All these philosophies make a good deal of sense. They illuminate what science is and how it operates. But then, we find this jarring opinion from evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin (1929–2021):
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[1] (Emphasis in original.)
Here we have a leading scientist—a Harvard professor, no less—describing the scientific enterprise using words like “against common sense”, “patent absurdity”, “failure to fulfill” and “unsubstantiated just-so stories”. The scientific establishment provided tacit support for these views by failing to sanction either the comments, or Lewontin himself. This is the kind of science that Feynman despised, and McElreath sensed—a social phenomenon whose common bond is a rejection of the divine. This is a profound piece of evidence against Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria concept; Lewontin explicitly states that science is in a “struggle” against the supernatural.
This is a position with which we agree. “Science” of the type that Lewontin described is against Christianity, but it is mainly against Christianity in the area of origins, where Christianity makes certain truth claims, which can, at least to some extent, be assessed scientifically. Lewontin’s jarring opinion alerts us to something important: it is origins science that tolerates “patent absurdities” and “unsubstantiated just-so stories”. Empirical science has no time for either.
That brings us back to the “philosophies of science” cited above. Are these philosophies of empirical science or of origins science? This is a fair question, because the philosophers themselves do not specify that they apply to origins science. And this is where we see a lack in the philosophies of science: as far as we are aware, no explicit philosophy of origins science has been published. The absence of a clearly articulated distinction is likely a major contributor to the confusion that arises in the origins debate—the kind of confusion that leads to statements like “science has disproved God.”
But we can get closer to a philosophy of origins science if we consider what scientists have said about forensics, which is related. In 2009, the American National Academies of Sciences published Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.
The authors of that publication described the “CSI effect”, where the general public’s understanding of forensic science has been distorted by the Crime Scene Investigation television series. These have led to an inaccurate impression of forensic science having unfailing certainty and making no mistakes.[2] [3] The authors point out that within forensics a great dilemma “concerns the question of whether—and to what extent—there is sciencein any given forensic science discipline”.[4] This is because forensics amounts to applied science, somewhat separate from the culture and knowledge within mainstream scientific disciplines.[5] Indeed, some experts have cited “ … the norms of science, which emphasize ‘methodological rigor, openness, and cautious interpretation of data,’ as norms that often are absent from the forensic science disciplines”.[6]
If the philosophies of empirical science do not map to forensics, they will certainly not map to origins science. A separate philosophy is needed. We are not in a position to write such a philosophy of origins science, but, in view of what Lewontin said above, we can at least offer some thoughts on the main features of origins science that set it apart from empirical science:
Presuppositions are key. Imagine a set of experiments aimed at finding the properties of various alloys of nickel—tensile strength, ductility and so forth. Anyone with access to the required apparatus and test specimens can carry out the appropriate experiments and generate results which will match findings from other scientists who perform the same experiments in similarly equipped labs. But throughout this process of repeatable experimentation, it is beside the point whether the people involved are secular humanists, atheists or Christians. Not so with origins science. An atheistic worldview vis a vis a Christian worldview makes all the difference, as we see above with Lewontin. Narratives promoted within one worldview will seem highly implausible, or even absurd, to those of another worldview, because of differing presuppositions.
A practical outcome of this is that large-scale paradigm shifts, as Kuhn understood them, do not readily occur in origins science, if at all. There may be shifts to some extent, such as the shift from the Darwinian mechanism of evolution to the Neo-Darwinian one (covered in more detail in Chapter 12), but not a wholesale change. A complete change could only come about if there is a change in presuppositions at a societal or civilizational level—a broad-based worldview shift.
Expectations of success. Proponents of the secular humanist (or any other) origins account will be utterly convinced that their narrative will eventually prevail, for the simple, almost tautological reason that their narrative is in line with their presuppositions. As a result, both sides (from the point of view of the opposition) appear to be dogmatic about their beliefs and impervious to evidence that appears to contradict their origins account.
Incorporates “just-so” stories. “Just-so” narratives of origins science attempt to account for unknown or unknowable phenomena and are an essential component in both the Christian and secular humanist (and atheistic) worldviews. The widely held belief that Genesis is no more believable than a child’s fairy story only focuses on one side of the debate. On the other side are narratives that atheists have concocted to explain evolutionary outcomes. Perhaps the granddaddy of all the atheistic just-so stories is abiogenesis, the theory that life arose by chance from inanimate matter. That there is no scientific explanation for abiogenesis is water off a duck’s back to atheists because their expectation of eventual success (above) inures them to present difficulties.
