Transcript down below.
It’s August in Minnesota, and you know what that means: it’s county fair time. The fair is a big deal out here in the rural US, so yesterday I walked down to the fairgrounds and spent a couple of hours strolling about, admiring the pigs and cows and horses, seeing the 4H exhibits, signing up for the drawing for a free pickup truck (I hope I don’t win), and admiring the needlepoint and quilting displays. It was pleasant.
Then I was recognized! This fellow I didn’t know called me out, said hello, said I was “famous”, asked how things were going at the university, the usual pleasantries. He introduced me to his kids. It was the standard country neighborliness and all that.
Then he got down to business. He was a creationist. He said that evolution was just an opinion, that creation had just as much evidence, how could I ignore all the obvious proof of creation all around us, true science accepts the Bible as evidence, that Christians invented science or the scientific method so if we really believed in science we should be Christian, etc., etc., etc. I could tell he was steeped in the dogma of Answers in Genesis.
I opened my mouth and raised a finger, ready to lesson him…
And here’s what I said. I could argue with you for hours and hours, but we’re at the fair, your kids want to have fun, how about if I don’t? We parted congenially and I went off to see the true biological sheep.
I admit, I was frustrated about letting such ignorance walk away, but there’s a time and a place for argument, and I don’t think standing in a path where hundreds of people are milling about to get cotton candy or ride the roller coaster is the appropriate place.
So I simmered over this question. If I’d wanted to ruin my evening at the fair I could have torn into him and demolished those very familiar claims. I had two arguments ready to deploy.
It turns out it was a good thing I didn’t jump on him right away and had to go home and review what Answers in Genesis had to say about science, because if my interlocutor had really studied that website, he’d be prepared with an absurd rebuttal, and we would have gone swirling down into chaos, because AiG is shoveling the kind of material that would have been totally fitting with the stuff being hurled behind the livestock barns.
The first of my two obvious, easy responses would be that no, Christianity did not invent science, or more specifically the scientific method. The Chinese were doing science long before Jesus; same with the Greeks, the Babylonians, every pre-Abrahamic culture. I’d go so far as to say that every people that asked questions about the nature of their existence and the universe around them, and that tried to answer it with observations and tests, were doing at least a primitive form of science. Alas, Jason Lisle of AiG already had an explanation.
“The Bible provides the only possible presupposition for all thought and science.” Only a biblical worldview can logically account for those things necessary for scientific inquiry, such as uniformity in nature (as shown in Evolution: The Anti-Science) and laws of logic (as shown in Atheism: An Irrational Worldview). Without these things, science could not proceed. And yet, these things are contingent upon the biblical God.
Uh-oh. Their answer is to simply ASSERT that you can only do science with a biblical worldview. All logic and science is derived from the Bible, they say. OK. But what about those Greeks doing science before Christianity, while completely ignorant of the Hebrew holy book? How could they do that? Lisle has an answer.
Did the ancient Greeks believe in laws of logic? Yes. Did they believe in uniformity in nature? Yes. So, the Greeks were borrowing from the biblical worldview (without acknowledging this, of course). Although they denied the biblical God with their lips, they were relying upon the biblical God with their actions. This is a behavioral inconsistency quite common in our modern world, too. Just like the Greeks, many scientists today rely upon the truth of the Bible while simultaneously verbally denying the truth of the Bible.
See? Atheists and pagans are stealing from the Bible without acknowledgement, those sneaky plagiarists. They were even parroting the future words of the prophets, and then hiding their thievery. Even if Aristotle had never heard of the Bible, and lived a few hundred years before Jesus, he was using the biblical worldview when he wrote about physics and embryology.
I don’t even know how to reply to that, except by laughing. OK, guy, all science is the product of Christian trans-temporal magic brain waves. I can’t argue with you because that’s on a plane of stupidity I cannot imagine.
