Creationism

We’ve all seen or heard some variation of the following statement:

“Duh idiot Christians, the Bible has already been proven to contradict itself, and everybody knows Darwin already proved that evolution is true.”

When most say they beleive in evolution they really mean that they believe that life¹ originiated from an as of yet undiscovered mechanism that was indeed not the God of Abraham or Jesus and then changed randomly over time until we modern humans arose².  However ill-formulated a scientific theory “evolution” is, even more ill-informed is the idea that it has been “proven” by all kinds of evidence.

Let us review the scientific process and see how proof and evidence work and then decide how “proven” the quasi-theory of evolution is.

First of all, proof only exists in the realm of Mathematics and Logic.  A proof is consistent set of statements which usually go to demonstrate a universal statement³ made about the set or system in which it belongs. In math we can formulate that all even numbers divided by 2 result in whole numbers.  I then set about demonstrating that if an even number were divided by two and resulted in a fractional number then the axioms of arithmetic would have to be broken.  Since they can’t be broken, I will have proven my theory, that even numbers divide by 2 with no remainder.

Let’s move up a step, suppose I want to disprove something.  To disprove something I must show the contrapositive proof, or a counter-example.  For instance, I want to disprove the theory that all even numbers divided by 2 are fractional numbers.  By the above proof I have just shown that indeed to have a fractional result after dividing an even number by 2 would be to break the axioms of arithmetic, therefore the contrapositive has been proven and the theory that even numbers divided by 2 are fractional has been disproven.

Or more easily I simply show that 6/2 = 3, which is itself a whole number.

But what about universal theories that exist outside of the world of mathematics?  Molecules, people, stars and stop signs live in the real world, not the math world.  How can we prove anything about the real world?

We can’t!

But… we can disprove a theory by a third method which is borrowed from the mathematical and logical world.

The all powerful counter-example!

Suppose I theorize that all stop signs in the universe are red.  I could never prove my theory, for to prove it I would have to be either omniscient and know that in the whole universe there is not a single stop sign of any size or shape that is any other color than red, or I would have to demonstrate that a non-red stop sign would be to break the axioms of reality, a strange proposition.

But I can disprove it… I simply construct a green stop sign.  Behold, not all stop signs are red!

Enter the scientific method.  The scientific method is the process of formulating a theory and then working to disprove it.  When no counter-example of sufficient weight can be found⁴ then we fail to reject it as a false theory.

Wait… fail to reject?  That’s alot different than “proven” isn’t it?

Failing to reject a theory is absolutely not proving it true.

But there’s one last piece of the puzzle to consider before moving on to evolution as a theory of the origins of life.  In order for a theory to be scientific it has to be falsifiable.  In otherwords it has to be able to be demonstrated false.  This simply means that a counter example must be able to be demonstrated if it exists.

The theory that no primitive alien bacteria lives 100 million light years away on a meteorite isn’t scientific until we could reasonably observe the meteorites spoken of.
The theory that the magnetic field across earth is uniform is scientific – and false.

Finally we take the theory that life arose from an as of yet undiscovered mechanism but certainly not God or any intelligent designer and randomly mutated over 3-4 billion years to become you and I.

Is it scientific?  No, it’s not possible to provide a counter example… for to do so we’d have to become time travelers.
Is it a statement of Logic?  No, it is a statement about the real world and thus cannot be “proven” by demonstrating a chain of logic such as, things evolve today⁵ and they evolved yesterday, therefore they evolved 3 billion years ago from nothing into something and then into what I am today.⁶
But what about the evidence for evolution?  Evidence is neither for or against a theory unless it is a counter-example… then it is evidence against a theory.

So by the scientific method there is just as much evidence for Intelligent Design as there is for un-Intelligent Evolution… nill.

But, there is one difference in favor of intelligent design, biology gives many counter-examples to evolution such as: irreducible complexity, mutation rates which lead to less complexity rather than more complexity and ultimately the development of self-awareness and altruism⁷.

So before you say, “Evolution has been proven” again, think about what you’re saying. The theory of evolution has simply, and will always, fail to be disproven, that is, unless Jesus himself comes down from the clouds and says so. Now what are the chances of that happening?

1. life meaning the self-reproducing phenomenon of complex molecules and molecular structures [↩]
2. but not speaking of the arising of self consciousness or other such meta phenomenon [↩]
3. a theory [↩]
4. oh and let’s just say sufficient is 99.99999% of the time as measured by instruments that are 99.99999% accurate… which unfortunately still gives us a false rejection rate part of the time [↩]
5. they certainly do [↩]
6. This would be a proof by backwards induction [↩]
7. altruism is a weaker counter-example [↩]