How scientific is creation science and intelligent design?
Is creation science scientific?
Quick-read this article:
Some evolutionists believe that creation science is unscientific
because it doesn't use naturalistic explanations. But science is a
search for knowledge, so truth should be sought even if it leads to
a creator.
Scientists sometimes imply, or say outright, that creation science and intelligent design are unscientific because they do not use naturalistic explanations. One evolutionist wrote: “Thus any statement concerning the existence, nonexistence, or nature of a creator or creators is not science by definition and has no place in scientific discussion or in science classrooms”.1
But they are mistaken. They are trying to redefine science to fit their view that naturalistic evolution is science and creation is non-science because creation acknowledges a creator. In fact, science is a search for truth, wherever it leads. The word science means knowledge (from the Latin word scientia, meaning knowledge), not naturalism.2 Many of the founders of modern science were Bible-believing Christians who made their discoveries by “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
Walter ReMine shows the fallacy of the “science is naturalism” school of thought in his book The Biotic Message: Evolution versus message theory. He says that if the existence, nonexistence, or nature of a creator or creators is not science by definition and has no place in scientific discussion or in science classrooms, then scientists would not have deduced the existence of the creator of the Piltdown man hoax.3 ReMine says: “This example shows how science can discriminate between an intelligent designer and naturalistic causes. It also shows that science can go further and deduce a designer’s character traits and motives. Science does this based on the pattern of the data.”
Life in outer space?
Another area in which science deals with the existence of a creator is in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The SETI project has had backing over the years from prominent evolutionists such as Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Francis Crick, David Raup, and Edward O. Wilson. It seeks evidence of life elsewhere in our galaxy. Using radiotelescopes, scientists hope to find and recognize signals from intelligent beings outside earth. So they cannot really accept the view quoted above that “any statement concerning the existence, nonexistence, or nature of a creator or creators” of these signals “is not science by definition and has no place in scientific discussion or in science classrooms”.
Science is knowledge. Whether that includes a creator or not is not to be decided by someone’s redefinition of the word. The creationist’s interpretation of knowledge (science) is as valid as the evolutionist’s if it is based on a search for the truth.
- Pine, R. H. 1984, “But Some of Them Are Scientists, Aren't They?”, Creation/Evolution, Issue XIV, pp. 6–18; cited in: ReMine, W. J. 1993, The Biotic Message: Evolution versus message theory, St. Paul Science, Saint Paul (Minnesota), p. 30.(Return to text.)
- Webster's Third New International Dictionary Unabridged gives the prime definition of science as “possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding”.(Return to text.)
- Piltdown man was a fabricated primitive human-type creature made up from a human skull and an orangutan jaw found at Piltdown in England. For more than 40 years it was claimed as evidence of evolution, but scientific tests eventually showed it to be a fraud. Scientists were able to deduce that the hoaxer (Piltdown man’s “creator”) was astutely aware of the scientific climate of the time, because he knew how to present a convincing fake and what information to leave out (the chin and jaw joint, which would have disclosed the hoax earlier). (Return to text.)
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