Is belief in God unscientific?
No matter who you are, you’ve heard it before, or maybe you have even said it yourself:
“Belief in God is not scientific. I don’t believe in God because I prefer a scientific view of the world.”
When I hear this assertion, sometimes I respond by doing my best impression of the character Lumbergh (played by Gary Cole) from the classic comedy film Office Space:
“Ooh…Yeah. I’m going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there.”
If you choose to disbelieve in God, at least do not try to rationalize your disbelief with the stance that belief in God is “unscientific.” Unbeknownst to our culture, and atheists who declare their belief system to be “scientific,” there is a very big problem with declaring theism to be “unscientific”:
Nobody has been able to logically define just what constitutes science, as opposed to non-science or pseudo-science. This is what is known as “the demarcation problem in science.” Philosopher of science Larry Laudan explains that philosophers of science have been completely unable to find a logically sound way to distinguish (or demarcate) science from non-science, in his influential essay about the demarcation problem in science titled The Demise of the Demarcation Problem .
“We live in a society which sets great store by science. Scientific ‘experts’ play a privileged role in many of our institutions, ranging from the courts of law to the corridors of power. At a more fundamental level, most of us strive to shape our beliefs about the natural world in the ‘scientific’ image. If scientists say that continents move or that the universe is billions of years old, we generally believe them, however counter-intuitive and implausible their claims might appear to be. Equally, we tend to acquiesce in what scientists tell us not to believe. If, for instance, scientists say that Velikovsky was a crank, that the biblical creation story is hokum, that UFOs do not exist, or that acupuncture is ineffective, then we generally make the scientist’s contempt for these things our own, reserving for them those social sanctions and disapprobations which are the just deserts of quacks, charlatans and con-men. In sum, much of our intellectual life, and increasingly large portions of our social and political life, rest on the assumption that we (or, if not we ourselves, then someone whom we trust in these matters) can tell the difference between science and its counterfeit.”
But, despite the immense prestige and respect which our culture accords to science, there is no way to logically discern science from pseudo-science. This is a very big problem for atheists who try to promote their worldview as “scientific,” whereas belief in God is “unscientific.” As Laudan notes, drawing a logical line of demarcation between science and non-science has, for millennia, proven to be an unachievable task for philosophers of science:
“For a variety of historical and logical reasons, some going back more than two millennia, that ‘someone’ to whom we turn to find out the difference usually happens to be the philosopher. Indeed, it would not be going too far to say that, for a very long time, philosophers have been regarded as the gatekeepers to the scientific estate. They are the ones who are supposed to be able to tell the difference between real science and pseudo-science. In the familiar academic scheme of things, it is specifically the theorists of knowledge and the philosophers of science who are charged with arbitrating and legitimating the claims of any sect to ‘scientific’ status. It is small wonder, under the circumstances, that the question of the nature of science has loomed so large in Western philosophy. From Plato to Popper, philosophers have sought to identify those epistemic features which mark off science from other sorts of belief and activity.”
“Nonetheless, it seems pretty clear that philosophy has largely failed to deliver the relevant goods. Whatever the specific strengths and deficiencies of the numerous well-known efforts at demarcation, it is probably fair to say that there is no demarcation line between science and non-science, or between science and pseudo-science, which would win assent from a majority of philosophers. Nor is there one which should win acceptance from philosophers or anyone else…”
Similarly, in his essay The Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent, Stephen Meyer cites the philosopher of science Martin Eger:
“Demarcation arguments have collapsed. Philosophers of science don’t hold them anymore. They may still enjoy acceptance in the popular world, but that’s a different world.”
As a side note, Eger’s above comments call to attention a frequently recurring issue: Many atheistic arguments which persist at the popular level (in atheist blog posts, in books by science popularizers, in Wikipedia posts, etc.) have long since been dismissed by scholars who specialize in the respective field of study. Demarcation arguments which try to define belief in God as “unscientific” are a virtually omnipresent component of atheist propaganda. But demarcation arguments have long since been abandoned by philosophers of science, because the demarcation problem has proven insurmountable.
But rather than just taking someone else’s word for it, why not examine some of the various demarcation criteria which have been proposed to demarcate between science and non-science? Those who have spent any time debating atheists who perceive their worldview to be “scientific,” and theism to be “unscientific,” will recognize many of these criteria:
Observability: “Belief in God is not scientific because God is not observable.”
