Creationist friends tell me that I have bought into the inductee nation of a science based education. I tell them that the basis for science is the Null Hypothesis. The Null Hypothesis does not try to prove what exists; it is the opposite, it tries to figure out what is NOT true and then all the other possibilities might be true. There are aspects of science that search out the undiscovered and admittedly, those are the aspects of science that are most popular such as archeology, zoology, botany and astronomy, but in all cases reputable scientist then publish their works to let other scientists in their field see what they have done and to look over their work for flaws in their observations.
In the Pure Sciences, observation is only part of the work; observation lead s to theories on why it is working and why it is not. In the case of theories of why it is working like Einstein's theories of relativity and his ideas about time and space, there are many scientists trying to disprove him all the time. Most of Einstein's theories can not be disproven except under extreme situations, but there are people trying to find those extreme situations so they can seek the proof they desire.
There are really three types of scientific theories, ones that are standing and waiting to be disproven and those that have been proven time and time again, that can't be disproven in fact; they are called Laws. There are also Laws that fit most situations but not all of them and there are some very large holes in them.
Some of the most notable Laws in our life that have been discovered and that everyone knows. The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the alternate sides. Simple laws first I say, just so you can understand that how they work. Kepler's Laws of planetary motion describe how any object orbits another and it always works. The Theory of Evolution is a Law that is disputed widely, but has been tested time and time again with no failures; Reputable Repeatable peer-Reviewed studies, RRR. Issac Newton's Laws of Motion.
Not the Law of Gravity. The law of gravity has holes in it. Gravity works fine for everyday human scale stuff, but it breaks down quite quickly in the micro and macro scales of science.
The problem that I have with Creationism is that the entire philosophy is a given Truth, but there is no proof in what is said and that many words that they say mean things literally, like the World was created in Six days, are treated metaphorically or symbolically in others, like days in prophesy means years. Prophesy is handed down by God and so were the first books of the Bible, so why is his word treated differently in these different cases. Then when they have figured out how something works and a a Null situation occurs, a prophesy of salvation or distruction fails to happen they try to assert that there was an error in their interpretation rather than their theory was wrong.
Faith is nice, but faith without something to go on is kind of silly. Creationists, have only one book, the Bible, to base their entire faith on. And it is a large book, but it is not as large as many as some books of other faiths. The Bavad Gita (sp), for example is one excerpt from a story that has hundreds of similar sized portions and then there are the stories that exist for each of their gods and then there are the stories of each of their gods times that they spent on Earth of which the Ramayana is only one and it is as big as the Iliad, Odessey or the Aneiad.
When modern anti theologians confront theologians with plausible arguments against what the bible says, the creationists add to what the Bible says with made up explanations, explanations that are not present in the Bible, the source of everything important to them. Microevolution. Radioactive decay changes from year to year.
Every year science takes steps to prove the theories that people have proposed. They discover things in the cosmos that prove theories. The Null Hypothesis removes more of the uncertainty, revealing more of the truth. While the creationists, young earth and old earth, stick their heads further into the sand yelling, "Nahnahnahnahnahna, I do not hear you so what you say is not true!". Sometimes I think that their silliness should be reason to remove them from Creation. But where would that leave us, with 1% to 10% of the present population, and the loss of some really nice people.
I think that what needs to be done is to treat them with kindness. Let them explain themselves listen critically and then let them trip themselves up on what they say. Because anyone who sticks their heads in the sand to avoid something will do so.
Oh if you disagree with me please post a critism, I will get back to you.
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