Summations Only

These points are not entirely correct and allow creationists to drown us in BS: Now, it is quite true that supernaturalistic explanations are untestable and that hypotheses that depend on the supernatural are also untestable and hence completely useless when trying to formulate an actual scientific theory. That much is true.However, it is not true to say that "creation science" is untestable. It is testable! "Creation science" makes definite statements and claims about many very real things in the physical universe, statements that can be examined and evaluated, and tested and proven to be right or wrong. When they say that the earth and universe are very young (to the order of 10,000 years old), then we can test that! When they say that most of the geological features of the earth were formed by a single year-long world-wide flood, then we can test that! When they make astronomical claims (eg, "shrinking sun", effects of solar mass loss, effects of the slowing of the earth's rotation, thickness of the moon's layer of meteoric dust), then we can test that! When they make claims concerning inter-species protein comparisons (eg, Gish's infamous "Bullfrog Affair"), then we can test that! When they make claims about evolution itself (even though they never address evolution itself, but rather just their misrepresentative "evolution model"), then we can test that! When they quote-mine scientific sources, then we can test that and we can see what those sources really said!In short, "creation science" does make many statements and claims that are testable, that have been tested, and that have failed those tests.By ignoring that state of affairs and proclaiming "creation science" to be untestable, we give creationists a free pass to wave their hands and to try to bury us in BS as we now see Dawn doing yet again.

---

Back in 1984, I heard Duane Gish cite a philosopher of science, Larry Laudan, claiming that he said that Judge Overton's judgement was wrong and it would have serious repercussions on science for years to come. Upon request, Gish sent me a copy of that article (Science at the Bar -- Causes for Concern by Larry Laudan, Science, Technology and Human Values 7, no. 41 (1982):16-19). Upon reading it, I saw how Gish had misrepresented the article, which is actually a strong indictment of "creation science". What Laudan was criticizing was Overton's definition of science and of what was scientific (which pretty much matched what you cited, Phat), including the claim that creationism is untestable and unfalsifiable.From that article with my emphasis added:

quote:

---

At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. This is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact.

​

Thus, as Judge Overton himself grants (apparently without seeing its implications), the creationists say that the earth is of very recent origin (say 6,000 to 20,000 years old); they argue that most of the geological features of the earth's surface are diluvial in character (i.e., products of the postulated worldwide Noachian deluge); they are committed to a large number of factual historical claims with which the Old Testament is replete; they assert the limited variability of species. They are committed to the view that, since animals and man were created at the same time, the human fossil record must be paleontologically co-extensive with the record of lower animals. It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the available evidence -- evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history, among other things.

​

In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests.

​

. . .

​

What counts is the epistemic status of Creationism, not the cognitive idiosyncrasies of the creationists. Because many of the theses of Creationism are testable, the mind set of creationists has no bearing in law or in fact on the merits of Creationism.

​

. . .

​

Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism. Once that question is settled, we will know what belongs in the classroom and what does not. Debating the scientific status of Creationism (especially when "science" is construed in such an unfortunate manner) is a red herring that diverts attention away from the issues that should concern us.

---

And from a later article (More on Creationism by Larry Laudan, Science, Technology and Human Values 8, no. 42 (1983):36-38 (my emphasis added)):

quote:

---

...the soundness of creation-science can and must be separated from all questions about the dogmatism of creationists. Once we make that rudimentary separation, we discover both (a) that creation-science is testable and falsifiable, and (b) that creation-science has been tested and falsified -- insofar as any theory can be said to be falsified. But, as I pointed out in the earlier essay, that damning indictment cannot be drawn so long as we confuse Creationism and creationists to such an extent that we take the creationists' mental intransigence to entail the immunity of creationist theory from empirical confrontation.

---

Evidence for creation?I started studying "creation science" in 1981. I've been looking for evidence for creation ever since then. I've never seen any. Creationists have constantly claimed to have evidence for creation. I've never seen any of them ever present any of that "evidence." In my online discussions with creationists since 1986, I have repeatedly requested some positive evidence for creation. In the subsequent three decades, I have never ever seen any such evidence ever be produced.I asked that question of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) President, Dr. Henry Morris. He immediately invoked their Two Model Approach and tried to claim that all negative "evidence" against "evolution" constituted "positive" evidence for creation.The "Two Model Approach" is a false dichotomy, an informal fallacy and a demogoguic trick intended to deceive the people. They propose "two completely opposite and mutually exclusive" "models": their "creation model" which they always express in extremely vague terms but which is 100% young-earth creationist including a young earth (no older than 10,000 years) and Noah's literal Flood. As such, even as Dr. Henry Morris himself told me in that letter, their "evolution model" includes everything that is not in their YEC "creation model", but rather it includes "most of the world's religions, ancient and modern." Which would include several Christian creation traditions which just so happen to not include a young earth and a literal Noachian Flood into the "atheistic" "evolution model."With the "Two Model Approach", creationists seek to "prove" creation solely by "disproving" "evolution" and without ever presenting their "creation model", nor defending it. Indeed, in public debates it has been left to the creationist opponents to present the "creation model" in the debates and every single time the creationist has refused to defend it. Every single time!So then, Dawn, do please do what no other creationist has ever been able to do: please present positive evidence for creation.

Ignoring inconvenient evidence that doesn't fit your preconceived ideas is practicing deception. Doing so to convince yourself is practicing self-delusion.You are admitting to us that you suffer from self-imposed delusion.Treatment is available and is quite painless. You can be cured.

That's not "old Peggy Lee", but rather from later in her career (in 1969).A more appropriate song that she sang (in 1942) would be "Why don't you do right?". Now that is something I have never seen a creationist do.

Wrong, demonstrably wrong.Complexity is anathema to design. I know that because, as an engineer, for 34 years I have worked professionally with design, both in creating designs and maintaining designs. Complexity in design is like a cancer. Instead, we seek elegance, which involves simplicity, which is unlike life. And modularity, which seeks to prevent everything in the design from being tightly intertwined, as life is tightly and intricately intertwined. And the ability to replace entire sections of the design with entirely new "pin-compatible" parts, unlike living organisms which just keep modifying what they had inherited. And the ability to take changes made in one line of products and implementing them in unrelated products, unlike how living organisms work.Complexity, including intricately intertwined complexity, is produced by evolution, not by intelligent design. We know that it is a product of evolution because that is what we observe happening in experiments where we perform design work using evolutionary processes. This is my response to a local YEC activist who tried to equate complexity with design:

quote:

---

Now, the biggest problem with making the claim of design is in determining that something is actually the product of design. We're both engineers (mechanical and software, respectively) and we have been been involved in the design process. We know that the design process will affect what the final product looks like. We also know how we need to approach a design in order for it to work. We should put that knowledge to use in determining whether something was designed or not. BTW, there is a branch of science that does deal with having to identify design: archaeology. When an archaeologist digs something up, he needs to be able to determine whether it is an artifact or had occurred naturally. You should look into that field and learn from them.

​

Parsimony is important. If we allow a design to become too complex and to have too many entangling interdependencies, then the design will become unwieldy and prone to bugs. Modularity and reusability is also important. We want to be able to reuse the same parts and subassemblies instead of having to redesign each one from scratch. We will try to save time by taking existing parts and modifying them to serve a similar but different function, but at some point we just have to give up and completely redesign a part or subassembly from scratch. And we can pull in parts from other totally unrelated systems and modify them to work in this new system.

​

Is that what we see in your examples of "design"? I believe not.

​

Most of the time, I see IDists and YECs point to some feature or organ and proclaim that it's too complex to have evolved so that is proof of design. They especially love to point to "irreducible complexity." The first problem that raises for that claim is that it violates design's requirement for parsimony. When we design something, we want to keep the design clean and simple; we want to avoid high degrees of complexity as much as possible, especially if they involve complex interdependencies.

​

The other problem for that claim is that it makes the false assumption that the products of evolution would be simple, whereas in reality the products of evolution are very complex, even irreducibly complex. We know this empirically through engineering experiments in design using techniques modeled after evolutionary processes (eg, genetic algorithms, Evolutionstechnik). In one experiment, a transistor amplifier circuit was designed via genetic algorithms. The result was unconventional, unlike anything a human designer would have produced, and even had some additional components that did nothing (vestigial remains?), but it was fully functional. In another much more interesting experiment, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was used to design a differential amplifier. The population of codes for the FPGA were allowed to "evolve" with selection being performed by loading them into the FPGA and seeing how well each performed. The end result was highly complex, unlike anything a human designer would have ever dreamed of, and fully functional. In fact, it was irreducibly complex, such that trying to change anything at all about the design would break it. But what was most fascinating was what the design was based on. FPGAs are digital circuits -- if you do not understand electronics and the difference between digital and analog circuits, then please ask me some questions; I am also a USAF-trained digital electronics technician, albeit long out of practice. But the design was not a digital design, but rather an analog design. The design made use of and depended on the minute differences in the electronic characteristics of the FPGA's individual component devices, something that no human designer would have been able to access, let alone work into a design. Incredibly complex and irreducibly so to boot!

​

So whenever somebody tries to deploy the ID "it's so complex that it must be intelligently designed!" claim, my first reaction is always, "Well, that must mean that it had evolved." Complexity is anathema to design, whereas it's the natural result of evolution.

​

Therefore, whenever you want to try to play the "it must be intelligently designed!" card, you must also be able to point out specific structures that indicate design and not evolution. Just pointing out how complex and intricate something is will only prove the point you're trying to argue against.

---

That creationist's response was to run away from the discussion, terrified.For that matter, a customary engineering practice is to take an existing design as a baseline and then modify it to perform a different function; in effect, we use an evolutionary approach create the new design. We copy and modify parts, then do it again and again and again. As we "evolve" ever more designs descended from that original baseline, they become ever more complex until they reach a point where it's almost impossible to maintain them anymore. Either we can no longer understand what they are doing or why or else so many interdependencies have developed that you cannot change any part of the design without causing highly undesirable side effects.That's what evolution does. As YEC geologist Dr. Kurt Wise (no relation to me) has said (quoted indirectly by science writer Robert Schadewald):

quote:

---

"[Wise] told the audience that evolution is a powerful theory, and that anyone who claims otherwise simply doesn't understand evolution. He said point blank that if it weren't for his religous beliefs -- if he had only the scientific evidence -- he would accept evolution himself."

---

Come to think of it, you should send your ideas about geology to Dr. Wise. He is so staunchly YEC that he was a YEC before attending college and remained a YEC as he earned his PhD Geology from Harvard, where he also studied under Steven Jay Gould, and he continues to be staunchly YEC. He is also a stickler for the truth and for practicing science honestly and truthfully.So if you send your ideas about geology to him for evaluation, his rejection of them will not be because of any OE bias, but rather because of their own merits.