Over at Answers in Genesis, we lucky internet-users can read all of Ken Ham's book online, for free. Unfortunately, The Lie: Evolution isn't exactly the material that most of us would choose to read, even if it was handed to us. Be that as it may, I was given a link to one of the chapters, called "The Root of the Problem." As Ken would have it, the divide between evolution and creationism is based on worldviews...and in fact I have to agree with him, to a point. Trust me, I never thought that I'd be agreeing with Ken Ham...but here I am, saying that he's right about this. The problem is that creationists have a different worldview from those who accept science. But that is the only thing he has right; he doesn't even correctly identify which worldviews are at war.
It isn't a question of whether your view of the world includes God or not that divides evolution from creation, because while few people who are creationists do not believe in God (this seems, by definition, impossible, so I would be surprised if there were any creationists who are also atheists) there are many people who accept evolution and are also theists, whether Catholic, Protestant Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. This is one of the central lies promoted by Ham and his emissaries, that the division is between theism and atheism. No, it isn't that.
The central divide between creationists and mainstream science (i.e. reality and the true picture of the Earth and its history) is the importance of evidence, not the question of God's existence. It is evidence, the possession of evidence and the ability to accept evidence, that divides the creationist from the person who accepts evolution happened. Creationists fail to accept the multitude of evidence for evolution (the talkorigins.org website contains many of them as do the books Why Evolution is True, and The Greatest Show on Earth) and content themselves with trying (and failing, I might add) to poke holes in the good science of evolution and critiquing evidence presented. When asked in turn to present evidence for their beliefs, what does the creationist do? He gives bad arguments about evolution being a religion, about archaeopteryx being a fake, about carbon-14 dating being unreliable (seemingly unaware that carbon-14 is only one of many methods of dating...and when used correctly is quite reliable), about evolution being dreamt up by Darwin to deny God. The creationist spouts Bible verses as evidence, and babbles on about a conspiracy of atheistic scientists determined to suppress the truth of creation. He goes on about how it is in fact possible to put dinosaurs on the Ark, and he asserts that some cave paintings prove dinosaurs were seen by humans.
But the central problem is that, in the scientific paradigm, none of what creationists put forward as evidence is actually evidence. They're bad arguments, slander and name-calling, yes, but not evidence. This is a problem, getting creationists to understand this, that their positions must be supported by real, verifiable evidence in the natural world, that attacking evolution under the misguided banner of fairness or religious faith is no substitute for having evidence that we can all see. Ken Ham dismisses such evidence as not actually speaking to the truth of evolution, saying that, in a statement I don't quite understand, "You will see the story of evolution in words--but not in the evidence you see. The evidence is in the glass case. The hypothetical story of evolution can only be seen pasted on the glass case (original emphasis; quote taken from linked chapter)." Perhaps he means that the displays we see don't actually speak to evolution at all, but I'm hard pressed to understand that when, having been in the fine displays of the Carnegie Museum and having seen numerous pictures of fossils, a fish with legs and a dinosaur that is transitional between two types is actually evidence of evolution...and the evidence is hardly limited to fossils!
The divide between creationists and "evolutionists", as creationists like to call those in the reality-based community, isn't just about the actual evidence; it is also over the very validity of the idea of evidence itself. It's one thing for a creationist to look at the geologic column and say "Noah's Flood" while the geologist looks at it and says "Millions of years", but when it comes right down to it, creationists really don't care about the evidence. A call for "just one piece of evidence" to prove evolution is actually just window-dressing for a fundamentally unscientific worldview that relies on divine revelation and authority to justify the positions that they take, not evidence. Why do creationists push so stridently for a literal Adam and Eve when there is no evidence that two such people existed and very good evidence to the contrary? Because it is in Genesis; that is their starting point. They didn't look at the evidence available and conclude that the Garden of Eden is a historical account, they looked at the Bible and everything followed from that. If conclusive evidence were shown to the creationist (as distinct from the person who accepts that evolution is real as well as remaining a Christian) that Adam and Eve never existed, they would deny it. No amount of corroborating evidence to back up the central claim would be enough; no number of scientists or scientific bodies accepting this as true would be enough to dissuade them because...