My second response was going to be a bit more subtle. If Christians like Ken Ham are invested in doing science, why are they not practicing it? They should be modifying their hypotheses about the history and nature of the world by observing and doing experiments and collecting data, and building new models on the basis of those observations. That’s what scientists do. That’s where creationists, even those who say they love science, fail — they ignore the evidence that doesn’t support their presuppositions, so how can they claim to be practicing the True Science? And they do! Loudly!
For those who haven’t already made up their minds before hearing us out—or reading what we’ve written many times on this website—are we truly against science? Not at all! Like other creationist groups Answers in Genesis affirms and supports the teaching and use of scientific methodology, and we believe this supports the biblical account of origins.
I would disagree. If you are going to support the teaching and use of scientific methodology, you should look to Francis Bacon, a 16th century Christian, who made that explicit. He promoted inductive reasoning, and said we should start with the observations, and draw our conclusions from those.
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms at last. This is the true way, but as yet untried.
It’s the difference between top-down and bottom-up analysis. Do you start with the conclusion you want, and fill in the supporting inferences, like a creationist, or do you start with the observations and measurable facts and derive the best interpretation to fit them, like a scientist? Oh yeah, checkmate, Christians. I play the Francis Bacon card, I win. It’s all about evidence. You can’t claim to be following the scientific method if you defy empiricism. Bacon was an important thinker who spelled this distinction out around 1600. You don’t get to dismiss him as an atheist, either, because he was a devout Anglican who said “Knowledge is the rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate”…Christians could also play the Francis Bacon card, if they knew how.
But then I looked deeper into the way Ken Ham thinks, and discovered to my deep surprise that Answers in Genesis rejects Francis Bacon! Or rather, what they believe is Baconian philosophy.
The influence of “Baconian” philosophy has progressively caused the church to disconnect the Bible from the real world—it is relegated to a book of stories, albeit with wonderful teachings about salvation and morality.
I was going to say that Baconian philosophy is how we generally think of science: making data collection central to the endeavor, a hard focus on empiricism, the emphasis on inductive reasoning (OK, maybe Bacon focused more on that than modern scientists do), so maybe Answers in Genesis shouldn’t be claiming to be a pro-science organization if they’re not going to follow those principles. But surprise! They flat out consider Bacon to be a direct cause of the modern rejection of Biblical literalism and want nothing to do with those ideas!
As this thinking permeated generations of students (including those who became pastors, seminary professors, mission leaders, etc.), a “door” was pushed open further with each generation. This “door” was the one Francis Bacon had unlocked—that the Bible really has nothing to do with science. Each generation, though, became more and more consistent—if the Bible’s history is not true, how can the rest of it be true? If the earthly teachings can’t be trusted—how can the spiritual teachings be believed?
The result today is that increasing numbers of people no longer see the Bible as relevant, and so they reject its morality and salvation. The church is telling people, “Trust in Jesus”, “abortion is wrong”, “homosexual behaviour is wrong”, etc. but, more and more, people don’t listen, because the message of Jesus and morality that the church is preaching comes from a book that, in their minds, is not trustworthy!
I guess there would be no point in telling a creationist that they fail to apply the methodology of science to their beliefs, because they’ve already declared that empiricism and the gathering of evidence are anathema. I’m always shocked at how contrary creationists are to the most basic principles of science, while simultaneously claiming to follow True Science.
So I guess it’s no rebuttal of creationism to say that an implication of science is that you have an obligation to explore the evidence and modify your premises accordingly, because they’ve already discarded that whole principle, and have rejected Baconian science. It is pointless to argue with people who claim that all knowledge and logic is a psychic emanation of the Bible, and who also despise the application of knowledge and logic to our understanding of the natural world. It’s just as well I didn’t waste time arguing with that fellow at the fair.
I should have known and been unsurprised. After all, Bacon wrote this, and explicitly dismissed the foolishness of biblical literalism:
Some moderns have indulged this folly, with such consummate inconsiderateness, that they have endeavored to build a system of natural Philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, the book of Job, and other parts of Scripture; seeking thus the dead amongst the living. And this folly is the more to be prevented and restrained, because not only fantastical Philosophy but heretical Religion spring from the absurd mixing of matters-Divine and Human. It is therefore most wise soberly to render unto faith the things that are faith’s.
