Editor,
While researching creationism for a philosophy course, I came across a number of counterarguments against evolutionary theory. While reading them, I realized creationism doesn't just have to argue against evolutionary theory to be considered valid, but it has to argue against most of the other fields of science as well. To illustrate my point, I came up with a question for creationists. But in order for the question to be worth answering, we'd need to agree on a few assumptions: The world and everything else in the universe was made at about the same time, i.e. the first week of creation; the scale of the universe; the universe is 6,000 to 10,000 years old; and a light-year is the distance light travels in a year. My question is this: How are we able to see stars that are billions of light-years away if their light only had, at most, 10,000 years to get here?
Often, when I pose a question to creationists challenging their beliefs, their knee-jerk reaction is to attack evolutionary theory. I'm not asking you to prove evolutionary theory wrong. I'm asking you to prove creationism right.
There are two common replies I get. The first is the stars aren't as far away as I think. The second is God must have created the universe in such a way that the light must have already traveled most of the distance by the time Earth had been created. The first reply is wrong for obvious reasons. It dismisses empirical evidence simply because it doesn't agree with a religion. But the biggest problem I have is with the second reply, and it's the second reply that exemplifies why creationism has no place in a science class. What it does is work backward. All creationists I've talked to start with the conclusion that God made everything. It's an assumption that is considered unquestionable. The logic of the second reply starts with the conclusion that God made everything and then works backward to figure out how the universe had to start in order to work with physics as we understand it. This logic ends with a story of creation that has to be reinvented every time evidence is found that shows why the story of creation is wrong.
This logic is the opposite of the scientific method. It begins with the conclusion and fills in the gaps. It makes premises as needed and quickly disconnects from reality. I can make any theory I want explaining the beginning of the universe using some deity whose existence and involvement I don't have to prove and then reinterpret all the evidence existing on the matter to support my theory. It would have about as much place in a science class as creationism.
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Robert Poreda
UNM student
