I read an interesting op/ed from the Kentucky Courier-Journal today.
It seems former teacher James K. Willmot is pretty chapped about the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum.
There is a great educational injustice being inflicted upon thousands of children in this country...
he begins, referring to the museum.
I thought liberals were supposed to be open to any and every idea, no matter how insane? This guy sounds pretty intolerant of another viewpoint; he should be careful, lest Ted Kennedy excommunicate him from the Church of Tolerance. He sounds pretty threatened by this center. Could that fear spring from an uncertainty about the accuracy of his own "church's" claims?
Willmot says of AIG's creation museum:
...its new $28 million creation museum in Boone County has become the de facto source of science information to thousands of Christians who are throwing away reason and 500 years of scientific inquiry and replacing it with ignorant dogma.
So believing that the laws of nature were somehow suspended (with nothing existing to cause this suspension), allowing something to be created from nothing, which has never been observed...this isn't "ignorant dogma?"
Believing stars and galaxies can form in complete contravention of the laws of physics isn't "ignorant dogma?"
Believing life can spring from lifelessness, which has never been observed isn't "ignorant dogma?"
Believing a highly ordered universe, from the laws of physics on down to human reproduction and cellular information, has nothing to do with intelligent design...this isn't "ignorant dogma?"
Believing biological mechanisms which, due to irreducible complexity, cannot possibly have evolved from one part to the other without intelligent intervention...this isn't "ignorant dogma?"
Okay, now that we have "ignorant dogma" in context...
Willmot also claims
...a fossil record that clearly shows a progression of simple life forms becoming more complex life forms over billions of years...
when actually it doesn't. Some scientists interpret the fossil record to say this, but no one was around to observe it, and there is no record which confirms this. Another interpretation of the fossil record is that these fossils were laid down and preserved during the global flood of Noah in Genesis, and their order actually makes sense with regard to which animals would have been able to escape the flood and rapid burial longer than others. But of course, this theory takes about as much faith as believing a progression of simple life forms becoming more complex over billions of years. Hmmmm...
Willmot also says
...they are so fervent in their mission to get people to believe (or rather make believe) in their simplistic world view...
Funny, but to me that sounds like a lot of evolutionists and naturalists: so religiously fervent and dogmatic to get people to believe in their worldview of a universe of random chance that, well, they just can't tolerate a little creation museum in Kentucky.
Willmot continues
It seems fraudulent to me that the hard work and knowledge of generations of truth-seeking scientists from Galileo to Sagan, from Darwin to Dawkins, is now being hijacked and twisted to teach our children that the sciences of paleontology, evolutionary biology, astronomy, geology, physics, etc., are not to be trusted...
Perhaps it could also be said that it seems fraudulent that the hard work and knowledge of generations of truth-seeking scientists from Galileo (who believed in God) to Copernicus, Kepler, Francis Bacon, Newton, Kelvin, Mendel, Einstein, the Wright brothers, Pascal, Pasteur, and George Washington Carver--all of whom believed in God--has been hijacked and twisted to teach our children that the sciences of paleontology, evolutionary biology, astronomy, geology, physics, etc. can only be interpreted with an atheistic view of science?
I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
I just find it interesting that some of the people who most vehemently preach the religion of tolerance are some of it's greatest heretics.
What's more, science is what it is. Neither evolutionists nor creationists disagree on the evidence; they only disagree on the interpretation of the evidence. Evolutionists refuse to admit it, but their interpretations are just as guided by their worldview (their presuppositions) as those of creationists.
The funny thing is, when you consider that all things are possible with an infinite God, but so many tenets of materialism and evolution are IMPOSSIBLE under the very laws of nature they so revere, in the final analysis, creation better fits available evidence and is a more viable theory within the framework of its own suppositions.
In other words, some of the foundational claims regarding an atheistic, materialistic universe contradict other foundational claims about that same universe. Meanwhile, there is no scientific contradiction within the framework of the universe claimed by creationists.
So which seems more credible: a theory full of self-contradictions, or a theory where all elements contained therein are in harmony?
3 comments:
I would much rather a Christian organization dismiss this psuedo-science museum but so far, none have stepped forward. Let me state part of AIG's mission statement for you.
"No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."
Do you want to support an organization (that portrays itself as a science center) that practices this type of inquiry? I suggest this hurts the cause of reasonable and rational Christians. Go to http://sciohost.org/states/?p=3 to see what 972 “real” scientists think of the museum. I suggest running as far from this wacky outfit (do you really believe we lived in the age of dinosaurs?) as you can, instead of apologizing for their fake-science ministry. I am all for people (of all faiths) using religion as a warm sweater. It's when extreme fundamentalists use it a straight jacket, especially on trusting children, that made me speak out against this injustice.
James K. Willmot
The value of a theory is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot explain: it must be narrow and narrow is what makes it usefull. Truth is a small target. Intelligent design and creationism are very different approaches. Intelligent design pretends to be scientific whereas creationism has nothing to do with science at all. Not even a little. You didn't know that the value of science is matching narrow targets rather than broad genrealizations that can apply to potentially any situation? Try explaining why your flashlight doesn't work with a very broad generalization that always works "no matter what". Try explaining anything in this fashion and you see the problem. It isn't an explanation at all.
Anonymous: It's hard to know where to begin in responding to what you said. You wrote a lot of words but didn't say much.
Creation science (or creationism) has at least as much to do with science as do secular applications of science. Creation science begins with the supposition that what God said in the Bible is true; secular science begins with the supposition that there is no God and that everything had materialistic/naturalistic causes, or at the very least, God was pulling our leg with what he wrote in the Bible.
Try reading some creation science material with an open mind (or even some ID material, if you can't stomach the creation science material) and you'll see that it can address very specific applications.
By the way, does Christmas tick you off so much that you spend it criticizing Christian faith?
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