Welcome to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. In this program, we want to encourage you in your Christian faith by showing how scientific evidence supports the Bible, particularly the Genesis account. The book of Genesis lays the foundation for all matters addressed in the rest of the Bible. The nature of God, His sovereignty in creation, man's purpose, sin, marriage, family, and why we need a Savior are all introduced and explained in Genesis. When we see that the first and most foundational book of the Bible can be trusted in all matters, including science, it builds confidence in the rest of the inspired word all the way to Revelation.
On today's show, we'll hear from Dr. Jake Hebert, physicist and research associate with the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Hebert. In this episode of Science, Scripture, and Salvation, we're talking about the scientific method.
There is a great deal of confusion out there regarding what really is and is not science. And this is especially true in the origins debate. We are constantly being bombarded with claims about the past, many of them quite fantastic, that are touted as scientific, but is this really the case? And understanding the scientific method can help us to get a better feel for what really is and is not science.
Now, unfortunately, science teachers often give short shrift to this topic.
Now, I used to teach introductory physics classes, and I know this is true from personal experience. Usually, the scientific method is one of the very first things you cover during the semester before going on to the quote-unquote real science and the calculations. And usually, that early in the semester, students are still changing their schedule.
So, if they miss this part, it's not that big a deal, right? As long as they learn how to. Do the calculations, it's all good, right?
Well, the truth is, we really ought to spend more time on this because if the average person had a better grasp of the scientific method, I think a lot of the wrong ideas that are being touted as being scientific, especially evolutionary ideas, would be exposed a lot more quickly.
So, in a nutshell, the scientific method is a way of studying the natural world. Basically, you get an idea, a hypothesis about how you think things may work, and then you test it. For instance, you may have a hypothesis that playing an AM radio in a greenhouse is good for plants. And then, what you do is you say, okay, well, if that's true, let's draw some logical conclusions. Perhaps you would expect plants in a greenhouse to grow faster and bigger if you're playing AM radio for them.
And so, what you do is you test the consequences of that hypothesis. You play the AM radio in the greenhouse. You see if there's a difference, you look and see if. what you predicted is shown to be true or false. And if it's not true, if you don't see that the plants are growing faster or bigger, well, then you either have to modify your hypothesis or abandon it.
So, in a way, this is an iterative process. You try to eliminate incorrect answers to the question.
So, that you can hopefully arrive at the correct answer.
Now, of course, this is the basic idea, and scientists don't necessarily do this in a robotic manner, but this is the general idea of how this is supposed to work. In order to test whether your hypothesis is correct or not, you have to be able to make observations and see whether what you observe agrees with your hypothesis.
Now that may seem like an obvious point, but it's one that is often forgotten, especially in this origins debate.
So remember this saying, no observations, no science.
Okay, let me repeat that. No observations, no science.
So how does this apply to the creation evolution controversy?
Well It's important to realize that when we're using the scientific method, we're making observations in the present. When we're discussing the origins debate, we're talking about the past. We have no way of directly observing the past. We can't build a time machine, go back in time, and see what happened. When we study fossils, for instance, we're studying them in the present.
Yes, they were formed in the past, but they exist in the present and we are studying them in the present.
So for this reason, the origins debate is kind of more a debate about history than it is about science.
Now, that doesn't mean that science can't help shed light on these subjects. We can use science in the same way that crime scene investigators use it. For instance, police investigators will often, when they're examining a crash scene, they may use physics principles like conservation of linear momentum to try to figure out what happened. They may use DNA evidence to convict or exonerate a criminal suspect.
So we can see whether the evidence is consistent with a particular claim about origins.
So even though this is not science in the same way that physics or chemistry is, these scientific methodologies can often be applied. But understand that whenever we do this, we are making assumptions. And that's the problem. Because we're making assumptions about the past, there's a lot more opportunity for bias and unspoken assumptions to come into the analysis. And so that's something you have to keep in mind when you're discussing this origins debate.
And we'll talk a little bit more about this in the next segment. What happened to the dinosaurs? Are monkeys and people the same? Why do we live on Earth and not some other planet? Kids have some great questions about God's creation, but do you have the answers for them?
