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Flood geology - Philosophical objections

Flood geology - Philosophical objections: Encyclopedia II - Flood geology - Philosophical objections

Mainstream scientists object to Flood Geology, and Creationism in general, on philosophical grounds as well as scientific ones. Perhaps the most fervent objection is grounded in Occam's Razor. Occam's razor is a principle of parsimony formulated so as to "slice out" scientific theories which contain redundant assumptions: "It is vain to do with more what can be done with less." Therefore, say scientists, because mainstream science can comprehensively describe the relevant data, flood geology, which inherently draws on God, is redundant because of its underlying assumption of div ...

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Flood geology: Encyclopedia II - Flood geology - Philosophical objections

Flood geology - Philosophical objections

Mainstream scientists also object to Flood Geology on methodological grounds: they point out that flood geology supporters approach geology with the initial purpose of finding evidence for a worldwide flood, rather than looking at the evidence and then formulating a conclusion.

To cement this point, they note that Creationist geologists had looked at the evidence for a worldwide flood in the century before Darwin, and found it lacking, dismissing it in favor of uniformitarian worldviews. [14]

It is worth noting that the founders of uniformitarianism likewise had an a priori commitment before examining the evidence. For example, James Hutton, the "Founder of Modern Geology", suggested :

"the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle" (emphasis added) (from ‘Theory of the Earth’, a paper (with the same title of his 1795 book) communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1785)

However, while geology usually begins with a presumption of ordinary processes, scientists have frequently modified this stance in the face of evidence (e.g. extraterrestrial impact events; supervolcanic activity). Similarly, while individual scientists may carry out research in the hope of finding evidence for a hypothesis they have faith in, unless such evidence is forthcoming, the hypothesis will never enter the body of science.

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

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