Observability fails as a criterion to demarcate between science and pseudo-science because, as elite physicists Paul Davies and John Gribbin note in their book The Matter Myth, much of what is regarded as science involves unobservable phenomena:
“At the heart of the scientific method is the construction of theories. Scientific theories are essentially models of the real world (or parts thereof), and a lot of the vocabulary of science concerns the models rather than reality. For example, scientists often use the word ‘discovery’ to refer to some purely theoretical advance. Thus one often hears it said that Stephen Hawking ‘discovered’ that black holes are not black, but emit heat radiation. That statement refers solely to a mathematical investigation. Nobody has yet seen a black hole, much less detected any heat radiation from one.”
“…So long as scientific models stick closely to direct experience, where common sense remains a reliable guide, we feel confident that we can distinguish between the model and the reality. But in certain branches of physics it is not always so easy. The concept of energy, for example, is a familiar one today, yet it was originally introduced as a purely theoretical quantity in order to simplify the physicists’ description of mechanical and thermodynamical processes. We cannot see or touch energy, yet we accept that it really exists because we are so used to discussing it.”
“The situation is even worse in the new physics, where the distinction between the model and reality sometimes becomes hopelessly blurred. In quantum field theory, for instance, theorists often refer to abstract entities called ‘virtual’ particles. These ephemeral objects come into existence out of nothing, and almost immediately fade away again. Although a faint trace of their fleeting passage can appear in ordinary matter, the virtual particles themselves can never be directly observed. So to what extent can they be said to really exist?”
Stephen Meyer reflects physicists Davies’ and Gribbin’s above comments by noting that, because many scientific theories are not supported by actual observation, observability cannot be cited as a logically sound criterion to demarcate between science and non-science:
“Many entities and events cannot be directly observed or studied in practice or in principle. The postulation of such entities is no less the product of scientific inquiry for that. Many sciences are in fact directly charged with the job of inferring the unobservable from the observable. Forces, fields, atoms, quarks, past events, mental states, subsurface geological features, molecular biological structures all are unobservables inferred from observable phenomena. Nevertheless, most are unambiguously the result of scientific inquiry.”
“During the race to elucidate the structure of the genetic molecule, both a double helix and a triple helix were considered, since both could explain the photographic images produced via x-ray crystallography. While neither structure could be observed (even indirectly through a microscope), the double helix of Watson and Crick eventually won out because it could explain other observations that the triple helix could not. The inference to one unobservable structure the double helix was accepted because it was judged to possess a greater explanatory power than its competitors with respect to a variety of relevant observations. Such attempts to infer to the best explanation, where the explanation presupposes the reality of an unobservable entity, occur frequently in many fields already regarded as scientific, including physics, geology, geophysics, molecular biology, genetics, physical chemistry, cosmology, psychology and, of course, evolutionary biology.”
Cosmology presents another perfect example of a theory which cannot be supported by observation, but which is nevertheless regarded by many as “scientific”: The multiverse (or multiple universe) theory is, in fact, frequently cited by atheists as an alternative to God, but cannot be supported by observation, because universes other than our own are fundamentally unobservable.
An exacting knife edge level of precision (referred to as “anthropic fine tuning”) is necessary for life to exist on Earth. Theists cite creation by God as an explanation for this exquisite precision, whereas many atheists cite the multiverse or multiple universe theory. Harvard educated NASA astrophysicist John A. O’Keefe comments:
“If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in.”
There are many values which must be exactly correct for life to exist on Earth. These values are referred to as “anthropic constants.” A few examples of these anthropic constants from the article in the preceding hyperlink:
Oxygen Level
Oxygen comprises 21% of the atmosphere, if the level moved to 25%, fires would erupt spontaneously. If it were 15%, human beings would suffocate.
Atmospheric Transparency
If the atmosphere were less transparent, not enough solar radiation would reach the earth’s surface. If it were more transparent, we would be bombarded with far too much solar radiation. (In addition to atmospheric transparency, the atmospheric composition of precise levels of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ozone are in themselves anthropic constants)
Moon-Earth Gravitational Interaction
If the interaction were greater than it currently is, tidal effects on the oceans, atmosphere, and rotational period would be too severe. If it were less, orbital changes would cause climatic instabilities. In either event, life on earth would be impossible,
Gravity
If the gravitational force were altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 (37 0’s) percent, our sun would not exist, and, therefore, neither would we.
