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The intellectual poverty of Creationism

© Francois Tremblay

The debate between neo-Darwinism and Biblical Creationism is still raging after a hundred years of science. A majority of North Americans still believe that a Creator sprouted lifeforms out of nothing - ex nihilo - with a hit of its magic wand, instead of observable and necessary biological processes. Debates often oppose scientists to preachers bent on showing flaws and incompleteness in the neo-Darwinist position.

However, the debate is set on the wrong terms. It is almost always presumed that both ideologies are on the same footing, but this is not true.

Neo-Darwinism is a scientific theory - scientific in that it is based on natural causes and other established theories, and a theory in that it explains phenomena (the variety and adaptation of lifeforms) in an experimentally proven manner.

Biblical Creationism (or most forms of Creationism, for that matter) is not scientific, nor a theory - not scientific in that it is based on supernatural entities and non-existent processes, and not a theory in that "god did it" explains everything, and therefore absolutely nothing.

Rather, Biblical Creationism is religious dogma masquerading as scientific under various pretenses. Two in particular have sprouted out in recent times - "Intelligent Design" and "Irreducible Complexity". The former is little more than an attempt to rename "divine creation" in order to make it sound scientific. The latter uses simplistic Creationist reasoning to attempt to fix limits to natural processes (which would be hubris in itself, even if it wasn't demonstrably flawed).

Being neither scientific nor a theory, it would take incredible amounts of evidence to elevate Biblical Creationism to the level of hypothesis, let alone theory. As I pointed out, the only support in its favour is invoking supernatural entities and non-existent processes.

What is the evidence for evolution ? The fossil record (which is in perfect order from simpler to modern forms), DNA (which shows the evolutionary relationships between modern animals), our observations of the mechanisms of evolution and evolution itself (natural selection and mutations are obvious facts), the biology of current animals (vestigial organs, embryonic development), and many lines of evidence which have been falsified over and over again.

What do preachers and theologians oppose to this ? Little more than Bible quotes and dishonest attempts to refute evolution. Of course, they are totally oblivious to the fact that even if neo-Darwinism was, by some kind of miracle, refuted, that still leaves the Algonquin creation myth, the Shinto creation myth, the Yoruba creation myth, the Mayan creation myth, the Pawnee, Inuit, Mogollon, Hindu, and Zoroastrian creation myths, as well as other scientific hypothesis such as Special Creationism, Lamarckism, Neo-Lamarckism, Process Structuralism, Saltationism, and rand knows how many more idea.

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