Creationists and Scientific Logic
Scott Anderson

Creationists are of the opinion that creationism constitutes a better explanation of the evolutionary process? By what standard would they consider it better? Creationism demands that the logic of the scientific method be abandoned in favor of whatever logic one might be able to scrape out of the Bible.

Special creationism demands that we believe that some six thousand years ago the universe was magically created, with the sun appearing long after plants, and man apparently living concurrently with carnivorous animals (perhaps including dinosaurs).  It demands that all the planetary evidence that coincides with evolutionary theory (the geologic table, continental drift, erosion, et cetera), all the biological evidence (DNA, biochemistry, microbiology, anthropology, et cetera), all the historical evidence (the fossil record, archaeology, anthropology, et cetera), all the astronomical evidence (quantum singularities, the age of stars, the history of the universe, et cetera) has been misinterpreted. The evidence from physics and chemistry (the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics, amino acids and proteins, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad absurdum) have all been misinterpreted.  And I'm even leaving out several fields.

They are all in error, I take it? Why, then, has it all seemed to fit so well? Was it a conspiracy, or was it simply science's way of hiding the fact that they had no idea?

Creationists still have to show that science is, in fact, wrong.  This must first occur before they can begin postulating how the errors (as they must call them) persisted for so long.  Creationists are more than happy to accept scientific reasoning but are unwilling to accept the conclusions. That's why the battle is not creation versus evolution. Perhaps many creationists believe that, but it is not the case.

The same thoughts and processes thereof that led to the theory of evolution exist in all branches of science. It's called the scientific method.  In addition, evolution gets direct and indirect support from a thousand different facts from every constellation in the sky of science.  In addition, evolution gives direct and indirect support to every constellation.  Science is not a batch of unrelated theories - science is a unit.

To replace evolution with creationism would dictate that we throw out all the data we have about the age of the universe (all of it points to billions of years, not thousands).  We would have to throw away the psychological data gained from testing on, for instance, lab rats. How could the data from rats relate in any way to the inspired, specially created souls of human beings? Anthropology would have to be dispensed with. Archaeology would find itself in the trash bin. Biology books would be so much toilet paper.  In short, a thousand different independent but strangely cohesive facts and theories - a million tidbits of knowledge about ourselves and our world - would have to be destroyed in favor of magic and mysticism.

We've been through that before - it was called the Dark Ages. I see no logical reason why we should return to them.