Creationists Don’t Deny Science!

Probably the most common claim I hear from our critcs is that “creationists deny science.” And no matter how many times we address this false notion, the media and secularist groups still spread that myth around. Well, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, and I all recently made the top of Karl Giberson’s list of “award-worthy science denialism” from 2014. Again, yet another person claims that we are against science. But this is absolutely not true!

The Myth Keeps Spreading

Karl Giberson is a theistic evolutionist, the former vice-president of BioLogos (a theologically liberal think tank known for comprimising God’s Word in Genesis), and professor of science, religion, and writing at Stonehill College. He’s an outspoken critic of biblical creation, and I’ve blogged many times about his blatant compromise of Scripture and his attacks on me, AiG, and the Creation Museum.

Well, in his latest article for The Daily Beast, “2014: Revenge of the Creationists,” he states, “Science denialism is alive in the United States and 2014 was yet another blockbuster year for preposterous claims from America’s flakerrati. To celebrate the year, here are the top 10 anti-science salvos of 2014.” He then proceeds to list AiG as number one and even calls me “America’s leading science denialist.” But do creationists deny science? Of course not!

We Love Science at AiG

What Giberson does (or ignores) is that there are two different kinds of science. This is obvious from his comments about my debate with Bill Nye "the Science Guy" last February: “[Ken Ham’s] greatest howler, however—and my top anti-science salvo of 2014—would have to be his wholesale dismissal of the entire scientific enterprise as an atheistic missionary effort.” Now, when in the debate did I ever completely dismiss “the entire scientific enterprise”? At AiG, we love science, and so do our scientists who have earned their PhDs! And, during the debate, I specifically highlighted scientists who are doing leading work in their fields and who are biblical creationists (such as Dr. Raymond Damadian—inventor of the famous MRI scanner). In the debate, I revealed the difference between the two different kinds of science, and I showed how secularists have hijacked science using a "bait-and-switch" tactic to try to promote their own naturalistic religion.

The word science means “knowledge,” and we need to understand different types of knowledge.  Now, the first kind of science is observational science, which operates in the present and is what builds our technology, put the rover on Mars, and makes medical innovations. Observational science is knowledge gained by direct observation, testing, and repeatability. But the other kind of science, historical science, deals with the past and is therefore not directly testable, observable, or repeatable because the past is, well, history! Knowledge concerning the past—which involves the realm of beliefs! It is true that what you believe about the past is going to influence how you interpret the evidence of the present. If you start with man’s word, then you will interpret the evidence of the present through the lens of millions of years of naturalistic processes. But if you start with God’s Word—which was written by the only One who was actually there through history!—you will interpret the evidence of the present through the lens of a universe brought into existence by an all powerful God, a perfect world marred by sin, and young earth that was drastically changed by a global Flood a few thousand years ago. The evidence is the same—you just interpret it differently depending on your starting point!

Reject the Religion of Evolution and Millions of Years

Most secularists, however, refuse to recognize the obvious difference between these two kinds of science. Instead, they call both observational science and their view of origins—molecules-to-man evolution—science, without any distinction between the two, and then claim that, because we reject their view of origins, we reject science. They say this because they don’t want to admit they actually hold beliefs—a religion! Their religion is naturalism. Creationists don’t reject observational science—we love science! What we do reject are the worldview-based assumptions behind evolutionary and old-earth models of Earth’s history—we reject naturalism (or atheism) as an explanation of the origin of all the basic entities of life and the universe. We reject the religion of evolution and millions of years—humanistic naturalism—that is being imposed on our culture. This is a far cry from rejecting science as compromisers like Giberson claim!

So when people claim that creationists deny science, what they’ve done is a bait-and-switch. They call their religion of naturalism and the observational evidence both “science” and then, because creationists reject their religion, they claim that we reject science!

Now, if Giberson was going to be consistent, then he would have to add Newton, Mendel, Boyle, Faraday, Pascal, Damadian, and hosts of others to the list of science deniers! All of these men made remarkable advancements to observational science, and yet they were all creationists. Clearly, creationists do not reject science as many like Giberson claim. That’s why when someone levels this charge, we need to ask them to define what they mean by the word science.

At Answers in Genesis we have lots of science resources to help kids and young people learn about both observational science and about the true history of the world that explains what we see in observational science. These resources encourage kids to become the next generation of scientists like Newton or Faraday or Dr. Damadian—men and women who will explore creation from a biblical starting point. I encourage you to use these resources to equip your kids to study God’s creation for His glory!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

 

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.