Creation biology
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Creation biology is an attempt to study biology from a young earth creationist perspective. According to its proponents, it is a synthesis of science and religion, as it attempts to draw from both sources in developing its ideas. According to its detractors, it is a synthesis of science and religion, and thus not pure science, but something distorted by outside prejudices.
Creation biology is based on the idea that God created all life on the planet as described in the Genesis account of Creation, in a finite number of discrete created kinds or baramin. Creation biologists assert that while these forms of life were given the ability to vary a great deal and even undergo speciation, these kinds cannot arise spontaneously, cannot interbreed, and cannot increase in complexity.
As such, creation biology differs from mainstream biology mainly in its rejection of macroevolution and universal common descent. Since creation biology is concerned almost exclusively with the origins of living things, creation biologists accept much of mainstream biology with regard to physiology, the structure of the cell, the genomic basis of life, microevolution, and speciation.
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Elements of Creation Biology
Creation organizations advocating a number of ideas ranging from Young Earth Creationism to Intelligent Design have proposed a number of ideas, which differ significantly from evolutionary biology.
- Biogenesis, that is, the idea that life can only come from life, and cannot arise from non-life. This runs contrary to naturalistic theories of abiogenesis, which, while not strictly a discipline of evolutionary science, are often seen as parts of a common naturalistic philosophy.
- Teleology, that is, the idea that God designed life with intricate and interconnected components for a purpose, and then determined that they were "good." This runs contrary to the empirical model of modern science which claims that, by definition, there can be no empirically observed instance of supernatural influences in nature.
- Created kinds or Baraminology, that is, the idea that life was originally created in a finite number of discrete "kinds" or "baramin", and that while these kinds had the ability to vary significantly within their kind, one kind cannot interbreed with another kind, and new kinds cannot arise spontaneously. This runs contrary to the theory of universal common ancestry, that is, that all life on the planet is related via macroevolution.
- Irreducible complexity, that is, the claim made by Michael Behe that there exists systems in life that are composed of interdependent components where the absence of one would cause the entire system to fail. Creation biologists claim that these systems are essentially interdependent, and it is therefore more reasonable to believe they were designed and assembled together for a purpose. They also claim that the theory of biological evolution cannot convincingly explain how these parts evolved as part of a viable living system.
- Specified complexity, that is, the claim made by William Dembski that genetic information is "complex specified information" (CSI), that natural processes can reduce and change CSI, but can never increase it, and that it is therefore more reasonable to infer that such information was created through the intervention of an intelligent designer rather than being the sole product of evolutionary processes. This runs contrary to the idea that all biological features are the result of evolution.
Criticism
The elements of creation biology often face fierce resistance from established biologists, who generally regard them as pseudoscience, or religion disguised as science. For example,
- The law of biogenesis is rejected as being a false absolute. Since life itself is poorly defined, there is no acceptable scientific consensus on how it must "always" come about. In a real sense, there is always integration of "non-living" substances into living beings and the "agency" of life is not required for this to occur since much of the integration occurs by the laws of chemistry which are completely independent from the definition of life.
- Creation biology presents a teleological view of biology that no empirical result could disprove -- a violation of the falsifiability requirement of the scientific method.
- The introduction of supernatural elements in describing the origin and development of life is regarded to be incompatible with the scientific method, whose explicit purpose is to investigate the empirical realm of nature.
- The creationist definition of "kind" is regarded as either too vague or needlessly divergent from the well-explained models of phylogenetics. The reluctance of creationists to come up with a suitable system of "kinds" also raises doubts about the falsifiability of the concept.
- The description of macroevolution as an iterated process of microevolutionary steps is too causally rejected, often by ignoring the plethora of citations regarding microevolutionary pathways to arrive at particular macroevolutionary transitions.
- The concept of "irreducible complexity" is rejected as an argument from ignorance or a non sequitur of the form "There is no obvious predecessor state, thus there are no predecessor states." Evolutionary biologists insist that the possibility of non-obvious predecessor and intermediate states in evolution is considered. For example, if neither the genetic features "A" nor "B" can exist alone, and "AB" is found in an organism, there are many other imaginable intermediate states, namely "C" to "AC" to "ABC" to "AB", where "C" is a feature that behaves somewhat like "B" but has the ability to stand on its own, as well as some evolutionary merit.
- "Specified complexity" is rejected as a non-measure, stating that meaning is not an inherent property of a piece of information, but instead only arises from the interaction of information and an external observer. CSI is also claimed to be an instance of circular logic. In particular, critics say that the assumption that an organism displays CSI is begging the question, since one assumes precisely that which one attempts to prove (which is a teleological origin of a piece of information).
External links
- Creationscience.com An on-line book, "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood"
- Dogs breeding dogs? "Upholding the Authority of the Bible from the very first verse."
- Talk.Origins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Controversy
Sources
Sarfati, Jonathon. Refuting Compromise, Master Books, 2004.