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Is Creationism Scientific?

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I think the semester is getting to everybody. My colleagues have started a long email exchange on whether creationism is anti-scientific. The most recent contribution from a colleague at the Law School is that rejecting creationism is anti-scientific because the truly scientific method gives equal consideration to all theories. Another colleague agreed that creationism is “a strong competing theory” for evolution and has to be taught.

This entire debacle was started by somebody inviting us (college professors) to a talk on creationism by a homeschooled student where we would “defend our faith and glorify God in  the process.” Given that we are a state university and are not normally allowed even to mention our political preferences in personal emails sent out from the university server, people started to wonder why this kind of religious propaganda was suddenly allowed to be sent out to everybody through the university email.

Thanksgiving break can’t come soon enough.

31 responses to “Is Creationism Scientific?”

  1. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Creationism is not scientific. It’s a shenanigan tool for retarded or for the interest of the religious integrists faggots.

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    1. Josh Sietsema (@jsietsema) Avatar
      Josh Sietsema (@jsietsema)

      Ableism and homophobia isn’t okay.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        And we see that homophobia and creationism are naturally linked…but this is just a coïncidence!

        If you were not a retarded reader, you would have seen that this is a sarcasm of my part. I talked about retarded people like Todd “legitimate rape prevents abortions” Akin.

        Real trisomic people are rarely women-hating racist religious faggots!

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      2. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        And I would never call any trisomic person a retarded, nor I would call any homosexual a faggot.

        Religion is a product of faggotry.

        Why religion is the product of faggotry.

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      3. Alex Avatar
        Alex

        No, because sarcasm is still supposed to be funny and calling anyone or anything a “retard” or “faggot” is never funny.

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      4. Lindsay Avatar
        Lindsay

        I’m with Josh … I don’t have Down syndrome, but I do have another developmental disability and that word just really trips my trigger in ways I cannot fully explain.

        I don’t completely get what you mean about the slurs you used not referring to gay or developmentally disabled people, but to hateful theocrats, but I think I might get it in part. You might have your own specially developed meaning for those words, but most people (me included) hear them and parse what you are saying as “religious extremists are like gay people and developmentally disabled people, and all of those groups of people are bad.”

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I get to explain this every time it happens. 🙂

          David and his political movemt are trying to turn offensive terms against oppressive forces. It’s like what the Slut Walk is trying to accomplish. But the entire intent behind the use of the terminology gets kind of lost in the process.

          Believe me, folks, if I had the slightest suspicion that David was homophobic, I would have descended om him like a ton of bricks. But I know for a fact that he isn’t. He is actually trying to battle homophobia in this way. You just need to know the person and his political movement to understand what he is doing here.

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      5. Francois Tremblay Avatar
        Francois Tremblay

        Neither is misogyny, but you willingly comment on this blog, so…

        Clarissa, of Clarissa’s Blog, says, stop complaining about the exploitation of women! Sit down and shut up!

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  2. The Phytophactor Avatar
    The Phytophactor

    Oh, brother! I’ve heard all this before, and let’s make the answer simple. Creationism isn’t science. The scientific method does not and never has given equal consideration to all theories, and as for a “strong competing theory” creationism has never explained a darned thing, nor made any contribution to the understanding of anything. ID isn’t even wrong, it’s useless, and that’s the part about science most non-scientists don’t get. Theories are no good if you can’t use them. Attributing biological phenomena to Invisible Magic Moon Monkeys is equivalent to creationism. Here’s the Botanical Society’s statement on evolution that I had a hand in writing. It explains the scientific position pretty well. And as for the law guys, suggest they read some law journals on the subject: Washington University
    Law Quarter, vol. 83 (1), Is it science yet? Intelligent design creationism and the constitution. Brauer, Forrest and Gey, 2005.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “ID isn’t even wrong, it’s useless, and that’s the part about science most non-scientists don’t get.”

      – Exactly. It cannot be interchangeable with or comparable to a scientific theory like evolution because it exists in a different realm. Comparing ID and evolution is like trying to compare Homer’s description of dawn and a meteorologist’s analysis. One can’t decide which one is better because they are not comparable.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    If it’s not falsifiable then it’s not science. As soon as creationists (or intelligent designist) can submit criteria by which they would accept creation theory being disproven then I’ll take them seriously.

    Evolution is falsifiable but has yet to be disproven (I go by the nothing is ever proven in science just not yet disproven).

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “As soon as creationists (or intelligent designist) can submit criteria by which they would accept creation theory being disproven then I’ll take them seriously.”

      – Good point. 🙂 Especially since nothing ever will convince them.

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  4. Rob F Avatar
    Rob F

    Creationism is not scientific.

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    1. Rob F Avatar
      Rob F

      For basically the reasons others gave, especially The Phytophactor.

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  5. AcademicLurker Avatar
    AcademicLurker

    The most recent contribution from a colleague at the Law School is that rejecting creationism is anti-scientific because the truly scientific method gives equal consideration to all theories.

