Evolution, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, Creation, and Science Class
Yesterday, I was listening to Mark Taylor filling in for Hugh Hewitt and he had Dr. "Fuz" Rana as a guest on the show for the last hour and he made several points which disturbed me.
First, he tried to divorce science from nature, arguing that science is really an approach to determining truth, not a method of observing and understanding nature. If we observe the 4 steps in the scientific method, we observe that the final step is experimentation. At this point, I think Fuz runs into two problems:
1 - How do you experiment with raw truth? Experiments are inherently tied to natural processes.
2 - Supernatural events are not predictable, regular, and reproduceable.
Take for example, God stopping the sun for Joshua. The specific event could not be predicted, would not have fit into a natural theory, did not regularly occur, and is not reproduceable. In making this argument, Fuz confuzed much of the philosophical issue. The issue is not expanding science to all truth. That is actually much of the problem. The real issue is defining the real realm of science, outside of which, science is not applicable. As we see above, science is not the proper tool for understanding supernatural events.
Furthermore, Fuz argued that Intelligent Design should not be taught in the classroom because it has not scientific model. Again, this misses the point. The point is not that alternative science should be taught, but that by teaching evolution, the class has already moved from the realm of science to philosophy. Intelligent design and creation are also not scientific positions but philosophical positions. All touch natural and therefore scientific issues, but they are primarily external to science, by virtue of their appeal to a supernatural intelligence.
On the other hand, the theory of evolution and natural origins (Big Bang, abiogenesis, biological evolution, long age dating, etc.) all make an unverifable and therefore extrascientific assumption: nothing exists except the natural world; therefore, no supernatural intervention occurer; therefore, natural processes can accurately tell us as much about the past as they can about the future, and therefore natural processes can explain everything from the creation of the world to molecules to man evolution.
At this point, it seems to me that the primary issue becomes obvious, all these systems make a philosophical and scientifically unverifiable assumption that either places all things within the realm of nature and therefore all things are open to science or places only some things within the realm of nature and other things in the realm of the supernatural. Thus, the real issue is not what does science say, but the philosophical basis for defining the proper realm of scientific application.
Consider these two examples:
1 - Returning to the initial example I used concerning God stopping the sun for Joshua. Science could not have anticipated, explained, or expected this supernatural event in the future, present, or past. If one had not experienced the supernatural event, a day after, one would have expected that the day before had been a natural 24 hour day. The day before, one would have expected the next day to be a natural 24 hour day. But it wasn't. God stepped in, put natural processes on hold, and did something science can not account for. There is no force known to science capable of causing such an event or preventing the catastrophy that such an event should have caused. Consider what would probably be the easiest way to achieve the effect of a lengthened day, slowing or stopping the earth's revolution and then restarting the earth's revolution. In both cases, even assuming that by some miracle, the earth suddenly changed to this new revolution, science would have predicted chaos on earth as people where hurled from the surface of the earth as their inertia ceased to be in step with the earth's revolution, buildings would likely collapse, oceans would rush out of place, etc.
2 - Moving backwards to creation, consider the creation of rocks, plants, and Adam? After having existed for only a few seconds, what would science have predicted upon examination of them? Science would assume natural processes such as those we see around them for all three. It would expect that the rocks formed over a relatively long period of time, beginning as lava coming from the center of the earth, cooling on the earth, etc. For plants, it would seek to measure tree rings, look at the basic stage of life and match it up with natural processes. For Adam, it would have predicted that he had been born about 20 years ago, learned to speak, etc. In all cases, correct application of science leads to conclusions different from the truth because of supernatural intervention in the natural processes that form the basis of scientific prediction, explanation, and historical projection.
What probably disturbed me most from Fuz's discussion was that he claimed that Creation constituted an unscientific system which should not be taught in science class, but that he and Hugh Ross, together with an institution they had founded, were working on a version of Intelligent Design that fit the Biblical account to a scientifically verifiable set of scientific "predictions" (essentially, Divinely powered punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution was not gradual, but occured in short leaps between advanceless eons). While his prediction may be verifiable based upon natural assumptions and the fossil record interpreted in long age terms, his mechanism is not natural and therefore untestable and unverifiable, making the idea just as unscientific as creation. The fact that "predictions" can be made from a supernatural basis that observation of the present world supports, does NOT make the supernatural basis scientific.
Therefore, to those who say that ideas such as Intelligent Design (ID) and Creation should not be taught in science class, I have several points
1 - Perhaps this is so, but then evolution should not be taught either.
2 - These ideas maybe shouldn't be taught in science class, but the philosophy and assumptions of science should be. It may be inappropriate to teach 6 day creation from the Bible in science class, but it is vital that the philosophical premise of science be taught. That is the biggest problem with what is being taught today. Without pointing out the philosophical naturalism assumed by much of historical projective science today, people assume the projections must be true rather than understanding the vital and false assumption being made. Even many scientists who claim to believe in God seem to lack proper knowledge of this point.
