the tip of the iceberg

The Theory of Evolution is but the tip of the iceberg.We all know the metaphor of the ice berg. We only see a tiny part emerging from the water, the vast bulk of it is hidden under the water. Creationists deny, ridicule and attack the theory of evolution. But actually, the ToE is but the tip of the ice berg. Belowis there a whole attack on science proper. Nearly all the sciences are under attack by creationists.

1. The ToE is not that important.
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   One can live a fulfilling life, be a functional citizen without any knowledge of it. The ToE is the big unifying paradigm of biology and other life sciences like biochemistry. So any active scientist in one of those fields should have an thorough understanding of it, but for the average Joe it doesn’t matter. So there is no need to ram it through people’s throat. Not more (actually less) than a good understanding of hygiene, the Holocaust or the dangers of tobacco.
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   That of course is for the individual. As a society we need a certain percentage of the population to be scientific literate – preferably s much as possible – but we can tolerate some lunatics, some madness, some mavericks. But on the personal level; one can perfectly believe whatever lunacy one wants.
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2. So what is the fuss all about?
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   Anyone reading YEC-material will soon realize that any aspect of any scientific statement that gives credentials to the ToE or that somehow invalidates the YEC position will be immediately seen as antagonistic. If we take the ToE proper out of the picture, there is still the age of the Earth, the age of the Universe, the history and archaeology that are in direct contradiction of the Flood, there is the world demography that shows a continuity in contradiction with the Flood myth and so on. So the creationists adopted a new word, or at least gave it a new meaning: evolutionism.
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   “Evolutionism” is simply everything that either contradict Young Earth Creationism or somehow supports the creationist’s strawman version of evolution. Let us take one example: radiometric dating. Since radiometric dating measures ages older than the canonical 600 years it is (for YEC-ists) wrong and hence is part of this nebulous “evolutionism”. Over the years I have seen arguments against
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   • Astronomy and it’s multiple subdisciplines: like the age of the Universe, the Big Bang theory, the starlight distance problem, star formation, etc;
   • The Theory or relativity, that states the constancy of c, and hence the star light problem
   • Planetary sciences, like the age of the rings of Saturn, the receding movement of the Moon,
   • Demography: the repopulation of the Earth after the Flood is absolutely incompatible with the known populations of ancient civilizations
   • Nuclear physics, that somehow ignores the fact that radioactive processes speed up in Flood conditions
   • Glaciology, that thinks that collects ice layers of hundreds of thousands of years.
   • Plate tectonics: that doesn’t know that the entire Himalaya mountain range formed in the Flood.
   • Paleoclimatology, that keeps saying that there were multiple Ice Ages, lasting tens of thousands of years each. While YEC’s pretend that the Flood caused one single Ice Age, that lasted what? – a year?
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   And so on. These aren’t isolated instances. These aren’t innocent positions. In the end all the sciences are labelled as invalid and “evolutionism”. Despite the rhetoric that creationist love science, one by one all sciences are labelled as “evolutionism” and atheistic, anti-Christian and wrong. The part of the ice berg below the water becomes visible. All sciences are wrong, according to the YEC’s, and not in some minor minutiae, but at the very foundational core of what they teach.
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3. The ice berg grows
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   In science data is the end all tell all. The observed evidence is the ultimate arbiter. Not the authority of the scientist, not the number of letters in front or behind a PhD’s name, only the empirical evidence. This goes against the YEC’s attitude of argumentation based on authority, with of course the bible and god as ultimate authority. The mass of the ice berg becomes suddenly a lot bigger. What is at stake is not the ToE anymore, not the different sciences but the very scientific method itself and hence the possibility of research. Hence the possibility to progress and to tackle humanity’s needs. While the self-correcting attitude of science is celebrated as a strength of science by scientists, creationists will ridicule it, by calling it guesses or “fad of the week” (Kent Hovind about the Big Bang Theory). Of course admitting a mistake, correct an error is completely strange to creationists. Authoritarians don’t do that. They blame the underling.
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   Worse, according to the paper The Postmodern Sin of Intelligent Design Creationism creationists deliberately portray science - all the sciences -as just a story of the elites and the scientific “truths” are just the outcome of a powerplay. Again, the very nature of science is at stake.

Please discuss.

Thread copied to the the tip of the iceberg thread in the Creation/Evolution Miscellany forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.