Creationism is a funny thing. Even more than Flat Earthism, it personifies Karl Popper's definition of pseudoscience, in which all evidence is bent to accommodate a presupposition (true science, meanwhile, crafts a hypothesis and then tries like hell to disprove that hypothesis). I grew up a Creationist, reading Creationist dinosaur books by the venerable Duane Gish; though I now reject Creationism as not even remotely connected to reality, I still have a bit of a soft spot for its loopy tenacity.
Creationism comes in as many flavors as American Christianity, but I'll attempt to provide a broad-brush definition of the Young-Earth Creationism I grew up with: in the modern American sense, this is an attempt to conform scientific understanding of life to a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. It amounts to a wholesale rejection of mainstream evolutionary theory; Big Bang theory and the age of the universe (and by extension the age of the earth); and places the Christian God as the literal Creator of all matter. The Garden of Eden was an actual place, in which Adam and Eve were placed, and at some point humans existed at the same time with all the lifeforms ever discovered on earth - thus, humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Meanwhile, evolutionary science is "disproved" by its own arguments, and put up for ridicule as a fairy tale. Examined objectively, Young Earth Creationism is a weird Frankenstein philosophy, in which scientific reasoning is welded to a mythological origin story - a distinctly American phenomenon if there ever was one.
It's difficult for me to gauge how deeply my parents bought into the whole thing; they aren't fanatical types, and they're both intelligent people. I think their logic fell along these lines: A) We are Christians; B) Christians believe in the Bible; C) The Bible says the earth was created in six days; D) Therefore evolutionary theory is unchristian. I think they fell into the conservative Evangelical Christian movement of the 1980's, like walking into a party by accident and being handed a drink: you don't know who anybody is or what they're celebrating, but everybody's very earnest about it, so it can't be bad. With Young-Earth Creationism being one of the tenants of this brand of Christianity, they saw it as their duty to discourage young, dinosaur-obsessed Ricky from engaging in evolutionary thinking.
The upshot is, I was introduced to two works by good old Duane Gish: Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards, and Dinosaurs by Design. And yes, they're still available on Amazon.To call these books "quirky" is like calling Pluto "a little bit Out There". This is where you find the infamous Fire-Breathing Parasaurolophus, in which Gish hypothesizes the trumpet-headed hadrosaur mixed chemicals in its crest and squirted them at enemies, similar to a bombardier beetle...there was an illustration in Dinosaurs by Design of what I suppose was an Israelite tending a penned-in Hadrosaur.
In the meantime, the usual Creationist arguments are trotted out: 1) No amount of time would create the probabilistic circumstances necessary for life to evolve; 2) No irrefutable transitional species have ever been found in the fossil record; 3) Geological strata as a measure of time is flawed because rocks break and shift, and the Biblical Flood would have washed it all away anyway; 4) Scientific theories are sometimes proven wrong or must be revised; therefore, all science and scientists are suspect and cannot be trusted.
There's a massive gap in how both sides even understand what the debate is about. Scientists are, in their way, a bit blinkered by their devotion to truth and scientific understanding: beliefs that are considered irrational and unreasonable can be safely ignored, since only truth has power. They're completely blindsided, therefore, when a gas-bubble erupts from the restive tar pit of the collective unconscious and spatters all over their white lab coats. Safe in their thoughtspaces, their labs, studies, and lecture halls, they suddenly look up to see barbarians at the gates, arrayed for a war they didn't know was coming, can't figure out the reason for, and don't understand why these people hate them so much.
The YEC side is a much different story. You have to understand, evolutionary theory has been the bugbear of traditional Christians ever since the publication of On the Origin of the Species. This is not to say that nontheistic theories for the emergence of life didn't exist before Darwin - we can see them going at least as far back as Socrates - but Darwin's was the first cohesive and credible threat to a Creationist worldview. I personally feel that early proponents of Darwinism didn't do themselves any favors (ahem...Huxley), crowing and badgering and bullying in the way of all bad skeptics who feel it's their personal duty to pull down establishment idols. At any rate, the rift between evolutionary science and Christian faith was established early, and only festered from there. Until the mid-twentieth century there was really no attempt to debate Darwinism in scientific terms (the Scopes Monkey Trial was more of a publicity stunt), so all Creation-minded Christians could do was fume and mess about with the public school system when they got the chance.