    Wow…

    I’m hoping this person came up with that definition of the scientific method on his/her own and didn’t get from a class.

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  6. thevenerablecorvex Avatar
    thevenerablecorvex

    “The most recent contribution from a colleague at the Law School is that rejecting creationism is anti-scientific because the truly scientific method gives equal consideration to all theories.”

    This argument is flat-out wrong. Science does not give equal weight to different theories. Science gives equal weight, a priori, to different hypotheses. Then observation and experimentation take place, and hypotheses are allowed to rise and fall (in science’s eyes) based upon whether or not they have been falsified by the available evidence.
    The long story short is that evolution passes the test but creationism does not. Creationists often try to get around this by adding a bunch of extra assumptions to their hypotheses, which tend to render it unfalsifiable. This is, of course, fine; they are free to believe anything that they want…but once a hypothesis is unfalsifiable, it ceases being real science.
    Leave it to a lawyer to pretend that science can be conducted like politics.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The argument I;m still waiting to see trotted out is “But evolution is JUST A THEORY.” I always love it when people make that inane argument.

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  7. NancyP Avatar
    NancyP

    The average lawyer has no training in science beyond “rocks for jocks” 101 course required by the undergraduate college. Specialized lawyers, eg, patent lawyers, may have extensive engineering or science coursework behind them.

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  8. djiril Avatar
    djiril

    I’ve also noticed that many so called creationist “experts” don’t seem to have a basic understanding of the theory of evolution. If you have to ask, “How long did the first dog to evolve have to wait for another dog to mate with?” You wouldn’t have passed my 10th grade biology class.

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  9. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    OK, this is getting better and better. Now somebody has proposed that since the theory of evolution allows for randomness, this means that one can claim that God or intelligent design created the randomness and that will not be anti-scientific. So ID and evolution end up being compatible.

    I don’t claim to have a good understanding of evolution but all of this is sounding too bizarre to me.

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    1. djiril Avatar
      djiril

      Well, that works as a personal religious belief, but it’s not science.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        That’s my position exactly. As a religious person, I have a system of religious beliefs but I would be horrified if anybody tried teaching these beliefs in a school or college.

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    2. Proxy Avatar
      Proxy

      Intelligent design from non religious pov may be probable.Prometheus movie is an nice example of id theory in fiction

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    3. E (The Third Glance) Avatar
      E (The Third Glance)

      But if “god” or something created the randomness, it wouldn’t be random now, would it? I came to this game late, and don’t have anything else of substance to add. If creationism were TESTABLE and falsifiable, it would be worth considering, or at least thinking about to test. But it doesn’t, so its not scientific. The Belief in God (as a creator, etc.) is inherently something that is not testable, therefore it isn’t scientific. Doesn’t mean its not true or whatever (that is, for all intents and purposes, up to every individual to decide for themselves), but it is not scientific. Ergo, creationism is not scientific.

      I keep meaning to write a “Science to English” dictionary, including such words as “theory”, “hypothesis”, and “uncertainty” and other words that mean one thing to scientists and the scientific process, and something else to the rest of the world…

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    4. thevenerablecorvex Avatar
      thevenerablecorvex

      Am interesting idea; I myself once equated the Human soul to the capacity for unpredictable randomness. But the idea is not remotely scientific and doesn’t belong in a science class.

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  10. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    I took a class on this issue last fall. It gets scary, and I still have a difficult time thinking about how there are people who actually believe this crap. Take Dover, for instance. The NOVA documentary was scary. There are people who honestly believed that the judge should have had horrible things done to him because he ruled that the complaint of creationist textbooks was legitimate. And nobody who assigned those textbooks was a science teacher–a school board member “donated” the textbooks after refusing to buy new science textbooks. They created a potentially unsafe school environment for students who refused to be taught creationism in their biology class–let alone the situation created for teachers who refused to teach from a creationist text.

    We read a really good series of arguments against creationism and pseudoscience in class–it’s called Crusade of the Credulous by William J. Bennetta. I think it’s out of print, but if you can find a copy, I recommend it.

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    1. Rob F Avatar
      Rob F

      Yes, that NOVA documentary is excellent.

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    2. thevenerablecorvex Avatar
      thevenerablecorvex

      Is it really surprising that people who think they know biology better than scientists also think that they know law better than judges?

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      1. Pen Avatar
        Pen

        Seeing as they’re also the people who claim that teaching evolution in schools somehow deprives them of their First Amendment rights, I suppose not. It’s just scary.

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      2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        I think that the general disrespect towards science that we see on TV and among politicians is infecting people’s way of thinking.

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  11. Brandt Hardin (@DREGstudios) Avatar
    Brandt Hardin (@DREGstudios)

    Here in Tennessee, we’re just glad to have our thumbs. Don’t think for a second this will end up in Southern Classrooms of the unprogressive. Christian ideology teaches us to deny, deny, deny as teachers are now allowed to put Creationism into debate against hard facts like this new discovery. Read more about the pulpit in the classroom with some evolutionary artwork on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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