Creationism is a falsified scientific theory

Most posts in discussion boards about creationism as "science" centers
around whether creationism is science or not. I'm going to submit a
different approach: Creationism is a scientific theory, but it is a
FALSIFIED scientific theory.

Remember, scientific theories are falsifiable. That means they can be
falsified by evidence. Scientific theories can fall into 3 general
categories:
1. Untested.
2. Falsified
3. Supported.

So it follows that a falsified theory does not stop being scientific.
Instead, it simply moves from the very short column of currently valid
theories to the very long column of refuted or falsified theories.

Historically, this is what happened to creationism/Special Creation.
Prior to 1800, creationism was THE accepted scientific theory. From
1800-1831 young earth creationism got refuted.

"There is another way to be a Creationist. One might offer Creationism
as a scientific theory: Life did not evolve over millions of years;
rather all forms were created at one time by a particular Creator.
Although pure versions of Creationism were no longer in vogue among
scientists by the end of the eighteenth century, they had flourished
earlier (in the writings of Thomas Bumet, William Whiston, and others).
Moreover, variants of Creationism were supported by a number of
eminent nineteenth-century scientists-William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick,
and Louis Agassiz, for example. These Creationists trusted that their
theories would accord with the Bible, interpreted in what they saw as a
correct way. However, that fact does not affect the scientific status
of those theories. Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no
more unscientific than postulating unobservable particles. What
matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they
are articulated and defended. The great scientific Creationists of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered problem-solving strategies
for many of the questions addressed by evolutionary theory. They
struggled hard to explain the observed distribution of fossils.
Sedgwick, Buckland, and others practiced genuine science. They stuck
their necks out and volunteered information about the catastrophes that
they invoked to explain biological and geological findings. Because
their theories offered definite proposals, those theories were
refutable. Indeed, the theories actually achieved refutation. In 1831,
in his presidential address to the Geological Society, Adam Sedgwick
publicly announced that his own variant of Creationism had been
refuted:

Having, been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a
propagator of what I now regard as a philosophic heresy ... I think it
right, as one of my last acts before I quit this Chair, thus publicly
to read my recantation.

We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian
theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of
the Mosaic Flood. For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not
yet found a single trace among the remnants of a former world entombed
in these ancient deposits. In classing together distant unknown
formations under one name; in simultaneous origin, and in determining
their date, not by the organic remains we have discovered, but by those
we expected, hypothetically hereafter to discover, in them; we have
given one more example of the passion with which the mind fastens upon
general conclusions, and of the readiness with which it leaves the
consideration of unconnected truths. (Sedgwick, 1831, 313-314; all but
the last sentence quoted in Gillispie 1951, 142-143) Philip Kitcher,
Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism pp125-126

Special Creation was refuted in the period 1840-1940 -- when fixity of
species first began to be questioned until the formulation of the
Modern Synthesis solidified the general genetic mechanism of how
species change.

So, creationism can be, and has been, falsified just like any
scientific theory is falsfiied: by data that contradict the
consequences of the theory. No religion involved. No faith. No
interminable arguments trying to decide what science is and what should
be included.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why does creationism persist in the USA?
    ... fundementalist churches of the USA and why they support creationism. ... Education, specifially science education, would I expect to be a major ... level scientists and research due to continued funding at the elite ... Whatever "health and vigor" Evolutionism enjoys is also caused by God. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why does creationism persist in the USA?
    ... fundementalist churches of the USA and why they support creationism. ... Education, specifially science education, would I expect to be a major ... Whatever "health and vigor" Evolutionism enjoys is also caused by God. ... there are Creationist and ID scientists. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why does creationism persist in the USA?
    ... fundementalist churches of the USA and why they support creationism. ... Education, specifially science education, would I expect to be a major ... level scientists and research due to continued funding at the elite ... Whatever "health and vigor" Evolutionism enjoys is also caused by God. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Dana Tweedy is a Clown
    ... or Paleyan Design controlled science before the rise of ... No one disputes that before 1859 Creationism was the view of science. ... or all scientists were creationists. ... evolution has defined itself as true. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why does creationism persist in the USA?
    ... fundementalist churches of the USA and why they support creationism. ... Education, specifially science education, would I expect to be a major ... Whatever "health and vigor" Evolutionism enjoys is also caused by God. ... And there are Buddhist and Muslim scientists. ...
    (talk.origins)
Loading