Creation biology: Encyclopedia - Creation biology

Creation biology

History of creationism
Creation in Genesis

Types of creationism:
Young Earth creationism
- Creation science
Old Earth creationism
Omphalos creationism
Theistic evolution
Neo-Creationism
Islamic creationism
Intelligent design
- Intelligent design movement
Modern geocentrism

Controversy:
Creation vs. evolution
... in public education
Associated articles
Teach the Controversy

Creation biology is an effort to study biology from a creationist perspective. It is meant to be in contrast with mainstream evolutionary biology, as many creationists see the evolutionary paradigm as scientifically untenable and inconsistent with their worldview.

Creation biology is based on the assumption that God created all life on the planet as described in the Genesis account of Creation, in a finite number of discrete created kinds or baramin. Creationists who use creation biology as a support for their claims assert that, while these forms of life were given by God the ability to vary, and even undergo speciation, the kinds can only appear by the action of the divine, cannot interbreed, and cannot increase in genetic complexity.

Creation biology therefore differs from mainstream biology mainly in its rejection of the modern synthesis and universal common descent. Since creation biology is concerned almost exclusively with the origins of living things, its advocates actually accept most of mainstream biology regarding physiology, cell structure, the genomic basis of life, microevolution, and speciation.

According to its proponents, it is a synthesis of science and religion, as it attempts to draw from both sources in developing its ideas. But it is not generally recognized as a scientific research program as it is not considered a part of mainstream science, having been described with the rest of creation science as a pseudoscience by skeptics and outspoken members of the scientific community (see Creation-evolution controversy).

Creation biology - Elements of Creation Biology

Creation organizations advocating a number of ideas ranging from Young Earth creationism to Intelligent design have proposed a number of ideas, which differ significantly from naturalistic biology. None of these ideas are widely accepted within the scientific community.

• Biogenesis is the rejection of abiogenesis and other naturalistic speculations regarding the origin of life. It is argued that no comprehensive explanation has emerged for life arising spontaneously from non-life. Since life has never been observed arising spontaneously from non-life, they argue that it is more reasonable to assert life was designed by an intelligent being. This challenges the view that life arose spontaneously from non-life.
• Teleology, that is, the idea that the universe in general and life in particular has been designed for a purpose. This runs contrary to the view that there is no purpose in the universe.
• Created kinds or Baraminology, that is, the idea that life was originally created in a finite number of discrete "kinds" or "baramin", and that while these kinds had the ability to vary significantly within their kind, one kind cannot interbreed with another kind, and new kinds cannot arise spontaneously. This runs contrary to evolutionary biology's account of universal common ancestry and its phylogenetic tree, that is, that all life on the planet is related via macroevolution.
• Irreducible complexity, that is, the claim made by Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University, that there exist systems in life that could not have formed through gradual change. Several biological structures are composed of interdependent components where the absence of one would cause the entire system to fail. Advocates of irriducible complexity claim that it is therefore more reasonable to believe they were designed and assembled together for a purpose. This runs contrary to the views of evolutionary biologists who assert that life evolved and diversified step by step over millions of years.
• Specified complexity, that is, the claim made by William Dembski, a mathematician and senior fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, that genetic information is "complex specified information" (CSI), that natural processes can reduce and change CSI, but can never increase it, and that it is therefore more reasonable to infer that such information was created through the intervention of an intelligent designer rather than being the sole product of evolutionary processes.

Creation biology - Criticism

The elements of creation biology often face fierce resistance from established biologists and their supporters, who generally regard them as pseudoscience, or religion disguised as science. For example,

• The law of biogenesis is rejected as being a false absolute. Since life itself is poorly defined, there is no acceptable scientific consensus on how it must "always" come about. In a real sense, there is always integration of "non-living" substances into living beings; this occurrence does not require "agency" of life, since much of the integration occurs by the laws of chemistry which are completely independent from the definition of life.
• Creation biology presents a teleological view of biology no empirical result could disprove: a violation of the falsifiability requirement of the scientific method.
• The introduction of supernatural elements in describing the origin and development of life is regarded to be incompatible with the scientific method, the explicit purpose of which is to investigate the empirical realm of nature.
• The creationist definition of "kind" is regarded as either too vague or needlessly divergent from the well-explained models of phylogenetics. The reluctance of creationists to come up with a suitable system of "kinds" also raises doubts about the falsifiability of the concept.
• The description of macroevolution as an iterated process of microevolutionary steps is too causally rejected, often by ignoring the plethora of citations regarding microevolutionary pathways to arrive at particular macroevolutionary transitions.
• The concept of "irreducible complexity" is rejected as an argument from ignorance or a non sequitur of the form "There is no obvious predecessor state; thus, there are no predecessor states." Evolutionary biologists insist they consider the possibility of non-obvious predecessor and intermediate states in evolution; for example, if neither the genetic features "A" nor "B" can exist alone, and "AB" is found in an organism, there are many other imaginable intermediate states, namely "C" to "AC" to "ABC" to "AB", where "C" is a feature that behaves somewhat like "B" but has the ability to stand on its own, as well as some evolutionary merit.
• "Specified complexity" is rejected as an argument from ignorance. Critics say that specified complexity takes something that natural evolutionists do not have a complete step-by-step explanation for (such as how the human eye came about) and attempts to calculate a probability of that structure evolving naturally. Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology explains "We cannot calculate the probability that an eye came about. We don't have the information to make the calculation"[1]

See also

• Baraminology
• Frank Lewis Marsh
• Neo-Creationism
• Pre-Adamite

Creation biology - Sources

Sarfati, Jonathon. Refuting Compromise, Master Books, 2004.

Categories: Creationism | Pseudoscience

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Creation biology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki