The Creationist Method

Many of you will be familiar with the scientific method. You make an hypothesis, you test the predictions of that hypothesis and reformulate that hypothesis if it doesn’t match the observations. Once that hypothesis has been confirmed and corroborated by others, then it moves into the realm of scientific theory.How exactly, then, does creation ”science’ work? What is, if you will, the creationist method?I ask because there is an image on the EvoWiki page for creationism, that looks like this: We at EvoWiki have (rightly in my mind) received criticism of this image. One user, going by the name 'Silence', says

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To suggest that nonacceptance of evolution is integral (and, worse, the starting point) of creationist methodology is both an oversimplification of the issue (what about the type of thought that leads someone to reject evolution?)

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Which is a good point, in my mind. Likewise the next point:

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Third, most creationists do not rely on quote-mining; this is an extremely common practice, but neither a definingly creationistic one, nor an ubiquitous one among all creationists. I've met more creationists who don't resort to quote-mining than who do; the fact that a large number do is not sufficient to say that all (or even most) creationists resort to this practice.

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Also valid, from my experience. Lastly:

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"Bad logic" is also just exceedingly vague, and consequently useless; such vagueness characterizes most of the rest of the "Creationist" side of the image in the same way, and is the reason why most of the image is similarly useless (if not outright disingenuous).

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So, I’ve established that the flow chart isn’t very good at the moment.How should it go? Given that Intelligent Design and Old-Earth Creationism are creationism too, we should also look for a method that encompasses those too. It is for this reason I am asking for help, as I’d intended to start with the point: “The Bible is literally true”, but I don’t think that does encompass enough creationism. However, I certainly do think that the Bible is used as a semi-scientific text, and science is checked against it.So, how would this flow chart go? Likely it will be much more complex than the scientific method, as the creationists have used many methods, but I hope we can trim all the bushy parts down to a core 'creationist method'.Edited by Admin, : Reduce picture width.

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Thanks everyone. Your help is very useful to me.Kuresu, you're the only one to incorporate other religious creation myths into yours, and for that I applaud you.To Ringo, I'd suggest that the creationists do have a loop - having recently watched a lecture by Ken Ham on youtube, I think they always go back to their scripture to see if everything they say matches up with it. I like the idea of branching off, but I was hoping for a particular way to sum up all of those techniques succinctly.Anastasia, your suggestions are good, but do you really think the average creationist makes "hypotheses" from the Bible? I don't think many of them would call them that. Options B and C are very good, as they include the old-earth creationists and IDists.Modulous, WOW! Very close to what I was looking for. I especially like the reinforcement of the biblical truth with the fudged evidence. I'm not sure about the second step that stems from the Bible, as not every creationist will agree with that.Dr A, yours is an accurate portrayal of the incredulity arguments, but creationism is much richer than that (also that does make up a core part of it).So, given the above, I present the following draft. I feel it only currently works for biblical (or other scripture) creationism. Intelligent design doesn't fit there. Should it? Edited by Doddy, : updateEdited by Admin, : Reduce picture width.

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Your criticism is valid, but I was hard pressed to find something that accurately described YEC, OEC and ID. Thus, I stuck mostly with the literal (yes, I know what you're saying about these terms, but we could go on about what 'contradict' means) YEC beliefs for this one.Do you know how to make it apply to both, or do you think I should do another for their system?

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Hmm, that sounds simple enough. Maybe I could have an optional pathway from "Do observations contradict scripture?" to another box with "Evaluate interpretation of scripture" or some such process.Any suggestions?

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You could just explain modifications to mine, couldn't you?

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Oh, sorry.Perhaps you could check the wording of mine? For example, do you think the alternate process is ok as "Re-evaluate interpretation of scripture"? And are the other boxes correct (as correct as possible). What sort of disclaimer or indicator should I have to show that that method is only used by some types of creationists?Have a look: Also, should that box link back to the big red "Bible is true" box?Edited by Doddy, : No reason given.Edited by Doddy, : No reason given.Edited by Doddy, : getting image to work now. XBBCode plug-in for Firefox isn't that good.Edited by Admin, : Reduce image width.

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How's that now? I updated it. Is the disclaimer good? What would be better?Edited by Doddy, : questions...

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I didn't change the filename, so perhaps your computer is still using the cached image rather than the true image. Usually refreshing the page fixes that, otherwise just come back in a few days. Yes, I originally wanted to keep it as similar to that as possible. Possibly akin to the comic Phat posted, so I start from theory and go to observations. But creationism is much richer and more varied than that.

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Hmm, I don't think that flow-chart works.I roadtested it with, as an example, radiometric dating showing the old age of the earth. This observation doesn't support six-day creation. In fact, it might contradict it. But we can reinterpret the book of genesis to have a few creations or make the days longer.However, I think the word 'perhaps' that I have preceding the scripture reintepretation process is a bit presumptious, as it, to me, already assumes a reintepretation before that process can be taken. If, for example, something very clearly contradicted the bible (pi isn't 3 exactly or a bat isn't a bird), one would have to already reinterpret the bible rather than the science in order to answer 'perhaps'. That's just the feeling I get - sorry if I'm not clear.

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Yes, and I'm glad my chart works for that. But the key part of what I said was:

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This observation doesn't support six-day creation. In fact, it might contradict it.

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Is it a contradiction, or isn't it? Or is is a 'perhaps'.I'm totally lost as to how to arrange that part of the chart accurately.

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My thread! What have you done?!Get it back on track now! There are plenty of other threads and forums to address these issues. There's a whole forum on Noachian flood stuff. Unless you are going to talk about the methods that creationists use to interpret evidence/scripture, please leave. I won't have another of my threads hijacked.Edited by Doddy, : title

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There is method to all madness. A strange method, perhaps, and certainly one that doesn't work well to determine reality, but a method nonetheless.

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Actually, there are those who think the evidence is wrong too, such as those who believe nearly all fossils are fakes.But perhaps you have a point. By far the majority of creationists challenge the interpretation of the evidence rather than the evidence itself. For example, those who believe readiometric dating to be false don't think so because they think the instruments are faulty, but rather because they think the assumptions behind the interpretation are.I'll make a note of this and change it in version 3, along with my alternative mechanism to determine whether it is evidence or scripture that should be reinterpreted.

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But do they deny the existence of the fossils or just the interpretation that they are transitional?

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Hey everyone. I'm bringing this topic back up again because I'm after some info on the ID methodology. What does it involve?I hear people say that ID is just creationism, so perhaps one could elaborate on that too (maybe compare the two methods to show their fundamental similarities).

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