When it comes right down to it, while creationism plays at being scientific, they don't much care about the evidence. It's about faith first; evidence is a secondary concern (if it concerns them at all).
It isn't a question of whether your view of the world includes God or not that divides evolution from creation, because while few people who are creationists do not believe in God (this seems, by definition, impossible, so I would be surprised if there were any creationists who are also atheists) there are many people who accept evolution and are also theists, whether Catholic, Protestant Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. This is one of the central lies promoted by Ham and his emissaries, that the division is between theism and atheism. No, it isn't that.
The central divide between creationists and mainstream science (i.e. reality and the true picture of the Earth and its history) is the importance of evidence, not the question of God's existence. It is evidence, the possession of evidence and the ability to accept evidence, that divides the creationist from the person who accepts evolution happened. Creationists fail to accept the multitude of evidence for evolution (the talkorigins.org website contains many of them as do the books Why Evolution is True, and The Greatest Show on Earth) and content themselves with trying (and failing, I might add) to poke holes in the good science of evolution and critiquing evidence presented. When asked in turn to present evidence for their beliefs, what does the creationist do? He gives bad arguments about evolution being a religion, about archaeopteryx being a fake, about carbon-14 dating being unreliable (seemingly unaware that carbon-14 is only one of many methods of dating...and when used correctly is quite reliable), about evolution being dreamt up by Darwin to deny God. The creationist spouts Bible verses as evidence, and babbles on about a conspiracy of atheistic scientists determined to suppress the truth of creation. He goes on about how it is in fact possible to put dinosaurs on the Ark, and he asserts that some cave paintings prove dinosaurs were seen by humans.
But the central problem is that, in the scientific paradigm, none of what creationists put forward as evidence is actually evidence. They're bad arguments, slander and name-calling, yes, but not evidence. This is a problem, getting creationists to understand this, that their positions must be supported by real, verifiable evidence in the natural world, that attacking evolution under the misguided banner of fairness or religious faith is no substitute for having evidence that we can all see. Ken Ham dismisses such evidence as not actually speaking to the truth of evolution, saying that, in a statement I don't quite understand, "You will see the story of evolution in words--but not in the evidence you see. The evidence is in the glass case. The hypothetical story of evolution can only be seen pasted on the glass case (original emphasis; quote taken from linked chapter)." Perhaps he means that the displays we see don't actually speak to evolution at all, but I'm hard pressed to understand that when, having been in the fine displays of the Carnegie Museum and having seen numerous pictures of fossils, a fish with legs and a dinosaur that is transitional between two types is actually evidence of evolution...and the evidence is hardly limited to fossils!
The divide between creationists and "evolutionists", as creationists like to call those in the reality-based community, isn't just about the actual evidence; it is also over the very validity of the idea of evidence itself. It's one thing for a creationist to look at the geologic column and say "Noah's Flood" while the geologist looks at it and says "Millions of years", but when it comes right down to it, creationists really don't care about the evidence. A call for "just one piece of evidence" to prove evolution is actually just window-dressing for a fundamentally unscientific worldview that relies on divine revelation and authority to justify the positions that they take, not evidence. Why do creationists push so stridently for a literal Adam and Eve when there is no evidence that two such people existed and very good evidence to the contrary? Because it is in Genesis; that is their starting point. They didn't look at the evidence available and conclude that the Garden of Eden is a historical account, they looked at the Bible and everything followed from that. If conclusive evidence were shown to the creationist (as distinct from the person who accepts that evolution is real as well as remaining a Christian) that Adam and Eve never existed, they would deny it. No amount of corroborating evidence to back up the central claim would be enough; no number of scientists or scientific bodies accepting this as true would be enough to dissuade them because...
When it comes right down to it, while creationism plays at being scientific, they don't much care about the evidence. It's about faith first; evidence is a secondary concern (if it concerns them at all).
What is also tragic is the majority of "creationists" don't understand their own bible, and many haven't truly read it in its entirety, depending upon "preachers" to spoon it out to them from the pulpit. As Bart Ehrman fully documents, the bible is full of contradictions...statements that cannot be reconciled in any rational, reasonable manner. To be a literalist is to be able to believe intrinsically contradictory statements about the world.
ReplyDeleteAs always, well-done, Brady. Carry on the good fight.