According to the multiverse theory, so many universes exist that it is not surprising that one of these universes happened to randomly have the very extremely precise fine tuning necessary for the existence of life. In fact, some theorists have pointed out that as many as 10 to the 500th power (10 with 500 zeros after it) universes are necessary. Cambridge University astrophysicist John Polkinghorne notes:
“Answering an argument by a suggestion is hardly conclusive. One problem is that we don’t just need a hundred other universes, or even a billion, but an utterly immense number—some string theorists suggest that there are up to 10 to the 500th power other universes. If you are allowed to posit 10 to the 500th power other universes to explain away otherwise inconvenient observations, you can “explain away” anything, and science becomes impossible.”
Regarding Polkinghorne’s above comments, how many of these 10 to the 500th power universes do you suppose have actually been observed by anyone? The answer is zero, since other universes cannot be observed.
Another problem with observability is that many theories or beliefs which are regarded as unscientific nonsense can cite observations as scientific support. For example, an observation out of one’s window could be cited as evidence in favor or the flat-Earth theory. If observability is the demarcation criterion which distinguishes science from non-science, then the flat-Earth theory must be deemed “science.”
Testability: “Belief in God is not scientific because God is not a testable hypothesis.”
Stephen Meyer explains how citing testability as the demarcation criterion separating science and non-science would render Darwinian evolution non-science, because it cannot be tested:
Origins theories generally must make assertions about what happened in the past to cause present features of the universe (or the universe itself) to arise. They must reconstruct unobservable causal events from present clues or evidences. Positivistic methods of testing, therefore, that depend upon direct verification or repeated observation of cause-effect relationships have little relevance to origins theories, as Darwin himself understood. Though he complained repeatedly about the creationist failure to meet the vera causa criterion a nineteenth-century methodological principle that favored theories postulating observed causes he chafed at the application of rigid positivistic standards to his own theory.
As he complained to Joseph Hooker: “I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that this view in the main is correct because so many phenomena can be thus grouped and explained” (emphasis added).
Evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Henry Gee (Senior Editor of the science journal Nature) eloquently commented on how Darwinian evolution is not testable, in 1999:
“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way…To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”
Additionally, how would one administer a test to see if the most popular atheistic explanation for the anthropic fine tuning of the universe (the multiverse theory cited above) is correct? Would it involve a laboratory test involving a bunsen burner and test tubes? A test involving a microscope and a petri dish?
Falsifiability: “Belief in God is not scientific because God cannot be falsified.”
Proponents of falsifiability as a demarcation criterion argue that science must always first try to prove a theory to be false before accepting it. It is only after passing such a rigorous trial by fire that a theory or belief can be accepted as scientifically true. But any theory or belief which cannot even be exposed to such a trial is not falsifiable, and therefore should not be considered scientific. Falsifiability was first introduced as a demarcation criterion by the philosopher of science Karl Popper.
Because there is no way to expose belief in God to such scrutiny (attempts to falsify), argue atheistic proponents of falsifiability, belief in God cannot be considered scientific. Much like belief in ghosts, there is no way to expose belief in God to attempts to falsify.
The easiest way see that falsifiability fails as a demarcation criterion is to recognize that theories which have been falsified (or proven false) meet Popper’s criterion for what constitutes science. If a theory has been proven false, it must be falsifiable. Therefore scientific theories which have been proven false must be considered “scientific,” if falsifiability is the demarcation criterion that distinguishes science from pseudo-science. There is simply no way around this.
For example, the flat-Earth theory was, most recently, proven false by satellite observations of the Earth. But, by Karl Popper’s logic, the flat-Earth theory must be considered “scientific” because it was proven false (falsified).
Further, how could Darwin’s theory of evolution be deemed falsifiable? Philosopher Robert C. Koons comments on the un-falsifiability of Darwinian evolution:
Any evidence that is found can be made to accord with schematic Darwinism, and so can be counted as evidence “for” the theory. Only by replacing the schema with a specific sequence of possible mutations and selective pressures can we find something that is both falsifiable and confirmable by collateral evidence. But this is exactly what has never happened, no doubt because of the problems of intractability, the inability to manage or control the reconstruction of the genotypes of extinct and even unattested hypothetical ancestors. Whatever the reason, the burden of proof was never met, and the presumption of design never rebutted.
