Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?
Christian Epistemology
My Ugly Divorce from the Theory of Evolution
Many evangelicals will be surprised to read about my strict adherence to the Scientific Method as a means, with the Bible, to derive truth about creation. The reason it is so close to my walk of faith is that I firmly believe the method was mostly developed under Jewish and Christian influence, though not exclusively. There were some agnostic and atheist scientists, but I do not believe they were predominant in that culture and time. Despite my objections to his other writings, the method’s religious origins are easier to understand if one reads Henry M. Morris's Men of Science/Men of God. There, Morris reviews over 60 men before Darwin and over 40 after Darwin’s Origin of Species. That reflects the growing impact of evolution on science. Yet it still reflects the Jewish and Christian origins of the Scientific Method. That influence would also impact me in my studies in astronomy as a youngster.
However, despite my lifelong commitment to the Scientific Method and much of its Jewish and Christian origins largely in Medieval Europe, I had a very ugly divorce, so to speak, with Darwin’s Theory of evolution.
I first became a Christian after properly understanding the Big Bang Theory and its evidence for the universe’s beginning. For me, it confirmed the first verse in the Hebrew Bible, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (JPS-1917). That transformation in my worldview led me to realize that God (Adonai) was very real in my life on a personal level. Still, in my early years of faith, I was a strong advocate of the theory of evolution. It was not so much that I had studied Darwin as I had astronomy. It was that the Big Bang Theory was such a personal revolution in my thoughts and worldview in a Southern Baptist family that it then yielded, in me, a natural inclination toward a life of faith, at least if presented rationally. The problem was that Christian apologists were standing in the way, insisting on a 6,000-year universe (age/distance) that appeared to me to be either deceit or ignorance, and instilling in me much hostility and doubt about the truthfulness of the faith I was raised in. I was simply too intimately familiar as a youth as to how astronomical distances and time were measured over astronomically short time/distances that I knew far exceeded 6 thousand years.
Then a New Roommate
So, the early seeds of my transformation regarding evolution began years later, when I moved into a house on 2nd Street near the university, and Glenn Spangenburg, a geology graduate student and one of the most committed members of the young-earth crowd I have ever met. Still, I was a person brought to faith by the evidence of the Big Bang and my youthful belief in what is called Theistic Evolution.
My support for Theistic Evolution was not a result of personal study. Instead, it was the evidence for the Big Bang was so compelling that the idea of evolution went along for the ride. So, it didn’t take long until there were arguments between Glenn and me, with what must have seemed like sparks flying all over the house and likely steam gushing from our windows! Yet, one thing experience did for us was force us to listen to each other at length and, very often, to work out our differences on a regular, yet long-term, basis. As a result, I became quite captivated by those discussions. So, nearly every day, whenever we had the chance, we knew it was time to go at it again!!
I forget whether we were together for one or two years, but by the time we separated because of Glenn’s marriage, we had grown extremely close. If anyone had attacked Glenn on those scientific issues, I would have defended him with my own answers, shaped by my evolving worldview. He likely would have done the same for me.
Certainly, I learned from him a whole list of issues which Young Earth advocates have with earth sciences, like the failure of secular geologists to incorporate into their hypotheses the possibility of a widespread, even universal flood regarding sedimentary layers. Also, I learned other problems Young Earth advocates have with radiocarbon dating and a host of similar Young-Earth concerns in the earth sciences. This included many geologic discussions with Glenn regarding the ASSUMED scientific doctrine of uniformitarianism, defined at the link below, despite my rapidly growing reservations. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/uniformitarianism/
I can’t say either one of us convinced the other completely, despite my blind acceptance regarding Evolution. That sea change in my life would come some years later in the early to mid-1980s, as is described below. I was painfully aware of how most Christians viscerally approached anything like galactic evolution. It was rather how Glenn approached geology that influenced my perspective on many other areas of science, including Biology and Evolution.
Yet Glenn had always wanted me to read or listen to a young-earth author/speaker named Duane Gish, then with the Institute for Creation Research. https://www.icr.org/article/remembering-dr-duane-t-gish-creations/
Some years later, a debate was held at the U of A between Gish and a popular evolutionist professor. There were more than one of these debates, but I do not remember the date, but roughly the early to mid-1980’s. Nevertheless, I knew I had to go to that debate with Gish! Eventually, I did go, but was at first impressed by the evolutionist, who cited a transitional fossil form (Archaeopteryx) in the bird family, which developed a type of claw to hold its prey tight while consuming it. I was really impressed and went down and talked with the evolutionist personally after the debate. I thanked him for his example of a transitional form in the fossil record, since Gish had said there were none. So, I followed up by asking him if he had any other transitional forms in the fossil record that I could cite. He told me outright that the answer was NO, without qualification! I responded, “You mean to tell me that for the last century or so, all the evidence you have to support evolution was one single bird?”?? With a great deal of hemming and hawing, he finally conceded that there was only that one transitional form in the fossil record that was certifiable. Gish was right only to err by one!! Unbelievable! I spent years defending evolution and felt like I had been stabbed in the back!
I continued for some time to review the support for evolution in the archeological record and did find a type of whale that had developed feet-like appendages to help it with bottom-feeding, but that was an absurd example, since nothing the size of a whale is going to crawl up on land with those stubby appendages!