May include fragmentary evidence of a non-empirical nature. Unlike empirical science, which gathers large volumes of precise data under carefully controlled conditions in the lab, origins evidence is necessarily extremely old, and because of this age, often degraded or incomplete. Interpretations of this evidence are heavily influenced by conjecture and presuppositions.
Harder to prove or disprove. Unlike empirical science, where incorrect results are relatively easy to detect (not always; humans were incorrectly believed to have 48 chromosomes for several decades before a later scientist took the time to check this result and pegged the number at 46), origins science is inherently more difficult to prove or disprove because scientists were not present to witness the events. A classic example of the murky nature of origins was Piltdown man, a supposed fossil which was included in textbooks for decades before it was later shown to be a hoax. The secular humanist approach regards plausible causal mechanisms as sufficient evidence for common evolutionary descent from a single primordial organism and downplays the need for actual proof. This is the same approach taken by creationists—we assume the Bible is true, so our interpretation of the Bible or science must reflect compatibility between both.
May incorporate empirical science indirectly to help evaluate origins evidence or hypotheses.The results of empirical (experimental) science can be used to analyzedata or test hypotheses for plausibility in forensic and origins research. For instance, the sedimentation experiments performed by French sedimentationist Guy Berthault in a water flume are highly relevant to the origins debate.[7] Similarly, empirical taphonomic studies investigating decay processes, fossilization and post-mortem transport and burial may help to explain certain features of fossils, such as a death pose. This has potential value to all sides of the origins debate.
The distinction between origins and empirical science is of enormous practical importance. The noteworthy McLean v. Arkansas court case (1982), which sought to determine whether creation science was science and, as such, should be taught alongside evolution in science classes, hinged on the characteristics of “science”, which the judge, William Overton, cited as follows:[8]
- It is guided by natural law;
- It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
- It is testable against the empirical world;
- Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
- It is falsifiable.
Here’s the rub: Overton applied principles of empirical science to creationism (an origins narrative) and found a disconnect. Our contention is that this approach conflates empirical and forensic/origins contexts, which operate differently. If he had faithfully applied the same principles of empirical science to secular humanist origins science, he would have found a similar disconnect.
Overton’s first point, that science is guided by natural law, implicitly privileges an atheistic or materialistic worldview as scientific, and other points of view as unscientific, by ignoring the distinctions between empirical science and origins science. It is true that empirical science is subject to the presupposition of natural law as stated in Overton’s first statement. However, in origins science, the narrative must explain why natural law exists, which at once brings in reasoning from outside of the domain of empirical science, namely philosophical and/or theological arguments. In Chapter 2 we recounted the opinions of Eugene Wigner and Albert Einstein, who both commented on the difficulty for humanist science in explaining the correlation between the natural world on one hand and mathematics and science on the other. In the case of physicist Richard Feynman (also quoted in Chapter 2), he even questioned why there should be any law-like behavior in the universe at all; he considered this a “miracle”. In our view these illustrious scientists were questioning why natural law should exist within the humanist scientific paradigm. We note in Chapter 9 cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s belief that origins science must account for the fine-tuning of the universe. This question impacts why natural law operates the way it does in our universe. Overton’s point (1) would be more relevant to origins science if it were restated as:
Origins science must explain why natural law exists in the universe, and why it operates the way it does.
Judge Overton’s second point, that empirical science must be explanatory by reference to natural law, is also correct with respect to empirical science. But we will show that both the secular humanist (Chapters 9 and 10) and creationist (Chapters 15 and 16) origins accounts contain miracles—secular and divine respectively. A key secular miracle in the origins account of secular humanism is abiogenesis, the supposed emergence of life from inanimate matter by random processes. This secular miracle is described as such by humanists[9] precisely because it is not well explained, if at all, by natural law. Origins accounts also necessarily contain the concept of infinity, as we saw in Chapter 2, which is outside the domain of empirical science. These two examples expose Judge Overton’s second statement as incorrect when applied to contemporary origins science.
We accept Overton’s last three statements as applicable to origins theories. But in our view, they can be shown to apply to modern biblical creationism.
First, in respect of Overton’s third point, that science is testable against the empirical world, the creationist enterprise seeks ways to square empirical science and archaeological and paleontological evidence with a straightforward reading of biblical material, including Genesis. Hence, creationists regard many of their theories and accounts as testable against the empirical world.