The history of science makes it virtually impossible to separate science from non-science.
And finally, the history of science presents an insurmountable obstacle for discerning science from non-science. Regarding this point are some relevant excerpts from my essay titled A History Lesson for Darwinists:
Biologist Lynn Margulis, winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal for Science, put it best in her book What Is Life?:
…Science is asymptotic. [“asymptote” is derived from a Greek word meaning “not falling together.”] It never arrives at but only approaches the tantalizing goal of final knowledge. Astrology gives way to astronomy; alchemy evolves into chemistry. The science of one age becomes the mythology of the next.
Those with a short-sighted view of the history of science are prone to overlook the fact that alchemy (which believed that metals such as lead could be turned into gold) and astrology were once considered scientifically respectable. In fact, as Margulis alludes to above, the scientific consensus of one age usually becomes the myth or superstition of the next age.
Atheist mythology suggests that, as scientific knowledge grows, the need for theistic belief diminishes. However, in his pivotal work on the history, philosophy, and sociology of science titled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, physicist Thomas Kuhn describes how the history of science makes it difficult to justify the characterization of science as “an ever growing stockpile [of] knowledge” or a “process of accretion”. In part, this is because most scientific theories (or models) which were accepted by the scientific communities of the past are now perceived as pseudo-science or myth.
Kuhn cites the examples of Aristotelian dynamics (which was superseded by Newtonian physics), phlogistic chemistry (which said that a fire-like element called phlogiston is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion), and caloric thermodynamics (which said that heat is really a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies). (Click here for dozens more examples). If these theories were regarded as “science” in their day, but as “error” and “superstition” today, then why should we not assume that the scientific theories of today will become the error and superstition of tomorrow? Kuhn writes:
Historians confront growing difficulties in distinguishing the “scientific” component of past observation and belief from what their predecessors had readily labeled “error” and “superstition.” The more carefully they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that those once current views of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today. Given these alternatives, the historian must choose the latter. Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes it difficult to see scientific development as a process of accretion.
So with no logically sound way to separate science from non-science, atheists can only define belief in God as “unscientific” by first defining science in ways that rule out God. But this is the logical fallacy known as circular logic, the Latin term for which is circulus in probando.
“Nobody has been able to logically define just what constitutes science, as opposed to non-science or pseudo-science.”
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE. Wikipedia
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual, but are incompatible with the scientific method. Wikipedia
“This is a very big problem for atheists who try to promote their worldview as “scientific,” whereas belief in God is “unscientific.”
I do not think it is a problem somehow, the evidence of fact verse fantasy is very compelling and speaks for itself.
“Any evidence that is found can be made to accord with schematic Darwinism, and so can be counted as evidence “for” the theory. Only by replacing the schema with a specific sequence of possible mutations and selective pressures can we find something that is both falsifiable and confirmable by collateral evidence. But this is exactly what has never happened, no doubt because of the problems of intractability, the inability to manage or control the reconstruction of the genotypes of extinct and even unattested hypothetical ancestors. Whatever the reason, the burden of proof was never met, and the presumption of design never rebutted.”
Evolution by natural selection is one of if not the best substantiated theory in the history of science. This theory is supported by over 100 years of evidence from many scientific disciplines such as, paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology. Charles Darwin’s ideas had a profound impact on the understanding of human life and his theory of evolution by natural selection makes Darwin one of the most important thinkers of modern times because he helped to transform how people thought about the natural world and humans’ place within it.
It is fairly clear that all biological systems in the medical fields are based on evolutionary principles. The study of evolving drug resistance and the knowledge required of medical students are based on biological evolution, not creationism.
“Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”
There are two inaccuracies in this statement.
1) Atheist science popularizers are fond of assuring us that science “figures things out” without the need for God. Just give it enough time—the atheist reasoning goes—and science will figure out everything, leaving no need whatsoever to cite God as an explanation. But a review of the history of science makes it impossible to characterize science as an ever growing stockpile of knowledge: The science of one age becomes the myth or pseudo-science of the next age. Biologist Lynn Margulis, winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal for Science, put it best in her book What Is Life?:
“…Science is asymptotic. [“asymptote” is derived from a Greek word meaning “not falling together.”] It never arrives at but only approaches the tantalizing goal of final knowledge. Astrology gives way to astronomy; alchemy evolves into chemistry. The science of one age becomes the mythology of the next.”
