The Creation Hypothesis (Moreland, ed)

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RamistThomist

Puritanboard Clerk
Moreland, J. P., ed. The Creation Hypothesis. Downers, Grove, IL: IntervarsityPress, 1994.

Stephen C. Meyer: Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent. Meyer explores some of the arguments against any “method” used by Intelligent Design and how such a method can’t be scientific. He points out that many of the same criticisms cut against methodological naturalism as well.

Demarcation argument: we know what “science” does and ID ain’t it.
Response: The problem is that there isn’t one single theory of scientific deduction. In fact, pure deduction is a rarity. Naturalism then used logical positivism and falsificationism as a reference point, only to find that those methods were self-refuting.

Ultimately, though, the question is whether the theory is warranted by the evidence and not on the purity of a single method.

Secondly, many scientific laws are just descriptive and not explanatory, so the point can’t be that naturalism has explanatory power and ID doesn’t. And laws alone don’t always explain events. As noted, “Oxygen is necessary to combustion, but that doesn’t explain why my house burned down.”

Observability: true science is observable. ID isn’t.
Response: Numerous concepts in physics aren’t strictly observable: forces, fields, atoms, quarks, past events, mental states; they are inferred from observable phenomena (Meyer 83). Even worse, no one has observed evolution in action. Further, if ID isn’t observable, then it can’t be subject to refutation by empirical observations.

Hugh Ross: Ross gives a learned discussion of modern scientific cosmologies, noting how only a personal, transcendent Creator avoids all of the problems. Immanuel Kant was the first modern to posit “agnostic cosmologies.” God might exist, but you can’t know he created anything. An infinite universe, so reasoned Kant, yields infinite possibilities of creation. This sounded impressive in the 18th century. The problem is that science makes complete nonsense of it. (Ross doesn’t develop this point, but this is largely the reason Continental philosophy and all post-Hegelian streams are a joke. They really don’t work in the real world).

“Heat transfer by radiation.” There is no infinite medium in the sky to soak up all the radiation. If there were, then that medium would also be luminated.

“Gravitational tug.” If there is an infinite universe, then the gravitational pull should be infinite in all directions. This, obviously, is quite false.

I do appreciate Ross’s refutation of the “oscillating universe model.” Given the huge nature of entropy at the death of a universe, it wouldn’t have the needed energy to “bounce back.” This refutes Hinduism and Alt-Right paganism’s desire for a “Kali Yuga.”

Time is finite. It is the Judeo-Christian (and possibly some Islamic streams) view that a personal Creator who is extradimensional (beyond dimensions of time and space) creates the space-time dimensions (Ross 153).

Conclusion

Some chapters on bio-chemistry are above my pay grade, so I really can’t evaluate those. The final chapter dealing with language is quite good, but complex. This is an early foray into the ID movement. It is somewhat dated, as recent volumes now focus on the information embedded within the cell. That’s hinted at in this book but not really developed.
 
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