed to the fossils, we have even more reason to disregard the alleged evolutionary history as nothing more than dubious speculation.

And no amount of dubious speculation, no matter how frequently and dogmatically parroted, will ever match the veracity of the clear and omniscient word of God.

Noah's Ark

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/thinking-outside-the-box

Noah’s Ark, the Bible records this giant boat as being over 135 meters long, 22 wide and 13 meters high! People baulk at the idea of Noah’s Ark being real. They automatically think that such a prodigious structure couldn’t possibly have been built in such an ancient culture.


It is certainly easy to question the veracity of the Ark narrative when we have no physical evidence left of such a structure, but we can’t legitimately discard the narrative on these grounds alone. After all, an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.



What we need to do is to look back at ancient history and look for other prodigious structures to see what ancient people really were capable of.

For example, surely the Great Pyramid of Giza could be considered a structure of similar magnitude to the Ark. The biggest of the Giza pyramids originally measured over 145 meters tall and each side 230 meters long. Such a structure required over 2.3 million blocks of stone. Still to this day- when we have the technology to send people to the moon and genetically engineer organisms- nobody knows how these giant pyramids were constructed.

Ask yourself, would anyone seriously believe historical accounts of immensely giant pyramidal structures the size of the Great Pyramid if the structure didn’t still exist? Certainly not. Scholars would certainly claim that the stories were either entirely myth or highly exaggerated accounts of much smaller structures.



I’m sure most people would agree that the Great Pyramid of Giza is considerably more sophisticated and a substantially more of a monumental achievement than Noah’s wooden Ark.

When we look at some of the amazing structures that the ancient people of history were able to achieve- giant structures which still stand many thousands of years later- then suddenly the task that Noah had in building the Ark seems quite reasonable in comparison.

Does Consensus Determine Truth?

Quite often in life we will have our beliefs challenged by others. A Christian may hear an atheist justify his belief with the statement that ‘the majority of scientists believe ……’.




While the truth of something can certainly be indicated by the opinions of the majority of scholars, it is often the case that the majority of scholars are wrong, history is certainly replete with examples of such examples. (1)



So what does constitute ‘truth’? Well, we can be sure of one thing; that the popular opinion of learned men at any one time does not determine the true state of something. I will explain:

All scientists believe that the earth is spherical. Now does the shape of the earth actually depend on what the majority of scientists believe? Of course not. If it did, then 500 years ago, before the Copernican revolution, the earth would have actually been flat, because this is what all the scholars believed at that time.



The true shape of the earth cares nothing for the opinion of human scholars. The opinions of scientists and scholars only form an explanatory thought as to the truth of something. They may be right, they may be wrong, but the truth of any particular thing is not determined but the opinions of men!



So the next time somebody tries to prove their position by stating that the majority of scientists believe this, or that, then humbly remind them that the scientific consensus have got things wrong many times before, and major revolutions in science take place all the time. The fact that science textbooks are rewritten every couple of years is ample proof of this.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories

Evolutionist and Creationist Science

http://www.nwcreation.net/intro.html

 "Science is wedded, at least in principle, to the evidence. Creationism is unabashedly wedded to doctrine "

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html

Contrary to this quote, both are wedded to evidence as well as to doctrine. Creationism is wedded to the biblical doctrine of origins, while naturalistic evolution is in turn wedded to naturalistic philosophy.

Note also here, that secular naturalists will usually glorify themselves by adopting the term ‘science’ as the title of their worldview.

Science is only a dispassionate method of investigation though, but they use it interchangeably with ‘evolution’, as if they were one in the same. But evolution is only a model of origins-like creationism- which uses the method of science.



Both evolution and creationism are worldviews that are imposed upon the scientific method to discern events in the past.

Evolutionists try to hide this fact but highlighting their adherence to the scientific method, while hiding the creationist’s use of it. At the same time they hide their philosophical adherence to their doctrine of naturalism, while highlighting the creationist’s adherence to design.



The fact is that creationists are the only ones who are up front about their model of origins. They are quite happy to show that their scientific investigation is guided by the Biblical doctrine of design.

Evolutionist’s on the other hand, go to great lengths to hide the fact that they too are guided by a philosophical doctrine; naturalism. If pressed hard enough, and the questioner isn’t tricked by their many diversionary tactics, educated evolutionists will admit their adherence to naturalism, albeit very begrudgingly.