Those with a short-sighted view of the history of science are prone to overlook the fact that alchemy (which believed that metals such as lead could be turned into gold) and astrology were once considered scientifically respectable. In fact, as Margulis alludes to above, the scientific consensus of one age usually becomes the myth or superstition of the next age. Elite physicists Paul Davies and John Gribbin cite examples of this trend among scientific theories in their book The Matter Myth:
“A classic example concerns the ‘luminiferous ether.’ When James Clerk Maxwell showed that light is an electromagnetic wave, it seemed obvious that this wave had to have a medium of some sort through which to propagate. After all, other known waves travel through something. Sound waves, for example, travel through the air; water waves travel across the surface of lakes and oceans. Because light, which Maxwell discovered is a form of electromagnetic wave, can reach us from the Sun and stars, across seemingly empty space, it was proposed that space is actually filled with an intangible substance, the ether, in which these waves could travel.”
“So sure were physicists of the existence of the ether that ambitious experiments were mounted to measure the speed with which the Earth moves through it. Alas, the experiments showed conclusively that the ether does not exist…for nineteenth-century physicists, however, the ether was still very real.”
Click here for several dozen other examples.
But science has provided us with air travel, amazing medicines, computers, and a whole list of other advances! Considering such facts, shouldn’t we just listen to what science has to tell us? Freeman Dyson, who currently holds the professorship in physics at Princeton University formerly held by Albert Einstein, comments in his 2011 essay How We Know, that the usefulness of scientific theories should not be confused with their truth:
“Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. Distrust and productive use are not incompatible. Wikipedia is the ultimate open source repository of information. Everyone is free to read it and everyone is free to write it. It contains articles in 262 languages written by several million authors. The information that it contains is totally unreliable and surprisingly accurate. It is often unreliable because many of the authors are ignorant or careless. It is often accurate because the articles are edited and corrected by readers who are better informed than the authors.”
“…The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.”
“…Science is the sum total of a great multitude of mysteries. It is an unending argument between a great multitude of voices. It resembles Wikipedia much more than it resembles the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
Popular thought suggests that scientific knowledge is on an ever advancing march towards final truth. However, in his pivotal work on the history, philosophy, and sociology of science titled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, physicist Thomas Kuhn describes how the history of science makes it difficult to justify the characterization of science as “an ever growing stockpile [of] knowledge” or a “process of accretion.” In part, this is because most scientific theories (or models) which were accepted by the scientific communities of the past are now perceived as pseudo-science or myth.
Kuhn cites the examples of Aristotelian dynamics (which was superseded by Newtonian physics), phlogistic chemistry (which said that a fire-like element called phlogiston is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion), and caloric thermodynamics (which said that heat is really a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies). (Click here for several dozen more examples). If these theories were regarded as “science” in their day, but as “error” and “superstition” today, then why should we not assume that the scientific theories of today will become the error and superstition of tomorrow? Kuhn writes:
“Historians confront growing difficulties in distinguishing the “scientific” component of past observation and belief from what their predecessors had readily labeled ‘error’ and ‘superstition.’ The more carefully they study, say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the more certain they feel that those once current views of nature were, as a whole, neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite incompatible with the ones we hold today. Given these alternatives, the historian must choose the latter. Out-of-date theories are not in principle unscientific because they have been discarded. That choice, however, makes it difficult to see scientific development as a process of accretion.”
So what does the history of science suggest the future holds for Darwin’s theory? The best case scenario is that it will go down in history in a similar manner to Isaac Newton’s science. Newtonian mechanics was not completely overthrown, but it was eventually shown to have a far more narrow range of applicability than once thought. William Dembski notes:
“It is always a temptation in science to think that one’s theory encompasses a far bigger domain than it actually does. This happened with Newtonian mechanics. Physicists thought that Newton’s laws provided a total account of the constitution and dynamics of the universe. Maxwell, Einstein, and Heisenberg each showed that the proper domain of Newtonian mechanics was far more constricted than scientists first believed. Newtonian mechanics works well for medium sized objects at medium speeds, but for very fast and very small objects it breaks down. In the latter case, we need to invoke, respectively, relativity and quantum mechanics.”
