[Or are they anti-inferential-Truth-saying in the name of science?]
The only “science” that finds opposition from the Christian sector is the inferential science of evolution. Evolution fans claim that Christians (and Muslims and Jews) are anti-science, a term of condemnation.
The first issue here is the total inability of some evolutionists to differentiate between the evolutionary inferential hypothesis, and science as a total function (of which evolution is actually a minor player, if at all). So if one is skeptical of evolution, one is declared “anti-science” as if there is no other science. The ensuing hatred of the “anti-scientific” seems endemic amongst the evolutionists, who appear to feel abused by being questioned.
There is a seemingly overwhelming psychological need to believe in evolution as truth, and a need to decry religion as anti-rational, when in fact it is the knee-jerk belief in evolution that is anti-rational. Here’s why:
In science there is no such thing as “truth”, immutable, absolute, unchanging. All that science can produce is contingent factoids concerning the physical, observable, testable, material universe. Empiricism provides a temporary, contingent knowledge that is limited by testing technology and ability to interpret results based on current knowledge. Any and all scientific knowledge can be overturned at a moment’s notice by new inputs or new insights. There is no possibility of producing an immutable Truth out of this empirical pursuit of the scientific method.
Even less related to “Truth” are inferential hypotheses, extrapolated from inducted instances into fabricated stories of supposed relationships that are neither observable nor testable. Such inferences are “beliefs”, not facts, factoids, or truths in any sense.
So it is easy to see that evolution, as a science, is severely weakened by its permanent inferential, non-empirical nature. It depends on stochastic inference in the sense of probabilities that are calculated based on inference and stories. The accuracy of these calulations can be no greater than the accuracy of the inputs to them: inference is still inference.
Some Christians do suffer from the same delusions of inferred science “truth” - that of Intelligent Design, for example. Design must be inferred, since it cannot be proven. So Intelligent Design is very similar to the evolution hypothesis in that it is not empirical, is inferential only, and can never provide the scientific necessity of experimental validation and replication.
But just as ID draws inferences that are different from those allowed by the supposedly materialist, rationalist entreaties of evolutionary science, so are the inferences drawn by evolutionary science hardly allowable in a rational sense. Neither ID nor evolutionary theory has any firm basis beyond inference to support it. Although some Christians accept evolutionary inference over ID inference, many Christians reject both. Both hypotheses are non-empirical, and are belief systems that are competing with other belief systems.
In other words, it is a war between religions, not a war by religion on science.
The religion of evolution has produced sainthood for its creator, Charles Darwin. The religious fervor with which Darwin is being worshipped should make this obvious. Evolution has no empirical basis; it is a religion, based on the (inferred)revelations of Charles Darwin, patron saint. Subsequent inferences are forced into congruence with those revelations. When this is not possible, redefinition of words is necessary. Congruence with “common descent” will be had.
Meanwhile, actual modern biological science will proceed completely unscathed by this religious fervor, upon which it is not dependent. And this is the approach favored by a great many Christians.
6 comments:
Depends. Do you think the earth is 6,000 years old?
Stan, you're obviously articulate, but your understanding of evolutionary theory is limited. There is emprical evidence of evolution. I will refer you to the fields of virology and immunology for examples. It's all in the genes, buddy.
There is a book entitled "The Evolution of Disease" that an evolutionary biologist, Tom Shelburg, referred me to and I borrowed. I should buy the book and send you a copy.
What really made evolutionary theory click for me was the book, "The Dinosaur Heresies." I also read Gould's "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory". It is impossible to put into the comments under a blog post, or to even explain it in a single blog entry, but evolutionary theory has incredible explanatory power--which is why it has "theory" status. You're stuck on fossils, and evolutionary theory has moved way beyond them.
I learned about evolution when I was in high school, then college, when I was a biology major. I took my last biology class in 1994. What they have discovered since then is so far beyond what I studied in college, it's just incredible. We were stuck on fossils in the early 90s, too; once genomes began to be mapped, the clarity of evolutionary theory became so much sharper.
Absolute truth is completely overrated, since it's based entirely on faith. I'd prefer to say that I don't know how the universe came to exist, and I don't know how life began on Earth--but I'd rather find out than be told, and I'd rather have the answers be based in reality than on faith. According to your understanding of science, scientists can't really know anything, but there's plenty of practical knowledge that has come from science. The ability to travel into space, build telescopes that can see planets, measure great distances between stars and galaxies, build computers, engineer machines...the list is huge and growing.
Andrew T:
Why of course I do, the earth is at LEAST 6,000 years old.
[sarcasm mode: off]
Actually anyone who has spent any time in the Grand Canyon will likely come to agree that the erosion side canyons and the winding of the river do not indicate either a flood, or a young earth. Nor do the seashells found at the crests of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. However, the young earth issue is not really one that affects anyone except that it jacks up the evolutionists.
If you think that I am a creationist, then you haven't read this blog very carefully. I am neither a creationist nor an ID proponent. But that doesn't mean that evolution must be considered correct by default, which is the usual argument ("name a better hypothesis"). In fact, panspermia is more parsimonious and more in line with lateral gene transfer.
