Some Flaws in Creationist Epistimology

[jordan179]

Creationists reason as if there were a binary choice::  Currently Accepted Scientific Theory vs. Biblical Literalism.  This dichotomy is irrational, and it's at the heart of why nobody who understands science takes Young Earth Creationists very seriously in intellectual terms

Comments

[jsl32]

This is...not really reflective of the creationist range of positions.

[jordan179]

I was speaking specifically of Young Earth Creationism. Which "creationist positions" did you have in mind as exceptions to my arguments, expressing more rational ideas?

[foxfire74]

Growing up in the Bible Belt,we had a strict tripartite division going between Young Earth Creationism, Them Godless Darwinists, and the Weaselly Fence-Sitting Theistic Evolutionists, who were clearly trying to have their cake and eat it too. I was largely surrounded by YECs while being a WFSTE, which gave me early training in when to keep my mouth shut. :) (Theistic evolution can be summed up as "yeah, evolution, as given a push by God".)

I personally have a sort of fuzzy creationism going; I believe that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of the physical universe, but 1) I don't think He cares how I think the details took place and 2) the available evidence suggests billions of years/Charles Darwin/et cetera. God's responsible for the structure and functioning of my brain, and I don't think he intended me not to USE it... (God would probably care much more about my opinion on the details if I were a scientist, admittedly

[jordan179]

Theistic evolution is certainly possible. There's no real evidence for it, but it doesn't contradict any known things about the Universe either. I've used variants of the concept in fiction more than once (often cool Manichean Dualist ones with Light and Dark powers struggling for the Destiny of All Life).

I don't think that YEC's have to be stupid. It's easy to ignore evidence in fields that are not one's own specialty.

[prester_scott]

(Moved to its own thread.)

I think the Universe and the evolution of Life both awesome and spectacular. I just don't think it's supernatural.I think this is very well said, Jordan, because it reveals that the real clash is not in epistemology, but metaphysics

The Creation and Multiplicity of Universes

[jordan179]

... there is no evidence that the universe is sapient and capable of creating anything.

A process need not be "sapient" to "create" things in the sense of causing greater order to come into being. The more we study the Universe, the more we discover evolutionary processes operating in it, and all of them are similar. The products of some random, heritable variation are filtered through some sort of selection, imposed by the environment, and then the variation and selection are reiterated. Galaxies, star systems, and life all come about through such processes

Re: The Creation and Multiplicity of Universes

[prester_scott]

I am not disputing that evolution happens. As far as I know, YECs (which I am not) actually don't either -- they just don't think that evolution is THE ONLY way things happen.

There is also no evidence that there is any god or gods who are sapient and capable of creating anything

Oh, rubbish. Complete utter hogswallow. This is exactly what I meant in my post about category errors and unacknowledged presuppositions. There is ALL SORTS of evidence of the supernatural. There is no evidence of the supernatural that is provable by natural physical science. Natural things that are claimed to be the results of supernatural causes can be evaluated by science, but about the supernatural causes themselves, natural science must be silent. The category mistake is this: why should (and indeed, how can) the supernatural be evaluated by a scientific method designed to evaluate natural things? Your unstated presupposition is: "Only natural things, which can be evaluated by natural science, exist." It's fine if you want to believe that, but

Re: The Creation and Multiplicity of Universes

[benschachar_77]

A process need not be "sapient" to "create" things in the sense of causing greater order to come into being. The more we study the Universe, the more we discover evolutionary processes operating in it, and all of them are similar. The products of some random, heritable variation are filtered through some sort of selection, imposed by the environment, and then the variation and selection are reiterated. Galaxies, star systems, and life all come about through such processes.

What?
Stars neither eat nor prey. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[ford_prefect42]

I think that you're missing an important aspect of the debate

[jordan179]

And really, what difference does it make? If they doubted quantum mechanics, then they would have to explain why cell phones work. If they doubted vaccines, like leftists do, then they'd have to explain how smallpox was eliminated. but evolution? The big bang? does it really *matter* whether those things are consistent with the fossil record? To what?Many of our insights into the root causes of human behavior, and how that behavior may be modified into less-destructive behavior, come from evolutionary theory via sociobiology. Much of our undestanding of planetology, including the distribution of valuable resources on other planets, comes from cosmology. The underlying causations of geological processes are impossible to grasp in a Young Earth Creationist Cosmology. Without grasping that new species evolve rarely compared to the length of a single human life, the disaster that is the Sixth Mass Extinction is not even noticeable. And so on

[gothelittle]

I haven't yet seen any instigation into behavior modification based on evolutionary theory that does anybody any good. What invariably winds up happening is an attempt to abandon the structures that work best out of a belief that we have 'evolved beyond it' plus a desire to fight against anything 'imposed by one of those primitive backwards religions' (e.g. all of them) in hopes that we can 'evolve our way' out of needing family structures, tribal identities, or harsh punishment for committing atrocities.

[madwriter]

It was just two days ago that I ran across a quote by the Rev. Baden Powell (father of the founder of the Boy Scouts), who, when studying the fossil record in the middle of the 19th century, finally concluded that evolution was science, Genesis was poetry.

I joined my parents and sister in their church this past Sunday and was pleasantly surprised when their minister said "The Big Bang and evolution are the how and the when; the Bible is the who and the why."

As for the "If we're ignorant of the mechanisms it must be God" notion, I tend to see that the most of any "argument" the YECs make.

[luagha]

I just have to say that there is still so much we don't know about the process of evolution. Incredible research is being done all the time.