What’s the worst case scenario for Darwin’s theory of evolution? Biologist Lynn Margulis (cited above) believes that history will ultimately judge neo-Darwinism as, “A minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology.”
Darwin’s theory of evolution—atheists suggest—provides answers to questions in biology without the need for God. So why should we invoke God as the ultimate answer to any questions? Why not just patiently withhold judgement while waiting for science to provide the answers? The simple answer to this very common atheist objection is that the history of science demonstrates that science, alone, doesn’t provide ultimate answers. Dominant scientific theories have a history of eventually being radically revised, and outright rejected. William Dembski notes in Uncommon Dissent:
“Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, science is not a juggernaut that relentlessly pushes back the frontiers of knowledge. Rather, science is an interconnected web of theoretical and factual claims about the world that are constantly being revised. Changes in one portion of the web can induce radical changes in another. In particular, science regularly confronts the problem of having to retract claims that it once boldly asserted.”
“Consider the following example from geology: In the nineteenth century the geosynclinal theory was proposed to account for the origination of mountain ranges. This theory hypothesized that large trough-like depressions, known as geosynclines, filled with sediment, gradually became unstable, and then, when crushed and heated by the earth, elevated to form mountain ranges. To the question “How did mountain ranges originate?” geologists as late as 1960 confidently asserted that the geosynclinal theory provided the answer. In the 1960 edition of Clark and Stearn’s Geological Evolution of North America, the status of the geosynclinal theory was even favorably compared with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.”
“Whatever became of the geosynclinal theory? An alternative theory, that of plate tectonics, was developed. It explained mountain formation through continental drift and sea-floor spreading. Within a few years, it had decisively replaced the geosynclinal theory. The history of science is filled with such turnabouts in which confident claims to knowledge suddenly vanish from the scientific literature. The geosynclinal theory was completely wrong. Thus, when the theory of plate tectonics came along, the geosynclinal theory was overthrown.”
2) If testability is the criterion that separates science from pseudoscience (as you suggest), then Darwinian evolution must be categorized as pseudoscience. Stephen Meyer elaborates:
“Origins theories generally must make assertions about what happened in the past to cause present features of the universe (or the universe itself) to arise. They must reconstruct unobservable causal events from present clues or evidences. Positivistic methods of testing, therefore, that depend upon direct verification or repeated observation of cause-effect relationships have little relevance to origins theories, as Darwin himself understood. Though he complained repeatedly about the creationist failure to meet the vera causa criterion a nineteenth-century methodological principle that favored theories postulating observed causes he chafed at the application of rigid positivistic standards to his own theory.”
As Darwin complained to Joseph Hooker: “I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that this view in the main is correct because so many phenomena can be thus grouped and explained.” (italics added)
Evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Henry Gee (Senior Editor of the science journal Nature, the most prestigious science journal) eloquently commented on how Darwinian evolution is not testable, in 1999:
“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way…To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”
Additionally, how would one administer a test to see if the most popular atheistic explanation for the anthropic fine tuning of the universe (the multiverse theory cited above) is correct? Would it involve a laboratory test involving a bunsen burner and test tubes? A test involving a microscope and a petri dish?
Lastly, you write: “Evolution by natural selection is one of if not the best substantiated theory in the history of science. This theory is supported by over 100 years of evidence from many scientific disciplines such as, paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.”
No, that is patently false. In point of fact, YOU WILL NOT FIND A SINGLE PALEONTOLOGIST ON PLANET EARTH WHO THINKS THAT THE FOSSIL RECORD SUPPORTS DARWINISM!! I CHALLENGE YOU TO PROVE ME WRONG. After a few hours of feverish googling, make sure you give yourself a rest, so as not to wear yourself out.
Harvard University evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (one of the two founders of punctuated equilibrium, cited above) refers to the fact that the fossil record does not support gradualistic accounts of evolution as “the trade secret of paleontology” in a 1977 issue of Natural History:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology…Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.”
Gould also wrote,
“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.”
Similarly, Ernst Mayr (one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the last 50 years) writes:
“Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin’s postulate of gradualism … and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.”