From the depths of the Elizabethan era, Francis Bacon’s trans-temporal brain waves destroy the nonsense of Ken Ham more than three centuries before he was born! No wonder modern creationists reject the Baconian scientific method.
I’m going to have to call this match in favor of Francis Bacon, the philosopher who shaped over three centuries of science, the Christian who endorsed a rational vision of religion, over Ken Ham, because Ken Ham is just silly and stupid and doesn’t even qualify as a contender.
And with that, I think I’ll stroll down to the Stevens County Fair. It’s the last day. Maybe I’ll take a look at some porkers who are far more sensible than Ken Ham.
While I’m doing that, you can click on the like button! Or subscribe! Or head over to patreon dot com slash pzmyers and sign up, like all these people whose names are scrolling by!
One last thing I want to mention is that while I respect and appreciate Francis Bacon’s work, that does not translate into hero-worship. Bacon married a 13 year old girl when he was 45, and died guilty of corruption, losing most of his estate. Think like Philosopher Bacon, don’t be like Aristocrat Bacon.
It was wise not to waste time arguing at such a time and place. Maybe you could carry some informative pamphlets to hand out under such circumstances. Anti-Chick tracts? Darwin tracts? I don’t know what the proper term for them would be.
Don’t forget about Roger Bacon (ca 1220 – 1992)
So – he stole it from the Muslims!
“I was frustrated about letting such ignorance walk away” – let it go, PZ, let it go, even you can’t deal with all the ignorance and stupidity in the world.
And Francis Bacon?! Why don’t/can/t these creationists ever reference recent scientists, of, oh say the last 100 years? Same with evolution – apparently no further work on evolution has been done since 1859.
What does that even mean?
Well, OK.
We don’t put it that way but AFAWK, the universe has the same laws everywhere and through time. IIRC, this has even been tested for some laws of nature back to almost the Big Bang.
So where in the bible does it say that nature is uniform?
I looked with Google and came up with nothing.
The bible doesn’t say anything about how nature is uniform.
In fact, it starts out claiming the earth is flat.
They invented them 2500 years ago, long before jesus.
I looked it up in Google and found nothing whatsoever about the laws of logic in the bible, despite the fact that they were well known 500 years before the New Testament was written.
AIG is zero for 2 here.
They are also just flat out lying.
These are assertions without proof or data and they are wrong and AIG knows they are wrong. They are lying and know their followers won’t bother to question it or even try to understand it.
There is nothing kosher about ken ham! And, I congratulate you for not taking the bait from that xtian terrorist! They don’t ever reason or discuss in a civil manner, they just push their fantasy bullshit at you.
Also, referring to answers in genesis as AIG makes me wonder. Isn’t the other AIG a deceitful bankster-like organization that wants to sell you crap investment products??
If I’m going to keep living here in Scarizona, I’m gonna need higher boots. there is a great article about how Scarizona repugs have destroyed the state budget to help rich folks suck up school voucher money intended for low income people:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/10/2261074/-Arizona-school-voucher-program-causes-budget-meltdown?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_9&pm_medium=web
Reginald Selkirk, #2,
Roger Bacon was quite a fun character. As well as his extensive opus of natural philosophy (known after as the opus maius, opus minoris and opus tertium), he wrote a short book speculating on possible future military applications of mathematical physics called de speculis comburentibus (on burning mirrors), in which he envisioned that one day huge solar ray guns might be fashioned to burn the Muslims with, or arrays of trick mirrors to convince them that they were facing endless armies, or horseless vehicles or flying machines. He also ended up spending large sums of the Franciscan Friary in Oxford’s money on scientific equipment.
He is also honored with a street named after him in the city. Just round the back of the big Sainsburys in the Westgate Centre.
Sadly, as far as is known, he did not live until 1992. Though when I was at university I did once write a short pilot script for a sequel to Inspector Morse starring a time-travelling Roger Bacon as his sidekick. The people at ITV, fools they were, decided to go in a different direction.