What really made me furious, going back to the debate, was finding out that Darwin himself had suggested Archaeopteryx as a possible transitional form! So, for nearly a century, NO (even semi-complete) transitional forms of evolutionary evidence had been found in the fossil record?? Even more offensive to my view of the scientific method was the common ART today of taking a small bone and extrapolating an entire skeleton from it, and claiming that was evidence of evolution! That, in my view, was, and still is, scientific guesswork at best, but certainly not evidence! Give me a scientific break!! That is an extrapolation entirely based on a pre-determined conclusion, which is – ANYTHING BUT SCIENCE!!
When I look back on it, what that experience did for me was baptize me into the world of scientific uncertainties. A baptism into uncertainties into geological sediment layers, radiocarbon decay, and other similar forms of geologic uncertainties, Glenn had cited. A modern example of Glenn’s analysis is at the link below.
Yet Glenn and I would start seeing each other for lunch again, a dozen years after his marriage and several children, when he worked as a geologist at the water department. Boy, was that a good reunion for some months, even though he was struggling with Pancreatic cancer. Eventually, I cannot remember exactly when, we did address the Big Bang, but by then it was essentially a “nothing burger” we discussed with great mutual respect. Then, one day near lunchtime, I called again and asked for Glenn at the water department. Silence was the response, for I can’t remember how long. Finally, the receptionists confirmed that Glenn had died! I was way too late to even attend the funeral! That left a wound I cannot say I ever recovered from, with the normal exception of time. That sudden removal of Glenn as an earthly friend really drove home to me the importance of listening and civil discussion on controversial Biblical issues in science and doctrine as well. Yet since then, I have never again been able to have a civil discussion about the Big Bang in Christian circles as we did. The result when I have, without exception, has been the immediate rise of the “heretic hunters” of systematic theology launching into a Devcon-5 style first strike to Biblically destroy their fellow believers as bearers of false doctrine! That, even though I am a committed systematic theology proponent myself and will be making a case for that, coupled with the Big Bang later on regarding Biblical interpretation!
Then, a Blockbuster secular book, Rejecting Evolution
Now, in case the reader is in the opposite camp of science, I do realize how bizarre and inconceivable it must sound to say I am so acutely opposed to Darwin's Origin of Species while supporting the scientific method, and I can relate. But that critical position of mine on evolution was greatly reinforced by the 1986 publication of Evolution, A Theory in Crisis by British microbiologist Michael Denton. This is a comprehensive 368-page book that itemizes a massive array of serious problems with Darwin's theory. Now, if that wasn't enough, thirty years later, Denton published a follow-up 354-page book, Evolution: STILL A Theory in Crisis, with a host of additional documentation, just driving the point home that little had changed regarding the problems with Darwin's original theory!! Also, in various other publications, Denton describes himself as an agnostic who nevertheless acknowledges many elements in nature that support Intelligent Design.
That may cause discomfort for the theologian who insists on creation as exclusively the result of God's verbal word, but on the other hand, it represents a dramatic closing of the gap between science and scripture!
An Evolutionary Slam-Dunk!
At this point, one may ask, "Just how much more evidence do I need to reject the Theory of Evolution"? A further follow-up question is: isn't what I have presented so far a case of OVERKILL? The answer is NO! But because, as a Christian, I have such confidence in the scientific method, I returned to Glenn's admonition and to a writing by Duane Gish called "Letter to a Theistic Evolutionist". There, Gish writes, “To substantiate my claim that evolution is not a scientific theory, I quote evolutionary biologists Paul Ehrlich and L.C. Birch,”
Our theory of evolution has become one that cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus 'outside empirical science' but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training" (Nature 214:352, 1967).
Responding to this quote, Gish writes, "Obviously, any theory outside of empirical science that has no way to be tested is not a scientific theory." Furthermore, Gish goes on for 100 more pages, documenting countless supposed discoveries in Evolution, to establish that they all fail the test, the most critical part of the Scientific Method. Now, if Gish is only partly true on his analysis, that amounts to scientific apostasy! So, permit me to submit my own hypothesis, based on two very human factors.
1.) I believe society in general was overly impressed with industrialization and technology, as I was at one point in my life. 2.) Both mankind and woman kind have a built-in desire not to be responsible or under the authority of ANYONE! We humans naturally want to be autonomous and free of anyone in authority. Therefore, upon those two natural human inclinations, my theory is that society in general bought the whole Evolution lie, hook, line, and sinker without ever being truly evaluated by the Scientific Method!! If one insists on a mantra in that regard, "No Testing, No Truth”! I believe that holds for both Jews and Christians, even in regard to their respective faiths!
The trick in faith is that God (Adonai) insists that faith must come first. See Jewish TANAKH {2}Chronicles 7:14 "-- if My people, upon whom My name is called, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (JPS version 1917).
Also in the Christian New Testament, Romans 1:18-20-TLV). For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In unrighteousness, they suppress the truth, because what can be known about God is plain to them—for God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse—
Warning: A false impression one might get from this blog is that I am now a Young Earth Creationist like my friend Glenn. That is false. I would describe myself as an Old Earth Creationist, strongly influenced by selected Young Earth arguments. I have to say that, because if the universe is old, there is then room for more debate about the age of the earth, which I will discuss in my later biblical analysis and blogs. My major takeaway from this experience is that since Christians do not believe that the creation events were a product of random chance, the actual age of the earth is probably far less than many predict. By and large, many seem addicted to creation by accident, which then greatly increases their age estimates!