The Curator of the invertebrates department at the American Museum of Natural History, biologist and paleontologist Niles Eldredge, who was also the adjunct professor at the City University of New York, is a non-theist. But Dr. Eldredge openly admits that the traditional evolutionary view is not supported by the fossil record, which is why he and Gould created the concept of punctuated equilibrium. He writes:
“No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Fastidious collecting of fossils, from the bottom upward, up sheer cliff faces, zigzags, minor oscillations…all showing the same results. That life forms all appear, fully formed, complete in body parts, at their first discovery. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that’s how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.“
The term evolution merely means change over time. Therefore, to deny evolution (in the correct sense of the term), one would need to deny that living things have changed since the time of the dinosaurs. Since virtually nobody of any religion or belief system does this, virtually nobody denies evolution…even the most staunch creationist. (Please read Where the Conflict Really Lies by philosopher Alvin Plantinga for a more thorough exploration of this subject).
In point of fact, the REAL conflict is NOT between creationism and evolution. Rather, the real conflict is between creationism and the philosophical add-on to evolution (the Trojan Horse) which says that this change over time (from dinosaurs to humans, etc.) is the result of random and unintelligent processes. This philosophical add-on is known as Darwinism.
Startlingly, CHARLES DARWIN HIMSELF admitted that he did not have any direct evidence that the change over time of evolution was the result of random and unintelligent processes. He ADMITTED that this was a mere belief. As Darwin complained to Joseph Hooker in a letter included in his autobiography:
“I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce direct evidence of one species changing into another, but that I believe that this view in the main is correct because so many phenomena can be thus grouped together and explained.” (italics added)
See below image of this letter included in Darwin’s autobiography:
The so-called “scientific consensus” regarding Charles Darwin ‘s theory is really a philosophical (better yet, ideological) consensus among scientists.
The easiest way to see that the so-called “scientific consensus” behind Darwinism is really an ideological consensus among scientists is to recognize that scientists studying evolution do not even agree on what unintelligent mechanism is allegedly behind the change of living things over time. Darwin alleged that the change over time of living things is the result of the very, very gradual process of the random mutation of genes, and the natural selection of reproductive offspring. But scientists have divided into two main camps in order to explain why the fossil record does not support this gradualistic account of evolution. Even Charles Darwin himself acknowledged that the fossil record does not support his theory. A post from the University of Vermont notes:
Charles Darwin believed that evolution was a slow and gradual process. He did not believe this process to be “perfectly smooth,” but rather, “stepwise,” with a species evolving and accumulating small variations over long periods of time. Darwin assumed that if evolution is gradual then there should be a record in fossils of small incremental change within a species. But in many cases, Darwin, and scientists today, are unable to find most of these intermediate forms. Darwin blamed lack of transitional forms on gaps in the fossil record, a good assertion, because the chances of each of those critical changing forms having been preserved as fossils are very small. However in 1972, evolutionary scientists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed another explanation for the numerous gaps in the fossil record. They suggested that the “gaps” were real, representing periods of stasis in morphology. They termed this mode of evolution “punctuated equilibrium.”
It is noteworthy that the punctuated equilibrium model proposed by Gould and Eldredge does not even propose a mechanism by which evolution occurs. The very gradual process of random mutation of genes and natural selection of reproductive offspring cannot be cited as an explanation for why the change over time of evolution occurs in a notably not gradual manner.
In The Altenberg 16: An Expose of the Evolution Industry, biologist Lynn Margulis (winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal for Science) discusses the persistence of neo-Darwinian theory, despite its deteriorating scientific basis, with journalist Susan Mazur. Margulis suggests that this persistence is due to scientists’ loyalty to their “tribal group” (or those who share a like-minded philosophical or religious orientation), and not for reasons which can be deemed scientific:
Margulis: “If enough favorable mutations occur, was the erroneous extrapolation, a change from one species to another would concurrently occur.”
Mazur: “So a certain dishonesty set in?”
Margulis: “No. It was not dishonesty. I think it was wish-fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact.”
Mazur: “But a whole industry grew up.”
Margulis: “Yes, but people are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any abstract notion of ‘truth’ – scientists especially. If not they are unemployable. It is professional suicide to continually contradict one’s teachers or social leaders.”
Atheistic conclusions which purportedly arise from scientific research, such as neo-Darwinism, can hardly be characterized as the logical result of an objective examination of facts. Rather, they precede the examination of facts and reflect the religious beliefs of a scientist’s “tribal group.” This can be the case even when such theories have a basis which has been eroded by advances in scientific understanding. The late great Harvard University paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science Stephen J. Gould echoed Margulis’ above comments when he wrote:
“Unconscious or dimly perceived finagling is probably endemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural contexts, not automatons directed toward external truth.”