3 - Evolution, ID, and Creation may be inappropriate topics for science classes, but they are important questions of philosophy and I believe that they should be taught as separate philosophies which are not scientifically verifiable. Perhaps rather than simply teaching kids "facts" as some education board determines it, we should teach kids philosophy and how to think, giving them multiple sides of the issue, arguments from both sides, and allow them to observe the debate and make their own conclusions. It seems to me that most schools teach disconnected sets of facts (language, science, politics, math, etc.) without covering the philsophical and world views behind and connecting them, leading to people that know stuff but can not tell you why it's important or how all what they know fits together.
As for where I stand on the issue, as I have previously argued in multiple places, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as outlined in the Bible. While I respect the attempt by theistic evolutionists (such as Fuz and Ross) to attempt to construct a consistent system that reconciles science and the Bible, I think they misunderstand the philosophical problems with assuming that science has proven evolution and long ages, and therefore first interpret the Bible according to science, and then try to interject the Bible into science. I find it more appropriate to take the Bible at it's clear meaning and use that as the basis for true science and defining the realm within which science is a valid tool, but outside of which it is invalid and it's conclusions are therefore suspect.
In his defense, Fuz did attempt to claim he was interpreting the Bible literally by interpreting day as long period and he did acknowledge a literal Adam. However, while it may be possible to stretch the days of Genesis 1 into eons, there are multiple references back to 6 day creation throughout the rest of the Bible that are not stretched so easily. The Bible, like philosophy, science, and "facts" needs to be understood as a single coherant system. Furthermore, the Bible's order of creation does not agree with the evolutionary chronology at all. For example, evolution claims that birds came from dinosaurs (land creatures) which came from sea creatures. However, the Bible teaches that birds (5th day) preceeded land creatures (6th day). Finally, and most importantly, such a long age interpretation, even of punctuated equilibrium, teaches that violence, death, etc. is the natural order of the world, conflicting directly with Genesis 3, which teaches that death and violence are results of sin and the curse which came upon the world in response to a literal Adam disobeying God. This might seem to be a minor region of doctrine, but it is not. The doctrines of the origin of death and original sin are vital to understanding the gospel of Christ. Christ came to take that penalty of death originally declared against the first Adam so that we might receive life throught he second Adam (Christ). If death was is not the unnatural penalty of sin, but rather the natural course of a "very good" world, Christ's death is purposeless. It makes no sense. For a more detailed explanation of the importance of properly understanding Genesis, I highly recommend Ken Ham's book Why Won't They Listen.
First, he tried to divorce science from nature, arguing that science is really an approach to determining truth, not a method of observing and understanding nature. If we observe the 4 steps in the scientific method, we observe that the final step is experimentation. At this point, I think Fuz runs into two problems:
1 - How do you experiment with raw truth? Experiments are inherently tied to natural processes.
2 - Supernatural events are not predictable, regular, and reproduceable.
Take for example, God stopping the sun for Joshua. The specific event could not be predicted, would not have fit into a natural theory, did not regularly occur, and is not reproduceable. In making this argument, Fuz confuzed much of the philosophical issue. The issue is not expanding science to all truth. That is actually much of the problem. The real issue is defining the real realm of science, outside of which, science is not applicable. As we see above, science is not the proper tool for understanding supernatural events.
Furthermore, Fuz argued that Intelligent Design should not be taught in the classroom because it has not scientific model. Again, this misses the point. The point is not that alternative science should be taught, but that by teaching evolution, the class has already moved from the realm of science to philosophy. Intelligent design and creation are also not scientific positions but philosophical positions. All touch natural and therefore scientific issues, but they are primarily external to science, by virtue of their appeal to a supernatural intelligence.
On the other hand, the theory of evolution and natural origins (Big Bang, abiogenesis, biological evolution, long age dating, etc.) all make an unverifable and therefore extrascientific assumption: nothing exists except the natural world; therefore, no supernatural intervention occurer; therefore, natural processes can accurately tell us as much about the past as they can about the future, and therefore natural processes can explain everything from the creation of the world to molecules to man evolution.
At this point, it seems to me that the primary issue becomes obvious, all these systems make a philosophical and scientifically unverifiable assumption that either places all things within the realm of nature and therefore all things are open to science or places only some things within the realm of nature and other things in the realm of the supernatural. Thus, the real issue is not what does science say, but the philosophical basis for defining the proper realm of scientific application.
Consider these two examples:
1 - Returning to the initial example I used concerning God stopping the sun for Joshua. Science could not have anticipated, explained, or expected this supernatural event in the future, present, or past. If one had not experienced the supernatural event, a day after, one would have expected that the day before had been a natural 24 hour day. The day before, one would have expected the next day to be a natural 24 hour day. But it wasn't. God stepped in, put natural processes on hold, and did something science can not account for. There is no force known to science capable of causing such an event or preventing the catastrophy that such an event should have caused. Consider what would probably be the easiest way to achieve the effect of a lengthened day, slowing or stopping the earth's revolution and then restarting the earth's revolution. In both cases, even assuming that by some miracle, the earth suddenly changed to this new revolution, science would have predicted chaos on earth as people where hurled from the surface of the earth as their inertia ceased to be in step with the earth's revolution, buildings would likely collapse, oceans would rush out of place, etc.
