What is creation science?

[Hygro]

But not every discipline is. Psychology and economics are not extensions of the discipline of physics. But biology is straight up atoms, yo.

 

[dutchfire]

The border between chemistry and biology is super fuzzy, and is essentially only self-identification. It is quite strange to say that biology is not a science but chemistry is in that context.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Thanks for the replies, but I was actually hoping for a response from a supporter of creation science. It is my understanding that CFC has at least a few creationists, so I was hoping for an explanation from that side.

If you want an answer from a creationist, you should ask in OT.

It's not even pseudo-science, that's a term which refers to non-hard sciences. ... Biology, for example, would meet the definition of pseudo-science, while physics and chemistry would not.

Pseudo-science means it's fake. As in it's got as much validity as astrology, which is ZERO.

Have you told your doctor lately that he spent all those years in university to get a doctorate in a pseudo-science? I'm sure he/she would be THRILLED to hear that!

 

[Hygro]

Millionaires don't believe in astrology.

Billionaires do.

-JP Morgan

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Pseudo-science means it's fake. As in it's got as much validity as astrology, which is ZERO.

As I explicitly explained and cited, it does not.

But thanks for reading my posts!

Have you told your doctor lately that he spent all those years in university to get a doctorate in a pseudo-science? I'm sure he/she would be THRILLED to hear that!

I would have no problem doing so, because medical practice is not a science.

Science doesn't mean shiny gadgets and lab coats and lots of education required in Latin terminology. It's not a catchall phrase for, well, anything you want it to include.

While we're at it, would you mind defining science for me?

 

[Hygro]

Yeah medicine is definitely not a science. Doctors as a rule aren't scientific either. Unfortunately many think they are, which is one reason why too many doctors are so inferior their jobs despite raw talent and training.

 

[MrCynical]

As I explicitly explained and cited, it does not.

Well, it's at a minimum using the term "pseudoscience" in a contradictory manner to the way the overwhelming majority of the population does. There comes a point in communication where what is commonly meant by a term has far more claim to being right than an uncommonly used one that you've found written down somewhere.

We looked where he said they should be, and found Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Those are novel predictions. Biology is incapable of making this kind of prediction, it can only analyze what has happened in the past. Biologists cannot accurately predict anything in the future. They can talk about probabilities and possible dynamics, but they cannot make a definitive statement upon which the validity of their theories can be hinged, which we can directly test and determine to be correct or not, unless it is some sort of reaction which has already been determined to be true in the past.

And this is where your argument loses any kind of coherence. The past/future distinction is meaningless from a scientific point of view. If someone's comes up with a theory to explain observations, and it implies for example that a comet hit the earth X million years ago, that is still a scientific prediction. It doesn't make their theory (never mind their whole discipline) unscientific that they are predicting the results of observations that they will make about past events rather than future events.

Trying to claim that for instance chemistry is scientific and biology is <whatever> is fairly ridiculous due to the heavy overlap between the two. Biology is in many ways just chemistry scaled up to the point where it's inconvenient to draw out every atom and bond. The claim that biology cannot make any future prediction is just plain wrong. Take a protein, observe its function. Predict which bits are critical to its function, and which could be freely permuted. Make some mutations to change those parts and see if you were right which will impact the organism and which won't. You've made a prediction. Might be right, might be wrong, might be right for the wrong reasons. Chemistry and physics have no shortage of predictions in all categories. Now flip it round. Find organisms with the same disrupted phenotype, and predict that they will have the same mutations. You've made another prediction - sequence them and see if you're right.

Just think about it: what is the theory of evolution? It's not an analysis of the future, is it? It's analysis of the past. It makes no predictions.

Wrong, mostly due to your focus on the non-existent past/future distinction in science. If you predict the existence and nature of an intermediate species between two known species based on the theory of evolution that is still a scientific prediction you've made. Turn up the fossil and it's even a correct prediction. That the species existed before you came up with the theory doesn't make it not-science. The theory was not based on that observation - the observation instead was found to validate the theory. Saying that this doesn't count as it's "in the past" is equivalent to claiming that Mendeleev's predictions of Gallium and Germanium didn't count because the elements already existed, but were just unknown.