The real consensus behind Charles Darwin ‘s theory is religious or philosophical in nature.
In what “cultural contexts” are atheist biologists rooted, causing them to perpetrate “unconscious or dimly perceived finagling?” For one, in the cultural context that the material world is the most basic, fundamental plane of existence (a worldview known as “materialism” or “naturalism”). The Harvard University geneticist Richard C. Lewontin commented in 1997 that, in reference to defending Darwinism in a debate:
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
Similarly, in her essay How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down, Nancy Pearcey notes how some scientists have actually admitted that atheistic/naturalistic philosophy guides their reasoning processes. This is a violation of the spirit of scientific inquiry, which states that one should follow the facts wherever they lead:
“The media paints the evolution controversy in terms of science versus religion. But it is much more accurate to say it is worldview versus worldview, philosophy versus philosophy…”
“Interestingly, a few evolutionists do acknowledge the point. Michael Ruse made a famous admission at the 1993 symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ‘Evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism,’ he said—that is, it is a philosophy, not just facts. He went on: ‘Evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically.’ Ruse’s colleagues responded with shocked silence and afterward one of them, Arthur Shapiro, wrote a commentary titled, ‘Did Michael Ruse Give Away the Store?’”
“But, ironically, in the process, Shapiro himself conceded that ‘there is an irreducible core of ideological assumptions underlying science,’ He went on: ‘Darwinism is a philosophical preference, if by that we mean we choose to discuss the material universe in terms of material processes accessible by material operations.’”
So how do we know that the change over time of evolution is really the result of an INTELLIGENT cause (read: God)? Please FOLLOW THE FACTS WHERE THEY LEAD by reading my posts titled The Case for God is Not a Case of the God of the Gaps and Darwinist Detective Work, and Why Life Could Not Have Emerged Without God.
Can 21st century science explain the most amazing Christmas “light” of them all?
This time of year we see a variety of Christmas lights to inspire and lift our spirits. But there is one light that is the reason for the Season. It has defied explanation, despite 1000s of hours study using the very latest technology and research. The negative image on the Shroud of Turin has been likened to the human shadows left behind on walls in Hiroshima after the atomic blast. Based on 1980s radiometric dating, It was dismissed as a medieval reproduction of the Gospel depiction, post the Crucifixion.
This was until some researchers realized that the small specimens removed to carbon date it, were from a corner of the cloth that was repaired with cotton after a medieval fire. A theory 1st scoffed at by Ray Rogers, the forensic chemist who lead the original 1978 STRY team, who now concedes after re-examining his original ’78 specimen, it does indeed contain extraneous cotton weaving.
The “artist” would have to be such an expert in 20th century biochemistry, medicine, forensic pathology and anatomy, botany (access to pollen specific to Palestine), photography and 3-D computer analysis, that he has foiled all the efforts of modern science. His unknown and historically unduplicated artistic technique surpasses all great historical artists, making the pale efforts of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli appear as infantile scribblings.
If the Shroud of Turin is a forgery of the 14th century, as the radio-carbonists 30 years ago claim, and not a genuine artifact of the 1st century, all of these qualities of the purported medieval “forgerer” must be accepted.
To be replicated or “forged” it would have to have been painted. It is an irrefutable fact that there is NO paint, pigment, fibre cementing or dusting on the Shroud leaving the only explanation of the technique of the forgerer to have used laser, radiation or “photography” to manufacture the relic in the THIRTEENTH CENTURY!! Some authors have gone so far as to suggest exactly that.
Whether a relic or a replica it is an amazing, inspirational piece of cloth that defies scientific explanation! Nevertheless one’s faith and thus the existence of God doesnt rise or fall on the authenticity or otherwise of one religious artifact. On the other hand, one can well understand why staunch deniers and cynics dread that it is GENUINE. For they might just have to listen to what Jesus has to say and thus address the implications for their lives
. Below is a link to one brief example of many more extensive videos on the most studied artefact in human history.
John 8:12, 1 John 1:5 “. . . . . . in Him there is no darkness”
God’s blessings this Christmas!!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+jesus+from+the+shroud+
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