However, some components of the creationist worldview are not up for debate. This point relates to the view of science espoused by philosopher Imre Lakatos, whom we briefly met above. In Lakatos’ scheme, some presuppositions or theories are so fundamental to a worldview that they may be more in the realm of philosophy than science. As such they are not necessarily directly testable and may not be up for debate within a program of research. An example from the creationist side is God’s ex nihilo creation of matter on the first day of creation, a non-testable presupposition to which creationists hold. Examples from the secular humanist side are the presupposition that at the level of the cosmos, there is no purpose; and that science potentially can, or will, explain the origin of life, if given enough time and resources. Again, these are not testable propositions.
Lakatos explained that rather than testing these fundamental concepts, a research program often investigates secondary theories, which are related to the fundamental concepts, but at a distance. Therefore, Overton’s third point is partly true, but is really an oversimplification of how research programs operate within the origins science arena.
Overton’s fourth point, that the conclusions of science are tentative, is true of any serious origins research enterprise. In the case of creationism, the infallibility of the Bible is asserted as axiomatic. However, creationists do not assert the infallibility of their interpretations of the Bible, nor do they assert that all scientific evidence is infallibly settled. Creationist interpretations of the Bible and science are subject to change because much of origins science relies heavily on circumstantial evidence which admits of more than one explanation. Just-so stories are (by definition) tentative because they are made in the absence of compelling evidence; all sides of origins debates utilize such narratives to fill in gaps. (By “just-so stories” we are not referring to the Genesis text, but to narratives that build around the text to flesh out the detail. For example, creationists have suggested that the earth’s magnetic field was operational by the fourth day of creation to protect the earth from solar winds. That might be true, but it is not provable scientifically. Similarly, some early creationists such as Luther suggested in relation to Genesis 4:17, that Cain married one of his sisters, another scenario which cannot be scientifically proven. An alternative explanation is that Cain may have married a cousin, although there must have been some sibling marriages among the offspring of Adam and Eve). Both secular humanists and creationists generally accept that these “just-so” narratives are tentative and subject to change if new evidence appears.
Overton’s final point, that science is falsifiable (derived from the philosophy of Popper), is certainly true for the creationist enterprise, excluding that which is held to be axiomatic: the Bible. For example, the moondust argument for a young moon seemed scientifically sound until falsified by better data and careful analysis. This does not mean that the moon is old, but that the specific argument for youth is scientifically falsified.[10] In the nineteenth century, naturalist Philip Henry Gosse outlined a scheme to reconcile the young earth of the Bible with the great age that the geology of the time suggested.[11] Gosse’s scheme is considered falsified, not by scientificmeans, but instead discredited by philosophical/theological arguments.
Indeed, Creation Ministries International maintains an online listing of creationist arguments considered falsified by scientific or other means, and arguments considered doubtful.[12] Hence, Overton’s fifth statement is generally true of creationism, as it is for secular humanist schemes.
Did Judge Overton make a category error in McLean v. Arkansas? He judged creationist origins science against empirical science criteria. The approach he took is unfortunate but understandable, given the lack of a philosophy of origins science. If a United States district judge can view the issue in this way, then it is likely to be rife—if not the norm—among broad swathes of the general public. Lewontin’s quote, cited earlier, is evidence that a real distinction exists between these two branches of science.
[1] Lewontin, 1997.
[2] The equivalent, in origins, would be the “David Attenborough effect”. Sir David is, at the time of writing, a highly respected communicator who believes resolutely in evolution, and as such has been very effective in convincing the public of the reliability of evolutionary science.
[3] Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community, 2009, p. 48.
[4] Ibid., p. 9.
[5] Ibid., p. 38.
[6] Ibid., p. 45.
[7] Berthault demonstrated empirically that in the presence of a water current, sedimentary layers can form laterally and vertically simultaneously, that current formed layers can have the same appearance as layers laid down over long periods, and that strata are not always a measure of chronology (Berthault, 2000).
[8] Overton, 1982.
[9] See quotation of George Wald, Chapter 10.
[10] CMI, 1993
[11] This scenario is expounded in Gosse’s book Omphalos (1857). Here Gosse suggested God created the fossils in the rocks complete with an apparent, but false, built-in life history. Christians considered this unacceptable because it implied that God had created a deceptive world in the rocks.
[12] CMI, 2024.