Response
To say that natural causes are enough to explain everything in the natural world is a belief, not a fact. Who says that science cannot point to God? Isn’t science about finding out the truth about our natural world, wherever it leads? Why should God be ruled out as unscientific without even giving the evidence a chance?
Furthermore, detecting intelligence is already a vital part of even secular science. For instance, we use science today to determine things about people we have never met. Even evolutionists try to detect aliens scientifically through SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). 2 3 4 Archaeologists use science to learn about the lifestyle and practices of civilizations they have never met that lived hundreds or thousands of years ago. 5 We used science to determine that the Piltdown Man was a hoax, intentionally forged by a person, though we do not know the forger’s identity. 6 The criterion for science is falsifiability, 7 8 not naturalism.
Therefore, we can use science to determine that a Creator exists and even to determine something about that Creator.
Debate
Evolutionist: No, science is about seeing how far we can go explaining natural phenomena with natural causes.
Response: Says who? Science should be about determining what is true about the world using natural evidence. If the evidence points to God, why should we exclude that from discussion?
Evolutionist: Yes, but saying God did something is giving up; it’s not an explanation. It’s like a child saying Santa Clause is responsible for Christmas presents just because he doesn’t have a natural explanation.
Response: Using God as an explanation doesn’t mean “giving up.” An archaeologist could try to explain a clay pot using “natural” (i.e., non-human) causes, but this would be silly. An archaeologist knows that a person made this pot, and to say otherwise would not be scientific: it would be the opposite. Likewise, ignoring the clear fact that God created this world is not scientific: it is the opposite.
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Sources
ReMine, W. J. (1993). The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message Theory. Saint Paul, Minn.: St. Paul Science.
Sarfati, J. D., & Matthews, M. (1999). Refuting Evolution. Green Forest, AR: Master Books.
Williams, A., & Hartnett, J. W. (2005). Dismantling the Big Bang: God's Universe Rediscovered. Green Forest, AR: Master Books.
Coyne, J. A. (2009). Why Evolution Is True. New York: Viking.
Notes
- ReMine, 1993, p. 29: “Naturalism is the doctrine that mechanistic laws of nature are adequate to account for all phenomena.” ↩
- Sarfati, 1999, p. 19: “Actually, evolutionists are often not consistent with their own rules against invoking an intelligent designer. For example, when archaeologists find an arrowhead, they can tell it must have been designed, even though they haven’t seen the designer. And the whole basis of the SETI program is that a signal from outer space carrying specific information must have an intelligent source. Yet the materialistic bias of many evolutionists means that they reject an intelligent source for the literally encyclopedic information carried in every living cell.” ↩
- Williams and Harnett, 2005, p. 161: “It is therefore no surprise to find a fundamental contradiction lying right at the very heart of the SETI program. SETI pioneer Professor Carl Sagan devised a set of four criteria that they could use to distinguish possible intelligent communications among the constant noise of radio static that comes from all parts of the sky. When those four criteria were applied to the information on the DNA molecule (to see if it comes from an intelligent source), it passed the test. So, the criteria that would alert the SETI astronomers to the presence of “evolved” life in outer space would tell them, if they wanted to know, that life did not evolve — it came from an intelligent Creator.” ↩
- ReMine, 1993, p. 31 ↩
- ReMine, 1993, p. 30 ↩
- ReMine, 1993, p. 30 ↩
- Coyne, 2009, p. 138: “But if you can’t think of an observation that could disprove a theory, that theory simply isn’t scientific.” ↩
- ReMine, 1993, p. 32:”Scientists accepted Popper’s insight, and falsifiability is now known as the criterion of science.” ↩