Mapping the Origins Debate

Six Models of the Beginning of Everything

Gerald Rau

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780830839872
• eBook ISBN: 9780830866397
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Midwest Publishing Awards Show Honorable Mention

The debate over evolution and creation has raged for decades and shows no signs of letting up. Many promote one view as the only reasonable solution. But what are the main viewpoints, and just why do they disagree? In the midst of an increasingly intense dispute, Gerald Rau answers the important questions with level-headed clarity and evenhanded analysis.

Rau lays out six models of origins, ranging from naturalistic evolution to young-earth creation. He shows how each model presupposes an underlying philosophy that adherents take on faith. With the sensitivity of a seasoned educator, Rau demonstrates how each model assesses the scientific evidence in relation to four different kinds of origins: the universe, life, species and humans. In an age of specialists, Rau sees the big picture. Mapping the Origins Debate cuts through the cacophony and the complexity to provide a lucid and charitable contribution to the conversation.

1

Worldviews, Philosophy and Science

What is eternal? Various opinions have been offered by science or religion throughout human history, but at the most foundational level there are only two possible answers: the natural world, or something supernatural. Thus the debate about origins is eternal and interminable, because at its core lies a conflict between two diametrically opposed, fundamentally irreconcilable viewpoints: naturalistic and supernaturalistic. Yet within those two basic viewpoints are multiple ways of interpreting both the empirical and documentary evidence about origins, leading to a spectrum of opinions on the issue. This book is an attempt to present that spectrum in a way that is comprehensible to those with little background in either science or theology, as objectively as possible, to promote understanding of the presuppositions and logic of each position. In doing so I must necessarily make generalizations and will not do full justice to any particular argument, but notes will lead interested readers to literature representing each position.

Before we can discuss what each position holds, the subject of the second chapter, it is important to think briefly about how we know anything.[1] Much of what we know is based on ideas we pick up from those around us, often without conscious thought or evaluation. These deeply held but often unrecognized convictions affect our answer to the question at the heart of the debate: what is eternal?[2] In this book I will attempt to distinguish two components that affect the way we look at the world: the worldview we absorb as part of our culture, and the personal philosophy we choose.

The focus of the book, however, is not the worldviews or personal philosophies themselves, but how these affect our interpretation of the scientific evidence. The fundamental thesis of this book is that although everyone has access to the same evidence, the presuppositions implicit in a person’s philosophy determine the perspective from which he or she views the data, leading to different logical conclusions about which explanation best fits the evidence.

In this first chapter I will examine briefly the connection between science and philosophy. This will be followed by a functional definition of science, showing the interaction between evidence, logical inferences and presupposition in natural science. Those who want to jump into the debate itself can read the first paragraph of each section of this chapter for now, then come back to it before reading chapter eight to see the broader perspective.

1.1 What Is Eternal?

When looking for answers to a question, a logical place to start is to list all possible alternatives. Rarely is this easy, because although we list all the alternatives we can think of, there may be others we have not considered. Usually, however, it is relatively easy to list all possible classes of alternatives; that is the case with the question of origins. Since the universe is present, it either always was present or came into existence at some point. If it came into existence, something external to the universe must have been present—either another source of the matter and energy it comprises or something with the ability to create matter and energy. Put more simply, there are only two logical choices for what is eternal—natural or supernatural.

Within each of these two major classes of alternatives are more specific proposals, sometimes called worldviews, related to a particular religion or set of beliefs. But worldviews include elements drawn from culture and society as well as religious texts, so there may be many variations within a single religion, just as denominations often reflect the culture (both ethnic and temporal) in which that particular group originated or developed. Beyond culturally shared views there are ideas we hold personally, which make up our personal philosophy.

Worldviews and personal philosophy. Much has been written recently on worldviews, a word largely unknown to previous generations. James Sire (2004) has defined a worldview as

a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being. (p. 122)

According to Sire, a worldview is an individual commitment, and his definition has had a strong impact on evangelical Christian thought in America over the last few decades. But many elements of our worldview are picked up wholesale or piecemeal from the culture around us, often without conscious thought, because the ideas are deeply embedded in the language and fabric of the culture, and other authors claim the term worldview should be restricted to this cultural level. Because I must use some term, but do not want to be embroiled in this debate, in this book I will use worldview when referring to a general cultural phenomenon, and personal philosophy to refer to the set of philosophical presuppositions and commitments that affect the way we individually see the world.[3] Although a person may change his or her personal philosophy as a result of some experience, the worldview formed in childhood has a strong influence on a person throughout life and often remains largely unquestioned.