Daniel Dennett’s cranes vs sky hooks. I see where he got it from.
screaming pope francis bacon for the win
carto- screaming pope bacon died in 92, understandable mistake. also a cool guy.
According to Trump Bacon is now very expensive and its all Joe Biden’s fault.
And here’s what I said. I could argue with you for hours and hours, but we’re at the fair, your kids want to have fun, how about if I don’t?
I suspect he’d picked that place to pick that fight specifically so he could “refute” you and your meanie atheist science in front of his kids, and thus show them who’s boss.
As for what to say to such an AiG creationist, I’d just say I reject all their claims out of hand because creationists, and “conservative” Christians in general, have been consistently ignorant and dishonest for as long as I’ve been listening to them, therefore they have ZERO credibility.
cartomancer@7–
I would have watched that show! A friend who worked in television once told me the only thing worse than having a show pitch rejected was the next year, seeing what was picked up instead.
Case in point. Empirical evidence is that outcomes are improved in societies that do not outlaw abortion or “homosexual behavior” compared to those that do.
It is not even trustworthy in morality. As anyone versed in game theory, psychology, and a few other fields could explain in detail.
Reginald Selkirk@2:
Impressive.
Did he have any unusual dietary habits? Something weird he regularly ate, or something commonplace he studiously avoided? Hoping he didn’t simply win a genetic lottery here. :)
Did you quote Bacon using a Gumby by mistake?
Surely there’s a joke somewhere between Ham and Bacon about Doctor Hock or Professor Belly… or, for the vegetarians and vegans, Lard and Lady Facon?
The real problem with Ken Ham (hypothetically) rejecting Roger/Francis Bacon is that they all violate the Laws of God with their very names (see Lev. 11). </sarcasm>
It is funny that they accept a retroactive argument in this case similar to the theodicy claims Dembski made in “The end of Christianity: Finding a good God in an evil world” which made them so mad that they had to write an 18 page rebuttal.
Re: Ken Ham. In general I try to not judge people by their appearances, but when you’re pretending to be advocating for an all-good God, perhaps you’d better not look like a character from Breaking Bad.
I’m glad you didn’t argue with the creationist. What’s the old saying, “it’s like playing chess with a pigeon. The shit all over the board, knock over the pieces and fly home to celebrate their victory.”
They’re not interested in a discussion or a debate. They want to convert you.
cartomancer @7. “[] a script for a sequel to Inspector Morse starring a time-travelling Roger Bacon as his sidekick.” Kinda worked for Umberto Eco…
We can all be grateful to Sir Francis for inventing bacon, and also being precisely six generations from Kevin.
What was that stupid guy thinking when he tried to pick a fight with you at the wrong place, at the wrong time, in front of lots of people having fun rather than listen to some knucklehead parroting young earth lies?
As I routinely point out to presuppositionalists:
In a world without god, it would be true statement to say, “There is no god.”
It would be false to say, “There is a god.”
Both statements cannot be true simultaneously.
Whoops! We’ve got identity, excluded middle, and non-contradiction, all without god. Where does this claim that thought cannot exist without god come from and how is it justified?
Is there anything that happens without god? If so, how do you determine which things require god and which things don’t? And if all things require god, then my statements that I am making right now are god-given, as are yours, nobody has any ability to act on their own, and all of creation is nothing more than god playing with himself.
Of course he went back and told his buds that you tried but he valiantly refuted every argument you had and he left you cowering in the dust.
In Cincinnati, there is Roger Bacon High School, a Catholic high school, based in the Franciscan tradition. As far as I know, they teach the scientific method.
Probably. Right alongside miracles, exorcisms, saintly relics and indulgences.
@rrhain #25
That’s easy. The whole point of presuppositionalism is that they don’t have to justify their beliefs and you do.
@27
I think he’d tell his friends and kids that our author was afraid to debate him because PZ secretly knows AIG is right.
@26
@4: Of course, creationists are also happy to dispense with uniformitarianism (or straw-man it) when convenient to their argument. But consistency has never been their strong suit.