But the entire Darwinian species / tree of life / common descent story is on its way to deflation by its own modern scientists in the real field of experimental and molecular biology.
It is highly likely that Darwin will be found wrong on all counts and that the demise of Darwinian evolution will have no affect on the rest of biology.
Again it is not the science for which Darwin is revered, it is the Philosophical Materialism that his hypothesis supported amongst the Atheists and radicals.
Greg,
Thanks for your comments. Please don't mistake my position on common descent as ignorance of modern biology. You might read the other posts in the "evolution" post category for a more complete view of my positions.
I am fully aware of epigenetics, and viral introgression etc. And I am aware of the new sources of non-DNA genetic materials being discovered and cataloged, in just the past months. I am aware of gene switching and sharing. I am also aware that the entire concept of "species" is fading due to lateral gene sharing, and the impact of this is likely to be to remove speciation as a criterion for evolution (macro), and selection as a criterion for anything other than intragenome individual characteristics.
It is not possible to have every book on evolution in one's library (without a government bailout package), but some books I do try to find through the library.
The "Altenberg 16" biologists who met last year will publish new definitions for evolution in the coming year. Meantime, the molecular biology seems to be producing more rapidly than ever, and possibly the A-16 definitions will be stale on arrival.
The point of my recent posts has been to decorate the evolutionary promises vs. the reality. The evolutionary tenets of prehistory are unprovable empirically, yet these are the ones by which the radicals have sworn their philosophies. The worship of Darwin comes from the radicalized materialists; no scientists with contributions that are realized by the entire population of the earth are worshipped in this manner. It is the social impact of the Atheism that Darwin wittingly unleashed as a "science" that is revered.
As for explanatory power, if species are eliminated from the lexicon, and selection is found to be useful for stasis only, and the tree of life is reduced to a matrix or a lawn structure, then what does "evolution" explain?
As for truth, there is truth; it is found starting with the First Principles of Logic and Rational Thought, it is non-material, and it is empirically non-verifiable... yet empiricism cannot exist without axiomatic acceptance of the validity of those principles. Truth actually is inferential, but it does not exist in the material realm.
[After rereading this, it appears stilted and possibly more combative than necessary; but I am tired tonight and need sleep, so kindly read it with that in mind, as I disappear now].
Stan: Given your recent posts on evolution, I can't tell what kind of creationist you are. That's why I asked. Seriously!
I also asked about the 6,000 years bit, because young-earth creationists reject not only biology, but all of modern astronomy, paleontology, and geology -- just for starters. Most YECs also reject all of physics and geochemistry (because, of course, radioactive decay rates are "inaccurate" in their views), and some even argue at great length that the speed of light is not a constant.
That position, I think we both agree, is fervently anti-science. And that's all I was trying to figure out.
Thanks for your reply.
YEC's are a tiny subset of Christians. There are wackos in every stream life.
I am more interested in intellectual integrity, logic, and rationality (vs. rationalization).
Evolution has always, from Darwin to present, been a rationalization and a tool for Atheist and tyrannical philosophies - which go hand in hand.
[A rationalization occurs when an effect is declared, and causes are manufactured to fit the effect; it is found in the terminal use of inference as evidence or even "proof"; it is data jamming.]
The philosophical evolutionists are prone to spout as much hate and vitriol as are their YEC/ID opponents, and their positions are just as empirically untenable. But which is the more dangerous to society, if one values personal freedom over equality of outcome?
Perhaps it is time to review Nietzsche (evolutionary Atheist and official philosopher of the German National Socialist Party, and major influence to Lenin).
Perhaps the most damaging of works against evolution is the mathematics of Sir Fred Hoyle, who concluded that beneficial mutations could not overcome deleterious mutations in order to produce the change required for "descent with change". He concluded that a "genetic storm" would be required, during which the male and female would both receive beneficial change that could be passed on in sufficient quantity to form a stable sub-group. Hoyle also calculated the probability of abiogenesis to be 10^-400, a value beyond hopelessly negligible.
These mathematical insights turn out to be supporting statements for the idea of panspermia, as against evolution. But panspermia is also plagued with the problem of being purely inferential and without empirical validation.
So why is it not possible to concude that we don't know, and can't know with any real certainty the origin of mammals, reptiles, etc, clear back to eukaryotes, prokaryotes? The reason is Philosophical Materialism, which demands a material-based explanation for everything, the holy grail of a unifying theory, and if one can't have an empirical explanation, one must make one up, because materialist biology demands a unifying theory.
It is this philosophy that forces a gaping lapse in the intellectual integrity of paleobiology or whatever you might choose to term the pursuit of origins.
Because the materialist evolutionist, elitist, humanist, Atheist philosophies are the most dangerous and the most powerful use of fallacious thought, these are the ones I choose to fight.
YEC/ID theories are much more innocuous and less powerful even though similarly fallacious. I spend no time on them.
Maybe I should post my position on this.
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