That's even before we touch on things like genetic algorithms. When you say design a circuit with one of those the prediction you're making is not exactly what the circuit will look like, but that the circuit will be better based on the selection rules you set down than whatever you started with. That is not merely making predictions based on the theory of evolution but exploiting it, in a manner which is often overlooked simply because it appears so obvious.

 

[sanabas]

Pseudo-science means it's fake. As in it's got as much validity as astrology, which is ZERO.

Personally, when I think psuedoscience, I think of things like economics, rather than outright fakes & frauds like astrology or 'creation science'. Not that I have a problem with all 3 going in there.

Cheezy's definition appears to split things into objectively predicting the future aka science and subjectively examing the past aka psuedoscience. Which he then applies a deep misunderstanding of biology & chemistry to in order to put them on different sides of that divide.

 

[Hygro]

Economics is not a pseudoscience, it's a social science. A lot of claims in economics are pseudoscience.

 

[Yoda Power]

Wikipedia actually has an excellent article on the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience

 

[Agent327]

Cult practices and quackery are vogue terms for heterodox medicine but their categorical dismissal is on the wrong side of history, for certain.

I'd say that 'heterodox medicine' is rather a vogue term for quackery. There was a recent trial, I believe, in the Netherlands where terming homeopathy as quackery was confirmed. There is no conclusive evidence that homeopathy and similar pseudo-medicinal practices actually work (beyond a placebo effect).

If you want an answer from a creationist, you should ask in OT.

If creation science is actually science I see no reason why it shouldn't be discussed in Science. If it is not, well, then my question is answered.

 

[Hygro]

How can "heterodox medicine" be a vogue term when no one uses it? Anyway, you can't draw the conclusion that all forms of acupuncture or all forms of chiropractic or all forms music therapy are quackery because the unrelated field of homeopathy fails to beat placebo.

Unless of course, you do so on faith.

 

[El_Machinae]

I would have no problem doing so, because medical practice is not a science.

No, it is. Or, there's a heavy component.
A medical treatment relies upon an underlying theoretical foundation, which then leads to a diagnosis and a recommended course of therapy with an expected outcome. Yeah, it's fuzzy, because it's hard and because people are very heterogeneous when it comes to important factors such as lifestyle. But, there's a heavy component of science in medicine.

Lots of science requires statistics, and it's very hard to generate statistics with individual patients. So, there is a lot of 'playing the odds'. But, because medicine is so scientific, we can expect improvements in outcomes as the underlying theory improves. Or the ability to diagnose.

 

[Agent327]

How can "heterodox medicine" be a vogue term when no one uses it?

I just inverted your use of said term. (Truly, I have never heard of it either.)

Anyway, you can't draw the conclusion that all forms of acupuncture or all forms of chiropractic or all forms music therapy are quackery because the unrelated field of homeopathy fails to beat placebo.

I didn't draw any conclusion.

No, it is.

Cheezy is right: medical practice isn't science; it very much depends on the primary diagnosis. So it heavily depends on the abilities of the doctor/nurse you encounter. Malpractice isn't frowned on because it is unscientific, but because it is fraud or incompetence.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Creationists/creation scientists want their beliefs taught in public schools. So:

1. They say that evolution is not a fact, but a scientific theory;
2. They say creationism is not just a religious school of thought, but a scientific theory;
3. They say all theories should be taught in public schools on an equal basis

Therefore, creationism should be taught in public schools.

Trying not to make any judgments here.

 

[timtofly]

What you posted may be a consensus, but there are some holes there.

Creationism may be a belief, but it is not a scientific theory. The creation story was not given to one day prove a scientific hypothesis. It was an account that was given more than 2500 years ago, if not before that.

It was taught in most public schools in the US because the Bible was a text book for quite sometime before it was deemed outdated.

Evolution as a theory is what was taught after it was determined that the Bible was outdated.

