Talk:Creationism/Is Creationism a theory

Is "creationism" a belief, an explanation, or a theory?

<<User:Rfl subtlely inserted the following reader-invisible comment into the Creationism page, I am resisting the temptation of inserting a response similarly into the hidden code of the Creationism page, and I am taking the liberty of cutting that comment below, celebrated in green here for the historical record.>>

Creationism is the explanation  that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God.

In looking through the historical record at the competition between creation and evolution in Darwin's day, I was impressed by Thomas Huxley's 1887 account of how Origin of Species provided the first explanation that in Huxley's view was a better explanation than creation. Huxley describes the sense in which he rejected creation as an explanation.

If Agassiz told me that the forms of life which had successively tenanted the globe were the incarnations of successive thoughts of the Deity; and that he had wiped out one set of these embodiments by an appalling geological catastrophe as soon as His ideas took a more advanced shape, I found myself not only unable to admit the accuracy of the deductions from the facts of paleontology, upon which this astounding hypothesis was founded, but I had to confess my want of any means of testing the correctness of his explanation of them. And besides that, I could by no means see what the explanation explained. [1]

Huxley describes his similar rejection of the explanations of the evolutionists prior to Darwin.

And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same answer to give to the evolutionists of 1851-8. . . . [A] thorough-going evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose acquaintance I made, I think, in 1852. . . . Many and prolonged were the battles we fought on this topic. But even my friend's rare dialectic skill and copiousness of illustration could not drive me from my agnostic position. I took my stand upon two grounds: firstly, that up to that time, the evidence in favor of transmutation was wholly insufficient; and, secondly, that no suggestion respecting the causes of the transmutation assumed, which had been made, was in any way adequate to explain the phenomena. Looking back at the state of knowledge at that time, I really do not see that any other conclusion was justifiable. [2]

Furthermore, any self-respecting religion-neutral anthropologist, such as Robert L. Carneiro, Curator of the American Museum of Natural History, would classify creation and evolution as mere successive stages of incomplete but improving explanations in a universe where there is no God to assist the women and men who attempt to discover the truth of their origins. [3]

From all of the above, I suggest that it is more accurate to define creationism as an explanation rather than a belief. After all, the survival of the belief derives from the usefulness of the belief, and a primary use of creationism is explaining how we all got here. According to Thomas Huxley, until Origin of Species, creationism was as good an explanation as evolutionism. And for the majority of American voters who cannot understand the evolutionists' explanations, creationism is a better explanation than evolutionism even yet today. [4] ---Rednblu 16:08, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Considering that "Belief in the psychological sense is a representational mental state that takes the form of a propositional attitude and in the religious sense, belief refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation, generally called faith, and that creationism is part and parcel of the christian faith, I think the use of the term "belief" was completely justified. Creationism is indeed an explanation, but it is an explanation founded on belief, hence it is a belief. It is not founded on knowledge or evidence; to imply otherwise, which is what you're doing, is to create a false impression that Creationism shares some sort of parity with other explanations which do not require belief in the supernatural. It does not. You seem to be substituting your own personal bias for this imputed "evolutionist bias" you claim is on the Creationism page. --FM 16:48, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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"Personal bias"? Nope. I have bet on Darwin's explanation, myself.

In fact, I have a personal interest in getting more "creationists" to understand the extent to which their various hungers, including hungers for sugar, salt, burned fat, raiding Iraq, and gender bias are inherited hungers from the ancestors of the chimpanzees.

You propose a hypothesis: That the source of the political power of "creationism" is "belief."

I quote to you an opposing standard hypothesis from religion-neutral anthropology:

Although origin myths are usually assigned to the province of religion, they contain one element of science: explanation. While moral lessons may be scattered here and there throughout them, origin myths are basically ways of accounting for things as they are. Explanation, then, is not unique to nor did it begin with science. Science shares explanation with mythology. What distinguishes science from mythology is verification. Not only does science propose answers, it proceeds to test these answers, and if the answers prove incorrect, they must be rejected or modified. [5]

So I pose to you this question: How could we determine empirically whether the political power of "creationism" derives from

its simplistic explanatory power that appeals to hungers inherited from the ancestors of the chimpanzees (my hypothesis) or

its "foundation on belief" (your hypothesis--which wording of course you may edit to accurately reflect what you are saying)?

Would you agree that before 1850, creationism was an explanation founded on available knowledge and evidence? ---Rednblu 19:01, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's the thing about our knowledge, it keeps changing and growing (with any luck). Knowledge of the natural world and evidence of the same surpassed and rendered obsolete the majority relevant beliefs as to our 'creation' some time ago. This puts creationism squarely in the realm of belief, IMHO.