2 - Moving backwards to creation, consider the creation of rocks, plants, and Adam? After having existed for only a few seconds, what would science have predicted upon examination of them? Science would assume natural processes such as those we see around them for all three. It would expect that the rocks formed over a relatively long period of time, beginning as lava coming from the center of the earth, cooling on the earth, etc. For plants, it would seek to measure tree rings, look at the basic stage of life and match it up with natural processes. For Adam, it would have predicted that he had been born about 20 years ago, learned to speak, etc. In all cases, correct application of science leads to conclusions different from the truth because of supernatural intervention in the natural processes that form the basis of scientific prediction, explanation, and historical projection.
What probably disturbed me most from Fuz's discussion was that he claimed that Creation constituted an unscientific system which should not be taught in science class, but that he and Hugh Ross, together with an institution they had founded, were working on a version of Intelligent Design that fit the Biblical account to a scientifically verifiable set of scientific "predictions" (essentially, Divinely powered punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution was not gradual, but occured in short leaps between advanceless eons). While his prediction may be verifiable based upon natural assumptions and the fossil record interpreted in long age terms, his mechanism is not natural and therefore untestable and unverifiable, making the idea just as unscientific as creation. The fact that "predictions" can be made from a supernatural basis that observation of the present world supports, does NOT make the supernatural basis scientific.
Therefore, to those who say that ideas such as Intelligent Design (ID) and Creation should not be taught in science class, I have several points
1 - Perhaps this is so, but then evolution should not be taught either.
2 - These ideas maybe shouldn't be taught in science class, but the philosophy and assumptions of science should be. It may be inappropriate to teach 6 day creation from the Bible in science class, but it is vital that the philosophical premise of science be taught. That is the biggest problem with what is being taught today. Without pointing out the philosophical naturalism assumed by much of historical projective science today, people assume the projections must be true rather than understanding the vital and false assumption being made. Even many scientists who claim to believe in God seem to lack proper knowledge of this point.
3 - Evolution, ID, and Creation may be inappropriate topics for science classes, but they are important questions of philosophy and I believe that they should be taught as separate philosophies which are not scientifically verifiable. Perhaps rather than simply teaching kids "facts" as some education board determines it, we should teach kids philosophy and how to think, giving them multiple sides of the issue, arguments from both sides, and allow them to observe the debate and make their own conclusions. It seems to me that most schools teach disconnected sets of facts (language, science, politics, math, etc.) without covering the philsophical and world views behind and connecting them, leading to people that know stuff but can not tell you why it's important or how all what they know fits together.
As for where I stand on the issue, as I have previously argued in multiple places, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as outlined in the Bible. While I respect the attempt by theistic evolutionists (such as Fuz and Ross) to attempt to construct a consistent system that reconciles science and the Bible, I think they misunderstand the philosophical problems with assuming that science has proven evolution and long ages, and therefore first interpret the Bible according to science, and then try to interject the Bible into science. I find it more appropriate to take the Bible at it's clear meaning and use that as the basis for true science and defining the realm within which science is a valid tool, but outside of which it is invalid and it's conclusions are therefore suspect.
In his defense, Fuz did attempt to claim he was interpreting the Bible literally by interpreting day as long period and he did acknowledge a literal Adam. However, while it may be possible to stretch the days of Genesis 1 into eons, there are multiple references back to 6 day creation throughout the rest of the Bible that are not stretched so easily. The Bible, like philosophy, science, and "facts" needs to be understood as a single coherant system. Furthermore, the Bible's order of creation does not agree with the evolutionary chronology at all. For example, evolution claims that birds came from dinosaurs (land creatures) which came from sea creatures. However, the Bible teaches that birds (5th day) preceeded land creatures (6th day). Finally, and most importantly, such a long age interpretation, even of punctuated equilibrium, teaches that violence, death, etc. is the natural order of the world, conflicting directly with Genesis 3, which teaches that death and violence are results of sin and the curse which came upon the world in response to a literal Adam disobeying God. This might seem to be a minor region of doctrine, but it is not. The doctrines of the origin of death and original sin are vital to understanding the gospel of Christ. Christ came to take that penalty of death originally declared against the first Adam so that we might receive life throught he second Adam (Christ). If death was is not the unnatural penalty of sin, but rather the natural course of a "very good" world, Christ's death is purposeless. It makes no sense. For a more detailed explanation of the importance of properly understanding Genesis, I highly recommend Ken Ham's book Why Won't They Listen.