Part of our personal philosophy includes what we consider to be true, or whether we can in fact know something to be true. In recent years a philosophy known as relativism has been gaining prominence, especially in intellectual circles. According to this view there is no absolute truth; each person must decide what is true for him- or herself. This stands in stark contrast to most traditional religions and the basic premise of most scientists. A basic premise of this book is that truth exists independently of the observer, and it is our responsibility to seek and, to the best of our ability, live by that truth, even if our knowledge of it is imperfect.

How worldviews and personal philosophy affect science. Worldviews form early because they are embedded in the language. Words and ideas are grouped together, forming the ontology of the language. Certain words are given positive or negative connotations. Word choice by parents also affects the way a child views different concepts. Accordingly, every child develops a personal philosophy long before he or she is exposed to science in any form, certainly before being exposed to any direct scientific evidence about origins. Thus our worldview and philosophy shape the way we view that evidence from the first time we hear it.

Those who hold to a naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic perspective must of necessity postulate a way for matter and energy to be eternally self-existent. They must also find some sort of self-organizing principle or principles to account for the increasing complexity of the universe and life, based either on necessity or probability. According to this perspective, it should be theoretically possible to find a natural explanation for every event, past, present or future, and there is nothing that cannot be studied by science.

Those working from a theistic perspective may have various views of science, depending on how they believe God interacts with the world. Since the theistic side of the debate about origins in America is dominated by various Christian positions, that will be the focus of this book, but as each model is described in chapter two I will show how similar interpretations of the scientific evidence are expected from other monotheistic, polytheistic or pantheistic perspectives. Frequently more than one Christian interpretation of the scientific evidence is possible, being closely related to the interpretive framework used to understand the Bible, especially the early chapters of Genesis (Poythress, 2006: 82-85).[4]

1.2 What Is Science?

We all have an intuitive sense of what science is, yet when it comes to a formal definition, science is remarkably difficult to define. At its root, science is the quest to understand the natural world. But there are many different types of science, each with its own methods and techniques, including theoretical science, experimental science, observational science and historical science, making it hard to delineate where science ends and some other way of knowing begins.

Nevertheless, attempts have been made to define the basic characteristics of science. One of the more successful, by a working scientist with extensive training in philosophy, is Scientific Method in Practice by Hugh Gauch (2003), who contends that, “Every conclusion of science, once fully disclosed, involves components of three kinds: presuppositions, evidence, and logic” (p. xv). All other ways of knowing also involve presuppositions and logic, so we will begin by considering the component unique to natural science, empirical evidence.

Empirical evidence. *Empirical evidence (terms with an asterisk are defined in the glossary) is anything that can be observed with our five senses, with or without assistance. Things we can see, hear, feel, taste or smell can be sensed directly. Sometimes we use instruments to assist in extending or quantifying our senses. For example, a microscope or telescope extends our vision, while a spectrophotometer helps quantify our sense of color, and a compass helps us observe magnetic fields that we cannot sense directly at all, although we see their effects.

There is a difference in the way empirical evidence is collected in different types of science. *Experimental science examines phenomena that are repeatable, regular occurrences, by manipulating a variable to determine its effect. This is the type of science most people currently think of as prototypical science. Although typically associated with laboratory science, experiments can also be conducted in agriculture or ecology by applying treatments to different plots of land. Phenomena that are too large, time consuming or where there are ethical constraints on experimentation must be studied observationally. Examples of *observational science include investigation of stars, earthquakes or disease spread. *Historical science is the study of nonrepeatable physical events, including the ice ages or origins. * Theoretical science makes predictions, often based on mathematical calculations, that can be tested by one of the three empirical approaches.[5] A famous example is the prediction made by the theory of relativity, and later confirmed, that gravity could bend light.

As we will see in subsequent chapters, empirical evidence from every branch of natural science contributes to the debate about origins, making it difficult for anyone to have a full command of all the various lines of evidence. Beyond the strictly empirical, theoretical sciences like cosmology and population genetics with strong mathematical components and mathematical tools like statistics have also long been part of the debate, and arguments from other branches of mathematics, including probability and information theory, are increasingly being entered as evidence as well.