My apologies if I was incorrect in implying a personal bias you may have towards creationism. --FM 19:44, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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I think what the Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought has to say on the nature of belief is distinctly relevant here:

Belief is the direct mirror image of knowledge. To know something is to have experienced proof of it; to believe something is to sidestep the need for proof. To know that black is white would be a very different thing from believing that black is white. And yet believers consistently behave as if what they have is knowledge, and claim their belief as such. This is the case in matters both great and small, but is particularly so in our attitude to the supernatural. If one believes in the existence of supernatural beings, the next stage is to make that belief into a faith (belief with imperatives for action), and the step after that is to claim that proofs exist (miracles, personal revelations and so on). A scientist can prove the existence of, say, black-body radiation or ripples in space - the process of proof may be laborious, but the end result is sure knowledge which the outsider is bound to accept. In the same way, religious believers down the ages have offered laborious and meticulous proofs - but here, in the final analysis, the outsider must share the revelation, accept the irrational, in order to share the belief. I do not need to believe in the existence of black-body radiation to know that it exists; I do need to believe in God to know that He exists. In the same way, unless I am a fool or a charlatan, disproof will change what I know; someone else's disbelief, by contrast, will have no effect at all on what I believe.

I agree with FM that creationism, on this standard, clearly is a belief rather than a theory. Or if you want to be generous, perhaps call it a conjecture. -- ChrisO 16:56, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Would you agree with the following? "Creationism is an explanation"--with the understanding that, given today's total empirical evidence, "creationism" is as poor and inadequate an explanation for origins as is the "Phlogiston theory" for burning? ---Rednblu 19:01, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure using something like "Creationism is an unfounded explanation" is much of an improvement. --FM 19:44, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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Is "creationism" a discredited hypothesis?

If we would pattern the beginning of the Creationism page after the Phlogiston theory page, we would have the following.

Creationism is a now discredited pre-5th century BC hypothesis regarding the formation of the universe and the origin of species.

That beginning sentence would at least be accurate--and defensible. In contrast, the current first sentence is indefensible. It would similarly be indefensible to define Evolution as

Evolution is the belief that natural selection over millions of years has provided the origin of species from ancient lifeforms.

That is not what evolution is! Evolution is a whole complex of observations, conjectures, and progressively better explanations for the observations. Now, someone might believe that some version of evolution is more accurate than some other explanation. But the belief is forever separate from what is believed--even for the "creationists."

And the evolutionists will not let the creationists make a clear statement of what the "discredited hypothesis" is. ---Rednblu 21:09, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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Creationism is not a discredited hypothesis. Which is the whole point of this discussion. There is enough forthcoming evidence of the validity of Creationism to create a daily raido broadcast. To see some of the recent evidence the raido spot has a web page at [6]. To see some of this recent evidence, click on "View Transcripts" and look at the latest volume. KeyStroke

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Though I personally think that creationism as at [7] is a discredited hypothesis, I concede that you make a very important point--whether creationism is a discredited hypothesis is the "whole point of this discussion." And we should not hope to prove one way or the other here on this Talk:Creationism page. Here, we should be figuring out how to turn the Creationism page into a coherent presentation of what "creationism" is. Would you agree? ---Rednblu 05:30, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree that the Creationism entry, itself, and perhaps this talk page are not the place to "prove", one way or the other, the validity of Creationism. The purpose of Wikipedia is to make encyclopedia entries. It needs to take the approach that the old Dragnet TV show investigators took - "Just the facts, ma'am". We need to present the ideas of Creationism in a way that cohesively and accurately represents what Creationsim is. The article is not the place to try to convince people that Creationism is right, and it is not the place to try to convince people that Creationism is wrong. Those people who are led by God to accept those ideas would do so, without the article needing to "convince" them that Creationism is right. Those people who have determined to reject ideas based on faith would do so, without the article needing to "convince" them that Creationsim is wrong. Let the ideas stand on their own merit with the reader. KeyStroke

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What you say makes sense to me. But let's wait to get discussion on this Talk:Creationism page from other points-of-view before we do anything. Okay? Meanwhile, what do you think of the proposed split of the Creationism page that many of us have been discussing in various forms for the last couple of years? ---Rednblu 14:46, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As an interested reader, the split seems eminently sensible. The subject is, IMHO, large enough and contentious enough to make the work worthwhile. Katherine Shaw 10:40, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

I have put back a summary of the creation accounts in Genesis. To discuss rationally what creationists believe it is imperative to consider what the Bible actually says. I realise that what I have written may be contentious but it needs to be done. Michael Glass 03:23, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)