Science Re-Captures a Glimpse of God

Special Creation (the belief that the origin of the universe and all of life came into being by divine decree) was a feature of the predominant worldview in the time when some of our great scientists of the past lived.

For example, Sir Isaac Newton in writing about the planetary system said, "Though these bodies may indeed continue in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws. Thus, this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." 
(note the capital B)

Biologists also, before Darwin that is, thought that the study of life gave the appearance of having been purposefully designed.

But Darwin caused the whole discipline to change direction.
Darwin's famous "Origin of Species" was a long argument against creation by design, promoting the theory that all living things were produced by unguided natural forces from a common source. 
In fact he was quoted as saying, "I would give absolutely nothing for my theory of natural selection, if it require miraculous additions at any one stage of descent." 

Typical modern Biology textbooks include statements like "By coupling the undirected, purposeless variations to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made the theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. 
(Douglas Futuyma's "Evolutionary Biology" College Text)

However, science is beginning to show signs of realising the limits of space-time based explorations.

In 1953, the discovery of DNA opened some eyes.
Not only does DNA contain information, but functional information not dissimilar to computer software code.
BIll Gates, Microsoft pioneer, said that "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created".

In 1996, Michael Behe, a university biochemist, published a book titled "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" which focused on biological systems which are 'irreducibly complex' at the molecular level and could not have been developed slowly over long periods of time.

Even modern neo-Darwinists admit that undirected natural selection and random mutation can produce organs and structures that give 'the appearance' of having been designed.

The Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, Washington was founded in 1990 and describes itself as "the institutional hub for scientists, educators, and inquiring minds who think that nature supplies compelling evidence of intelligent design".

Dr Stephen Meyer, philosopher of science and director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture, publicly claims that Intelligent Design is detectable by science, and has written two books, "Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design: and "Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design" to advance his argument.

However, let's be clear.
The sort of evolution that is being challenged by most proponents of Intelligent Design is Darwinianism, not the 'small changes over time' type of evolution, nor the small adaptations due to environmental changes (microevolution), nor even the production of new species from a common ancestor (macroevolution).

But Darwinianism, chance macroevolution, which asserts that all organisms, including mankind, descended from a common ancestor without any input, either at its beginning or on the journey, from an intelligent source.

Such is the fleeting glimpse of God currently being seen: there's still a long way to go to get back to the view of our great scientists of the past. 

However if scientists continue to be brave enough to be honest about what they see in the science they explore, especially at the molecular level, their influence might spread widely...

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. so that people are without excuse.
[Romans 1 : 20  NIV]

Of course, I have omitted mentioning the many Creation Scientists who have either never been Darwinianists, or have transferred from that camp as they became Bible-believing Christians during their careers. 
Creation Ministries International is staffed by several of these men and women and https://creation.com is a great website to visit and explore evidence and arguments for special creation.

Blessings, Barry

What is Science?

This used to be a simple question to answer.
In my much younger days of scientific and mathematical research and practice, theories were hypotheses (informed guesses drawn from the observation of multiple examples) that could be verified or falsified by experimentation.
Further, a theory had to be capable of producing practical, duplicate examples and of predicting future events.

Indeed, a scientific theory could only be considered a statement about reality if it followed these principles of scientific theory.
As human beings on planet Earth, we are most commonly aware of gravity, now considered a universally established and accepted law, because of our confidence in its ability to withstand all challenges to its ability to describe reality.

Science that follows these principles could be called by numerous descriptors - operational, experimental, observational, structural sciences.
We will call them the "exact sciences" here.
Indeed, it has become imperative to use such a term now that the science space has been invaded by philosophy (or religion, if I were brave enough to use that descriptor).

These historical-interpretative theories, like creation, evolution and significant components of cosmology, speculate about the origin of the universe and its inhabitants.
They might use the currently observable (but not original) data around us, but can hardly produce duplicate origin examples or be subject to a verifiable/falsification process.
Origin events only happen once (do not have multiple examples) and, since observers were not available at the exact time of their happening, contemporary scientists have no examples (original or duplicate) to experiment on, to be verified or to be falsified.

These philosophical theories have hijacked the "science" descriptor, possibly because it is scientists who usually tout them, or because a relationship to the exact sciences has been attributed to them.
We shall discuss this relationship possibility in a future post.

To these historical-interpretative sciences, if they must be called science at all, we will give the name "origin sciences", as they do not follow the principles of science theory as do the "exact sciences".
Three origin sciences are staunchly defended belief systems about what happened in the unobservable past and will be discussed on this blog over the course of the year.
But for now, just a brief introductory description of each ...

Evolution is a philosophical doctrine based on matter and materialistic principles driven by mutation and selection.
To many it has become a basic, universal principle that is taken for granted: to others it is seen as imaginative speculation.

Creation is a biblical doctrine based on the existence of a Creator, the God of the Bible, who was present at the origin events and whose creative activities cannot be explained by natural laws.
To many it is a basic principle that is taken for granted: to others it is seen as an unenlightened view based on the assumption that the Bible is the literal Word of God.

Theistic Evolution is a doctrine based on a marriage of evolution and creation - God used evolution as a means of creating.
To many it is a means of accommodating science and the Bible: to others it describes a marriage of incompatibles, a random process lacking in purpose and design with a deliberate, planned process of intelligent design and purpose.

We shall discuss and evaluate their competing claims as possible explanations of the unobservable past in future posts.

So, to answer our lead question, science has become a mix of exact and origin studies, those that follow the traditional principles of scientific theory and those that are belief systems that have scientific connections.

As usual, your critical review is invited and will be most welcome.
Blessings, Barry