Whoever thinks that the Genesis account is a theory that should replace the theory of evolution would be doing a discredit to both the Bible and science. Is the account as written right or wrong? How could that be proven? Even if there is evidence that the account is wrong, that only makes it wrong in the mind of the one who trust the evidence. It cannot be proven that the account was wrong, unless the evidence at the time or previous to the time of the account was provided to refute the account.

The same would apply to the theory of evolution. No one can go back in time to bring forth evidence that would refute the theory. All we have is the evidence today that seems to validate the theory.

It may be possible to deceive humans to get them to change their mind, but changing people's minds in an honest manner does not always work. On the current topic, perhaps only God himself is capable of changing a person's mind, but then that may be construed as not allowing one to exercise their own free will.

 

[Harv]

Creationists/creation scientists want their beliefs taught in public schools. So:

1. They say that evolution is not a fact, but a scientific theory;
2. They say creationism is not just a religious school of thought, but a scientific theory;
3. They say all theories should be taught in public schools on an equal basis

Therefore, creationism should be taught in public schools.

Trying not to make any judgments here.

Creationists/creation scientists do not want their beliefs evolution taught in public schools. So:

1. They say that evolution is not a fact, but a scientific theory religion;

So they argue that if they want to exclude religion from being taught in the public school system, then they should not be teaching evolutionism either.

Way back when I was in high school, my biology teacher presented us with three theories on how life came about on Earth.

Going back to the OP, I think the question is about Young Earth Creation Theory. Here is a wikipedia article

EDIT: Crosspost

Creationism may be a belief, but it is not a scientific theory. The creation story was not given to one day prove a scientific hypothesis. It was an account that was given more than 2500 years ago, if not before that.

I thought it was a scientific theory, every bit as much as the Big Bang Theory. It proposes that somebody created the universe, the Earth, and life on Earth. Whether the science behind the theory is worthy of being taught in a science class is a question that is being debated here.

There are questions I have about the Young Earth Creation Theory, but the "Drake Equation" works out like: N = P x Y x Sy. The people I know who believe YECT seem to avoid science.

P = World Population
Y = proportion of World Population that believes YECT.
Sy = proportion of World Population that believes YECT that can hold an intelligent conversation about science.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Well - pretty much EVERYthing is a theory. All we can ever do is weigh the amount of evidence.

Creationism is not a scientific theory, but the reason creation science came about was that if something is going to be taught in science class, it by definition has to have a scientific basis.

What I find funny is that too many people fail to acknowledge that Genesis dovetails pretty nicely with evolution and the big bang, once you accept that a Biblical "day" is not 24 hours:

God created the Heaven and the earth ... let there be light - sounds like the Big Bang
God created the sea animals, the birds, and then animals on the land, and then man.

As a Christian, I believe in evolution, but I believe is was done by God. I see no conflict with this.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, if you ignore that Genesis has God creating a day/night cycle without heavenly lights and bringing forth all green vegetation before he creates the sun, the moon and the stars, then yes.

 

[Hygro]

I didn't draw any conclusion.

Nor did I say you did. That's how it works, you see. First you "invert" a term rendering something meaningful into something rhetorical that recontextualizes heterodox medicine as quackery. Then you immediately follow with a specific point about homeopathy "and similar", a vague thing that mean mean any medicine using homeopathic logic, or you might mean all alternative medicine under the unstated thought train that unorthodox medicine is quackery and since homeopathy is quackery, "similar" means other medicines non-orthodox.

But nowhere did you say it, you just rhetorically articulate your points as though that's the default position.

Spoiler :

The further implication, maybe you aren't on board with this part but many people's brains work this way so it has the same end result, is that therefore they are on the wrong side and therefore regardless of true or false, their social status is at stake which can mess with people's abilities to articulate themselves shutting down the conversation.

If that constitutes a forum "win" for you then that's your thing, but if that's not what you're about, all you need is just a couple extra or swapped words and the personal conflict in the rhetoric is gone.

**
We're leaving out the discussion what constitutes a placebo and why placebo doesn't necessarily mean quackery, per se.