The thing about creationism is that there had never before been a name for the idea that God created the universe largely as we now see it in its present form some 10,000 years ago. No one had seriously questioned the idea in much of the western world for thousands of years. This was due in large part to the fact that a number like 10,000 was practically inconceivable without our more modern decimal system. It was very cumbersome to manage what we today think of as simple mathematical operations involving enormous numbers and orders of scale. Many of those developments didnt begin to occur until the 15th century. Creationism was born out of a backlash against Darwins Dangerous Idea, as author Daniel Dennett calls it. Much has been written in great detail about Darwinian Natural Selection, and those who tend to refute it have clearly never actually read his Origins of Species (1859). It is easier to understand how he came to the understanding that would now be the foundation of the biological sciences by reading about his life as a naturalist at the height of the Newtonian age of science. Around the same time as the mathematical developments described above were occurring the earth sciences, like geology were starting to form. This had a tremendous impact on Darwins view. It was largely concluded, even before Darwin that the kinds of geological formations that create mountains and canyons bring the biblical age of the earth, not to mention the universe into question. Using the same scientific thinking that a forensic pathologist uses to observe the scene of an accident geologists deduce these enormous time scales based on rates of erosion and carbon testing and ordinary physics we take for granted every day. None of this actually disproves Creationism, but given the enormous success of the theory of evolution by natural selection and its correspondence to animal husbandry, the study of genetics and the entire field of biology the burden of proof rests on creationists for so long as they continue to go to a certified physician for health advice, or until Creationism introduces an actual lab component.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:10:47 +0000
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