Logical inferences. But empirical evidence by itself is not enough. The process of science involves making logical *inferences. An inference is a conclusion, explanation or judgment based on the evidence. The difference between evidence and inference is essential to the question of origins, as indeed it is in every area of science, so we must learn to clearly differentiate the two.[6] This will be a major emphasis of chapters three through six.

There are two basic types of logical inference: deductive and inductive. In natural science deduction typically involves reasoning from the general to the specific, from a model to the expected data, while induction typically involves reasoning from specific cases to general conclusions, or from actual data to an inferred model (Gauch, 2003: 157-59). Because of the difference between the two types of logic, a deductive argument is either valid or invalid, but an inductive argument cannot be absolutely valid or invalid, only strong or weak.[7]

This distinction is important in the study of origins, because models are created by inductive logic and therefore cannot be shown to be true or false. On the other hand, specific predictions made by the models, which involve deductive logic, can be useful in testing their veracity. Failure of a prediction does not immediately disqualify a model, however, because the failure could be due to failure of ancillary assumptions, not the basic model.

A third type of inference mentioned by some authors, abductive, is sometimes called inference to the best explanation. It involves drawing on multiple lines of evidence to reach a conclusion, but it cannot be formalized mathematically as deduction and induction can. Almost every statement we take to be true and almost every decision we make depends to some degree on abductive inference.

Logic must be carefully distinguished from rhetoric, although both are used in argumentation, in the origins debate as well as elsewhere.[8] Court cases provide an instructive example: in court, neither the evidence nor the inferences stand on their own—they must be combined into a coherent argument. Often it is the rhetorical skill of the presenter, rather than the weight of the evidence itself, that convinces a jury to view the evidence a certain way. The same is true in the study of origins.[9]

Necessary presuppositions. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the logical empiricists, also known as positivists, claimed that science depended only on evidence and logic, without any *presuppositions. This idea has since been debunked by philosophers and historians of science. Hugh Gauch (2003: 112) asserts that science cannot be done without some philosophical assumptions or presuppositions, but that the necessary presuppositions are normally not disclosed because they are commonsense and therefore taken for granted.

Gauch (2003) describes a presupposition as “a belief that is necessary in order for any of the hypotheses to be meaningful and true but that is non-differential regarding the credibilities of the individual hypotheses” (p. 127). Within science there are both global presuppositions and local presuppositions related to the particular field of inquiry. Necessary global presuppositions include a belief that the physical world is real and that we can trust our senses (Gauch, 2003: 128). Almost all philosophical positions accept this, apart from radical skepticism. Thus, the necessary presuppositions are (nearly) independent of philosophical perspective, a necessary criterion for the objectivity of science. Local presuppositions “emerge mechanically as beliefs held in common by all of the hypotheses in the hypothesis set,” so that they too are nondiscriminatory with regard to the veracity of the various hypotheses, which is then determined based on the evidence alone (Gauch, 2003: 131-32).

It must be emphasized here that the objectivity of science, its independence from particular worldviews, may be true of science as a whole, but is not when it comes to individual scientists. Certainly in the area of origins, which deals with what Gauch calls “deep answers,” objectivity of individual scientists is not possible. It is widely accepted that the data “underdetermine” theory, that is, there are any number of theories that could explain any particular set of data. Each scientist is working from the perspective of one particular theory, which affects both data collection and interpretation. It is also likely that objectivity and consensus will be easier to obtain in the experimental sciences than in the historical sciences, particularly those like origins that are closely connected with our philosophical commitments.[10]

There are many intriguing aspects of the question of what science is and how it interacts with philosophy that we will not be able to explore in this book, including presuppositions about the nature of reality. In twenty-first-century America most of us take a *mechanistic perspective of the world for granted, but this has not always been the case, nor is it necessarily so in other parts of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Worldviews, Philosophy and Science
• 2 A Spectrum of Models
• 3 Origin of the Universe
• 4 Origin of Life
• 5 Origin of Species
• 6 Origin of Humans
• 7 What We Can Learn from Each
• 8 The Definition at the Heart of the Debate
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1 Tables Comparing Six Models of Origins
• Appendix 2 Comparison of Various Interpretations of Genesis 1
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Person and Organization Index
• Subject Index
• Praise for Mapping the Origins Debate
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright