by Jay Johansen | Mar 4, 2006
I was recently browsing the web site of the National Center for Science Education, an organization dedicated to fighting the teaching of any alternatives to evolution in our public schools. And I came across this fascinating statement:
"The failure of many students to understand and accept the fact of evolution is often a consequence of the naïve views they hold of the nature of science … According to this naïve view, the key to the unique success of science at producing true knowledge is ‘The Scientific Method', which, on the standard account, involves formulating hypotheses, making predictions, and then going into the laboratory to perform the crucial experiment. In this parody of scientific methods, if a hypothesis passes the test set up by the crucial experiment, that is, if it is confirmed by direct observation, then it is ‘proven' and it is considered a fact or a law and it is true for all time."In contrast, the work of many evolutionary biologists involves the reconstruction of the past. The methods they use do not conform to the standard view of ‘The Scientific Method'. …"
//www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol21/1132_the_goal_of_evolution_instruct_12_30_1899.asp
Evolutionists routinely argue that their theory should be taught in public schools while creation theory should be censored because their theory is "science" while creation is "religion". Yet here one of the nation's leading pro-evolution organizations admits that evolution does not meet the most basic definition of what constitutes science. They don't conclude that that makes it non-scientific, of course, but rather that science must be redefined in some way that includes evolution.
So: Evolutionists insist that only naïve and ignorant people think that experiments, observation, and the scientific method have anything to do with science. Indeed that the very idea that a scientist should perform experiments and observe the results is a "parody" -- a joke. When someone says that sort of thing, I think it's a safe bet that the theory he is defending doesn't have much experimental evidence to support it. If they actually had experiments that confirmed evolution, you can bet you'd see those experiments demonstrated daily on television until everyone had to admit that it was a proven fact. Instead what we see on television every day is evolutionists explaining that no questioning of their beliefs should be permitted because of philosophical reasons: separation of church and state, scientists should only consider "naturalistic" explanations, they are the authorities and authority must be respected, etc.
Funny, isn't it? Evolutionists started out saying that they had to fight belief in the Bible to defend science, but now they are willing to abandon science if that's what is necessary to fight belief in the Bible.
© 2006 by Jay Johansen