Origin of the Terms "Operational" and "Historical" Science
Seems that some advocates of universal common ancestor evolution get on the prod and feel the urge to contradict almost anything a biblical creationists or Intelligent Design proponent has to say. Some, although uneducated, will even argue with evolutionary scientists who agree with creationists (such as the owlhoot who refuses reasons that neither side of the origins controversy expects dinosaur fossils in the Grand Canyon. Interesting that the demoniac who continually attacks creationists on that matter does not challenge evolutionists). They must contradict and attack, it's who they are and what they do. Gotta protect that Darwinian death cult, don'tcha know.
Similarly, if you disagree with an atheist's arbitrary assertions and definitions of "reality" (long ages, no God, evolution, etc.), expect to be ridiculed. Not only your intelligence, but your morality as well: you are lying to distort reality. They can't defend their positions further than "because atheism", but you and I are still wrong. Right out of the Alinsky (and possibly Lenin) playbook, atheists and fundamentalist evolutionists accuse others of what they are doing. "Liar! Reality denier!" See how that works?
A common complaint is along the lines of, "You made that up!" I was accused of coining the words atheopath and atheopathy, but if people had saddled up their search engine ponies, they'd have found that these came from Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (see footnote 1 here). There was another mindless attack, claiming that "YECs" invented the term archaic humans. (Someone decided to slap leather with that Darwin bot, proved him wrong, and suggested that he use the internet before he starts making foolish statements. So, the one who lost that shoot-out commenced to spamming folks in a desperate attempt to regain his nonexistent credibility. But I digress. Again.) Interesting that people do not complain about others who make up words, such as when Clinton Richard Dawkins' meme, and William Shakespeare invented words as well. So wordsmithing, in itself, is not necessarily a problem.
The focus here is on the origins of the terms operational science and historical (or origins) science. Anti-creationists have made the uninformed assertion similar to the jasper mentioned earlier, that creationists made up the terms. Some say that it was done to influence people's thinking, which is an appeal to motive fallacy, and is unproved.
If creationists did come up with the distinction and the wording, so what? The distinctions are valid and even useful. Even so, those distinctions existed for a long time, and the current usage seems to be traceable back to the 1980s. It wasn't created by biblical creationists, either. Not that such a thing should matter.
Similarly, if you disagree with an atheist's arbitrary assertions and definitions of "reality" (long ages, no God, evolution, etc.), expect to be ridiculed. Not only your intelligence, but your morality as well: you are lying to distort reality. They can't defend their positions further than "because atheism", but you and I are still wrong. Right out of the Alinsky (and possibly Lenin) playbook, atheists and fundamentalist evolutionists accuse others of what they are doing. "Liar! Reality denier!" See how that works?
A common complaint is along the lines of, "You made that up!" I was accused of coining the words atheopath and atheopathy, but if people had saddled up their search engine ponies, they'd have found that these came from Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (see footnote 1 here). There was another mindless attack, claiming that "YECs" invented the term archaic humans. (Someone decided to slap leather with that Darwin bot, proved him wrong, and suggested that he use the internet before he starts making foolish statements. So, the one who lost that shoot-out commenced to spamming folks in a desperate attempt to regain his nonexistent credibility. But I digress. Again.) Interesting that people do not complain about others who make up words, such as when Clinton Richard Dawkins' meme, and William Shakespeare invented words as well. So wordsmithing, in itself, is not necessarily a problem.
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| Technician conducting experiments in CSIRO laboratories at Griffith, NSW. 1995. Credit: CSIRO (CC BY 3.0) Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents |
The focus here is on the origins of the terms operational science and historical (or origins) science. Anti-creationists have made the uninformed assertion similar to the jasper mentioned earlier, that creationists made up the terms. Some say that it was done to influence people's thinking, which is an appeal to motive fallacy, and is unproved.
If creationists did come up with the distinction and the wording, so what? The distinctions are valid and even useful. Even so, those distinctions existed for a long time, and the current usage seems to be traceable back to the 1980s. It wasn't created by biblical creationists, either. Not that such a thing should matter.
Recently, some revisionist historians have attempted to label the terms origin science or historical science as YEC inventions for the sole purpose of discrediting evolution. If this is not a direct accusation, then it is at least a statement that YECs use these terms as a wedge to make a distinction between historical sciences versus operational science, so as to cause people to reject the age of the earth, while still affirming experimental science and technology. A recent example is an article on the BioLogos website titled “Is Historical Science Reliable?” Another strategy is to create strawman arguments and make the blanket claim that YECs are saying that science cannot tell us anything about what happened in the past, and that to make such claims would deny us the ability to know anything about the past, including even what we ate for breakfast. But is this really a fair argument?To read the rest, click on "First Usage of Origins vs. Operational Science". I recommend that you save the link for future reference.