But Evangelical Christians are not stupid, and many were graduating from top-notch universities with degrees in biochemistry and related fields. They were troubled by the conflict between their faith and their studies, and the sheer contempt Academia held for their beliefs. I'm sure they did themselves no favors with their response to such quasi-persecution (having been an Evangelical I know how belligerent they can get), but their experience of what they perceived as an atheistic, amoral scientific authority, looking to squash Christianity by claiming life was the result of mere accident, made them realize they really had no big-gun arguments. So-called "Evolutionists" were holding all the cards. Evangelical scientists began to devote their attention to developing a more rigorous, scientifically-minded version of Creationism, one that could challenge evolutionary theory on its own terms.
I'm not going to say the odd chimaera that resulted was not without its legitimate points - scientists are still teasing out the "why here, why now?" of Life, as well as coming to grips with its improbability; and yes, the "scientific establishment" does have a lot of sins to answer for, hubris being a tiny sliver of the problem - but ultimately Creationism's arguments have not held up to scrutiny and geologic evidence. Essentially, the objections to evolutionary theory only served to bolster it as new discoveries pile up. But I think Creationism's ultimate flaw is in its very bones: it exists only to attack and destroy evolutionary theory, without offering up much of a reality-based alternative. Worse, the counter-evidence it dredges up are often either so dubious as to be ridiculous (the Paluxy River trackway, for instance) or amount to nearly irrelevant "Gotcha!" moments like Piltdown Man.*
But the damage, as they say, was done. Hailed as a breakthrough for Bible-believing Christians, this new brand of scientific Creationism was quickly churned into myriad books and publications, especially for children (this is where Duane Gish's books come in). Under the guise of "providing alternatives" to prevailing scientific theory, this hack science was inserted into many school cirricula. But the most damning dissemination of Creation Science was how it was sold to Evangelicals, with the tacit understanding that "If you're a Christian, you'll believe this" and nothing else. Re-reading any of the claims made in Dinosaurs by Design, I've realized that many of these "facts" are little more than deceptions...in effect, propaganda presented to youth as "science".
In the Hollywood version of my Creationist upbringing, I'd be portrayed as a confused, scientifically-minded youngster, struggling against the ironclad religiosity of my parents as they intone "Sola scriptura!" while burning On the Origin of the Species. This is not the case. My parents were raising their children the best they could, according to their beliefs, and I don't fault them for that. As a religious child, I was perfectly fine to go along with it; my intellect and imagination was devoted to maintaining Creationist beliefs for as long as I could, before the simple, overwhelming evidence of the fossil record forced me to conclude that Creationism wasn't feasible. It is important to understand that this didn't occur in a vacuum, as though my scientific understanding was completely separate from my religious beliefs - in order to come to terms with scientific revelation, I had to accept a shifting of my Christianity, from a very rigid Biblical literalism into what I might term a "scientific-mythological-mysticism". Through this process, I've come to the following conclusions:
1) Creationism is not scientific. Period. Believe in it if you will, but don't pretend that proof of the divine intervention of the Christian God is scattered in the rocks. Rather, the totality of geological evidence currently points to an evolutionary model. But I also reject the idea that religion and science are mutually exclusive. Maybe I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it too, but it's a much richer cake than just purely "religious" or "atheist" thought.
2) The Biblical Genesis account, just like all mythologies, was an attempt to explain how and why the universe was made. Mythology is not the crazed imaginings of primitive minds, but rather a story based on their understanding of the universe - just as we do today. Kurtzgesagt explains scientific theory as a "story we tell ourselves to explain how things are so" - in other words, we're doing what humans have always done, only we have greater insight into the workings of the universe, whether it be physics, biology, or cosmology. These days, the Biblical creation account no longer has relevance as a just-so story; rather, it is spiritualized, to help demonstrate God's activity in the soul of the Christian.
Even the Church Fathers didn't always take the Biblical Genesis story literally; even if they did, they didn't set it up as a prerequisite for Christian life and salvation. From Wikipedia:
Church father Origen (184-253 CE), due to his familiarity with reading and interpreting Hellenistic literature taught that some parts of the Bible ought to interpreted non-literally. Concerning the Genesis account of creation, he wrote: "who is so silly as to believe that God...planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life...[and] anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?"
(I know that some of my fellow Orthodox Christians will disagree with me on this; or point out that some of Origen's teachings were deemed heretical, etc. etc...to them I'd like to point out that, nowhere in the Nicene Creed (the Statement of Faith for the Orthodox) does it say, "and I believe God created the world in seven days." Christianity in its (I believe) truest form doesn't hold the Bible up as a scientific document in any way, shape, or form).
3) A scientific understanding of the evolution of life and the universe in no way diminishes the value of religion, nor does it preclude a mystical understanding of the material realm. Rather, it expands our minds to view our place in the natural world, as well as the endless, infinite complexity of life. To me, an array of chemicals assembling themselves in a natural process under the right conditions - seemingly against entropy - is as mystical and astounding a phenomenon as God crafting these creatures himself. Life is awe-inspiring because of its tenacity in the face of mass extinction, and mournful because of all the lifeforms we'll never witness, and exhilarating because life is constantly adapting and changing.
4) What we call "Science" and "Religion", as opposites, or as awkwardly-joined fair-weather allies, are erroneous concepts. We need to stop acting as though faith and reason have no place in each other. The task is daunting, but we must rearrange our minds to see through both eyes at the same time. It is only then that a true understanding of Life and the Universe can be achieved. To gain this understanding requires deep knowledge, not only of science, but of our own beliefs: where our faith comes from, where the Bible comes from, what it really says and why...then replace "Faith" and "Bible" with "Science" and repeat the process. Faith unchallenged is a cowardly way to live, and creates more problems than it solves; on the other hand, we shouldn't throw faith away simply because we see ourselves as "scientifically minded".
5) Those who hold Reason over and against faith can be as pig-headed as the Creationists they disdain. I find it interesting that the most fanatical atheists can convert and become fanatical Christians...and vice-versa. I think the real problem is often our strangled, unreasoning devotion to one "tribe" or another; any objection is an attack on us personally, on our identity. The ability to "fight back" with a well-timed riposte is seen as strength, rather than reactive aggression. That's why any "debate" is just a weary retread of the same old arguments, like a computer playing Tic-Tac-Toe against itself.
I don't debate anymore. I merely answer questions when asked, and decide whether a conversation is worth having based on whether my fellow truth-seeker is belligerent or not. As soon as things wander into polemical territory, it's time to excuse myself. Sadly I have never quite found a Creationist or an Atheist interested in a real, truth-seeking discussion...it's always about "Here's my opinion", or "The problem with [Those People] is..." I've already blogged about Tribalism and its awful effects on human beings. It's time we rise above Tribalism (or Brand Loyalty, if you want to get dismissive) and attempt to view life as a whole, with several different, stacked lenses of many colors instead of just our tiny pinhole-viewer. Once this happens, the universe transforms for us into a rich kaleidoscope, a tapestry of interwoven, interconnected possibilities, through which Reason and Faith can walk hand-in-hand, exploring more wonders than they could possibly imagine by themselves.
Rick Out.
*Please understand, I'm not saying scientific hoaxes are unimportant - they show that scientists are human beings, and can be as fixated, prideful, and sloppy as the rest of us - but as arguments against evolution as a whole, they fall miserably short. It's like claiming the existence of a few counterfeit bills discredits the entire U.S. monetary system.
Consider the case of "Archaeoraptor", trumpeted in the November 1999 issue of National Geographic. Very soon after the article was rushed to publication, this supposed flying dinosaur fossil was found to be a composite of several different real dinosaur fossils from Laoning province in China, assembled to make an extra buck or two. Creationists leapt on the resulting scandal to bolster their claims that dinosaur-to-bird evolution was illegitimate, and cast doubt on all feathered dinosaur fossils. Ironically, it turned out the forgery had been created from two ancient feathered species: the primitive bird Yanornis, and the flying dinosaur Microraptor. The very forgery that was co-opted by Creationists to "disprove" evolution in fact bolstered our understanding of dinosaur-to-bird transition.
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