Answering McLean v. Arkansas

Creation vs. Evolution: Answering McLean v. Arkansas · New blog on the kid: How Can People in This Day and Age be Anything But Communist? Because we Can!

Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson is giving his defense of Traced:

Evolutionists Do NOT Want You to Know This . . . | Traced: Episode 16
Answers in Genesis, 17 Febr. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sbiHj_0r4o

In it he mentions that ...

A Court ruled "creation science is not science"
https://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/evolution/unit16creationsci/overton.html#Heading10

and I look up this quote:

More precisely, the essential characteristics of science are: (1) It is guided by natural law; (2) It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law; (3) It is testable against the empirical world; (4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and (5) Its is falsifiable. (Ruse and other science witnesses).

Let's start with the last.

Ruse and other science witnesses

This is the kind of testimony that's called "expert witness" ... which is highly overrated in courts.

For one thing, there can be things there is no expertise on. Romans had no word for "expert" - while the word "expert" comes from Latin "expertus" that word was an adjective meaning experienced, not a nouns referring to a specific status. There were words for specific types of expertise. Medicus is physician, architectus is architect, faber is ... none of these things are close to what Ruse and the rest pretended to be experts on. I'll respect, usually, as a matter of general principle, an expert in ballistics - was the bullet fired at close or far range and such things.

Next to the points. The more specific ones.

(1) It is guided by natural law;

I am indifferent as to whether a statement that God omnipotent did a certain thing is labelled "science" or "philosophy" - if it is admissible in science, fine, if not, I ask scientists to not impinge on philosophy.

The idea that all that is and happens is there or happens because of "natural law," (the phrase actually means something different), or because of constants or processes described by natural laws (like Ohm's law or a Maxwell equation) is what in philosophy is called "materialism" it is one school and not the only one, it is also a false school. Scientists who are amateur philosophers and confessional atheists shall not have the audacity to first dismiss all philosophical objections to materialism by "we are doing science, not philosophy" and then turn around and do bad philosophy while pretending to do science.

The conclusion that some thing or even ultimately every thing is there or happens for a reason not reducible to either natural laws or more properly causalities described by such is one that one must be able to reach.

Otherwise this first criterium violates criterium "(5) Its is falsifiable" - very blatantly.

(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;

Synonymous to previous.

(3) It is testable against the empirical world;

Materialism isn't.

Any explanation that explains parts of the empirical world, which includes the fact we have consciousness and the fact we reason and the fact we make moral judgements, and a lot of historic allegations, such that Hume cannot safely state that absence of miracles is an empirical given, it's just that Hume was ignorant of empirical history, any explanation that explains parts of it, is ipso facto testable - if it explains what is there, and doesn't explain sth which according to it should be there and isn't.

Materialism isn't testable against the empirical world, since it ignores:

• the fact we have consciousness
• the fact we reason
• the fact we make moral judgements
• a lot of historic allegations,

Or rather, is refuted by these.

(4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word;

Unlike the philosophical part, and the theological part ... well, can science know its limits?

Apparently not.

Some want to state:

• "God created" is part of a religious dogmatic system
• religious dogmatic systems are not science
• therefore "God created" is not science
• therefore science must discuss the question as if "God didn't create"

Which for one obviously conflates "science" with "any discipline that deals with objective reality" and on top of that conflates "being part of a religious dogmatic system" with "being a religious dogmatic system" ... again, if science is only for things that are non-final (which would mean Mathematics is no science, since it is final that 2 + 2 = 4), so be it, provided that one accepts other disciplines having the capacity to make final decisions. AND those other disciplines dealing with the natural world. AND they would be relevant for science class, since "natural science" as a school subject is more concerned with the observable constants in the natural world, and less with the philosophical minutiae about how we arrive at truths about them. Note, I don't pretend it would be totally irrelevant, in fact, I think too little is stated in specific cases on how people with the status of scientist arrive at certain conclusions. But this five point rigmarole programme has probably been repeated more than once in science classes after January 5, 1982.

But the worst equivocation is obviously pushing one answer outside the subject and pretending its opposite is to be assumed as true inside the subject. Affirming and negating a thing answer the same question, and the subject matters are about the questions. The very idea of science is against this way of deciding a fact question based on a pure formality.

(5) Its is falsifiable.

If nothing existed, God existing would be falsified. We wouldn't be there to do the falsification, but it would be falsified. Again, if nothing except God existed, "God created" would be falsified. We wouldn't be there to do the falsification, but it would be falsified, and God would do the falsification.

If no minds existed, it would be falsified to say "we have minds because God gave us them" - we wouldn't be there to make the falsification, but it would be falsified.

So, lots of bad or ambiguous criteria are on top of that shoddily applied in that judgement - because the judge refused to treat expert witnesses as if they were themselves on trial. He bowed down to them, as if they were his judges.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Alexis Falconieri
17.II.2023

Florentiae natalis sancti Alexii Falconerii Confessoris, e septem Fundatoribus Ordinis Servorum beatae Mariae Virginis; qui, decimo supra centesimum vitae suae anno, Christi Jesu et Angelorum praesentia recreatus, beato fine quievit. Ipsius tamen ac Sociorum festum pridie Idus Februarii celebratur.