Monday, January 02, 2017

What would science say in a world in which young earth creationism was true?

Surely there is a possible world in which YEC is true, in which humans develop science. What would scientists in that world say?

There seem to be three possibilities.

1) Science would say the world was created in 6 days approximately 6,000 years ago by a omnipotent supernatural being.

2) Science cannot say how speciation took place.

3) Science must invent an evolutionary theory, even though it is false.

10 comments:

Aron said...

I think science would say that the universe is 6,000 years old, and a very strong philosophical argument could be made that creation by an omnipotent supernatural being is the best explanation. The line between philosophy and science is pretty thin and blurry, so one could argue that this inference qualifies as science. After all, there is no such thing as a purely scientific conclusion. Even mundane scientific findings like "it is 70 degrees outside" depend on philosophical positions regarding induction and external world realism.

Unknown said...

I would imagine 2 would last for a while, until 1 became unavoidable--part of the reason being that science only considers naturalistic explanations, so it takes extra-scientific reasoning to conclude the superiority of a supernaturalistic explanation. An evolutionary scenario would never be developed because of the obvious lack of time--however, if some other naturalistic explanation were created that seemed explanatory, then you can be sure that would take the place of 2 as I first stated it.

Unknown said...

"extra-scientific reasoning to conclude the superiority of a supernaturalistic explanation."

While I'm thinking philosophy, here, many an internet atheist would cry "pseudo science!" in demand for my submission to their scientism.

Unknown said...

Contrary to scientism, not all knowledge is reducible to the physical sciences. And contrary to that, the sciences are in fact reducible to and dependent on the knowledge and reasoning of raw philosophy.

B. Prokop said...

Would the question as to how speciation "took place" even come up? Would not the assumption simply be that they exist, without anyone worrying about why there exist more than one?

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Aron Zavaro

The line between philosophy and science is pretty thin and blurry, so one could argue that this inference qualifies as science. After all, there is no such thing as a purely scientific conclusion.

Science is full of metaphysical assumptions.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

excellent Question Dr. R. In such a world I assume there would be no fossil record leading one to believe in evolution and old earth, The background radiation from the BB? would there be such a thing?

Victor Reppert said...

I wasn't thinking of a world in which God put fossils in the ground to fool the scientists.

William said...

Atheists might then have faith in our godlike Simulation overlords?

https://www.fat.bme.hu/student/pub/Programozas3/SimulationArgument.pdf

Kathen said...

Why is there a problem?

Science would say:
The world began approx. 6000 years ago and its formation took approx. 6 days.

Natural selection does happen but there has not been enough time for it to account for all the complex lifeforms on Earth.

Therefore (probably) they either came to Earth by means as yet unknown or they were designed and made on Earth by intelligent beings. Why supernatural? Why omnipotent?

As for B.Prokop's suggestion that the question of speciation would not come up, well of course it would. It came up on Earth didn't it, before anyone thought of natural selection?