Assumptions on Understanding Data
It is not a matter of our facts and their facts because scientific evidence is interpreted according to assumptions. Someone may say, "That fossil on my mantlepiece shows that the world is billions of years old", while someone else can look at the same rock and say, "That rock is evidence for the Genesis Flood". Everyone has the same data to work with, and we all start with our own beliefs.
Many times, atheists will claim that science is atheistic by nature, but that is one of the unsustainable presuppositions they hang on scientific methods. For that matter, I've seen the demand, "Prove scientifically that God exists". This shows a lack of logical thinking as well as a misunderstanding of both the capabilities and limitations of science; it cannot prove anything (let alone the existence of God via the category error), but science can show if a hypothesis or theory does not work.
The kind of science that we can see, repeat, test, and so on is operational or experimental science. My example at the top about the rock on the mantlepiece is an example of historical or forensic science, where scientific methods are used in efforts to reconstruct the past. Strictly speaking, things like cosmology and evolution are not science; no human saw the origin of the universe and certainly cannot repeat it.
By the way, some tinhorns object to the term historical science, and especially the obvious distinction between historical and operational sciences. You'll see it referred to as if it was specific to Ken Ham (just like Bill Nye the Leftist Guy referred to "Ken Ham's" creation science, as if he was the only one who believed it). Creationists are not the only ones to make the distinction. It was interesting to see that the term historical science was used since 1900 by the International Congress of Historical Sciences, and was used in The Philosophy of History by Friedrich von Schlegel in 1935. Here is one of several examples I found of a secular scientist making the distinction in a paper.
Somehow, particles-to-pugilist evolutionists (the internet keyboard warrior sidewinders) play some equivocation games by equating science with evolution, then calling creationists "science deniers" — which is a blatant lie. The claim is based on their presuppositions for interpreting evidence as well as failing to understand science itself. Science is a methodology, old son.
A more direct example of faulty assumptions is the claim that the giant panda's "thumb" is evidence against the Creator and for mindless evolution. That fails in the light of reason, because anti-creationists are assuming that the appendage is a failed thumb, but it actually works quite well for the panda's purposes. Their interpretations of what is observed in the panda led to wrong evolutionary and anti-theistic assumptions.
Because of anti-creationist propaganda, it may bring a prairie schooner full of startlement to tell y'all that creationists do not reject observed data, and no scientific fact controverts the Bible. We reject storytelling based on evolutionary assumptions masquerading as science, and we present creationary interpretations of evidence. In fact, observed data are better handled through biblical creation explanations and models; the same data are harmful to evolutionary views.
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| More to Do credit: Freeimages / David Stern |
The kind of science that we can see, repeat, test, and so on is operational or experimental science. My example at the top about the rock on the mantlepiece is an example of historical or forensic science, where scientific methods are used in efforts to reconstruct the past. Strictly speaking, things like cosmology and evolution are not science; no human saw the origin of the universe and certainly cannot repeat it.
By the way, some tinhorns object to the term historical science, and especially the obvious distinction between historical and operational sciences. You'll see it referred to as if it was specific to Ken Ham (just like Bill Nye the Leftist Guy referred to "Ken Ham's" creation science, as if he was the only one who believed it). Creationists are not the only ones to make the distinction. It was interesting to see that the term historical science was used since 1900 by the International Congress of Historical Sciences, and was used in The Philosophy of History by Friedrich von Schlegel in 1935. Here is one of several examples I found of a secular scientist making the distinction in a paper.
Somehow, particles-to-pugilist evolutionists (the internet keyboard warrior sidewinders) play some equivocation games by equating science with evolution, then calling creationists "science deniers" — which is a blatant lie. The claim is based on their presuppositions for interpreting evidence as well as failing to understand science itself. Science is a methodology, old son.
A more direct example of faulty assumptions is the claim that the giant panda's "thumb" is evidence against the Creator and for mindless evolution. That fails in the light of reason, because anti-creationists are assuming that the appendage is a failed thumb, but it actually works quite well for the panda's purposes. Their interpretations of what is observed in the panda led to wrong evolutionary and anti-theistic assumptions.
Because of anti-creationist propaganda, it may bring a prairie schooner full of startlement to tell y'all that creationists do not reject observed data, and no scientific fact controverts the Bible. We reject storytelling based on evolutionary assumptions masquerading as science, and we present creationary interpretations of evidence. In fact, observed data are better handled through biblical creation explanations and models; the same data are harmful to evolutionary views.
The whole point of science is that anyone doing the same experiment under the same conditions should get the same result. (The pioneers of modern science believed this because they believed in a divine Lawmaker who upheld His creation in an orderly way.) So, if you can’t do repeatable experiments, it’s not science. This includes many ideas of origins. One example is cosmogony (‘birth of the universe’), quoting a co-founder of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey:
“Cosmology may look like a science, but it isn’t a science,” says James Gunn of Princeton University, co-founder of the Sloan survey. “A basic tenet of science is that you can do repeatable experiments, and you can’t do that in cosmology.”
Dr Michael Turner, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of Chicago and the person who coined the term Dark Energy, tried to salvage cosmology by conceding that it’s different from experimental science and is instead historical science.To read the rest, click on "'This changes everything!' — The right perspective makes a big difference".