At the Institute for Creation Research, our scientists and Bible scholars have produced The Guide to Creation Basics. This book contains full-colored images and fascinating commentary from experts in biology, geology, astronomy, and biblical study. Guide to Creation Basics can help teach your children how the animals could fit on Noah's Ark, how dinosaurs and humans could live at the same time, and how God's power and wisdom can be seen in something as small as a single cell. Find basic answers to your child's biggest creation questions. Order your copy of Guide to Creation Basics from the Institute for Creation Research by calling 800-628-7640 or visiting www.icr.org.
Welcome back to Science, Scripture, and Salvation. Here's Dr. Hebert. In this segment, we are still discussing the scientific method, and let me give you an example of how you can test whether the evidence is consistent with a particular claim about origins. For instance, evolutionists claim that the human race is millions of years old.
Yet we know based on observations in the present that mistakes, mutations in our genetic code, are accumulating so rapidly that if the human race really were as ancient as claimed by evolutionists, we really should all be dead by now, given the rate at which these mistakes or mutations are accumulating in our DNA. But even here, we're making assumptions. Does this argument prove? In the strict sense that the human race is young?
Well, not really, because evolutionists could claim that maybe for some reason there were fewer mistakes accumulating in our DNA in the past than they are now. Maybe the mutation rate in the past was much slower than it is now. But for some reason, the rate sped up to what we're observing today.
Now, that sounds a little far-fetched. I don't think that's convincing, but they would try to make that argument.
So, you need to understand that basically we have these two kinds of science: operational and historical science. The claims of historical science are not as well established as the claims from the operational sciences. When we talk about the operational sciences, we're talking about things like physics and chemistry. And when we're talking about historical science, we're talking about things like historical geology. You will often hear evolutionists make the claim that evolution is as well proved as gravity.
Well, that is nothing but sheer propaganda. Think back to your high school and college chemistry or physics classes. Usually, you would do at least one lab experiment per week. Where you did experiments, and hopefully, you know, if you didn't mess up too badly in the lab, you were able to show over and over again that the claims in your textbook were correct. You were able to show yourself that.
Now, let's think about biology class. How many experiments did you do in biology class in high school or college showing that simpler forms of life can evolve or morph into more complicated forms of life?
Well, the answer is zero. You never did that experiment. I guarantee you that if evolutionists actually had an experiment that showed you that, it would be mandatory in all high school and college biology classes because they want very, very badly to believe that evolution is true, and they want very badly to convince you that it's true too.
So, the fact that you never did that experiment in high school or college shows you that this claim they're making is not on the same level that the claims we have in physics and chemistry.
So that's one of the things at ICR that we try to drive home for people. Most people don't realize that these claims about the past involve assumptions.
Now, we creation scientists make assumptions too. We all have a worldview. Creation scientists have a worldview. We have a bias. And so do secular or evolutionary scientists.
You have to interpret the data. And to be honest, at ICR, we get a little bit frustrated sometimes when so many Christians either fail to see or refuse to see that this is true. There are many Christians out there who think that we just have to accept the claims that evolutionists are making about the past, even when those claims are completely ridiculous and they contradict scripture. No, we don't have to accept those claims at face value.
Now, we were talking about how an understanding of the scientific method can help us to discern whether a claim is truly scientific or not. And let's look at some simple examples. For instance, You will hear secular scientists claim that there are other universes out there, that there's a multiverse.
Now is that a scientific claim? Absolutely not. How on earth could you hope to show that that claim is false? Remember, in order to do science you have to make observations.
Now, what would you have to do in order to observe other universes?
Well, somehow you would have to step outside of our universe.
Well, obviously, we can't do that.
So, this claim that there are other universes is not a scientific claim. Likewise, you will often hear secular scientists, particularly secular cosmologists, claim that universes can pop into existence. And that's basically what Lawrence Krauss, he's a really militant anti-theist, he's a Big Bang proponent and a theoretical physicist. That's what he tried to claim in his 2012 book, A Universe from Nothing. He was trying to argue.
that a universe can come into existence apart from a creator.
Now, when you hear them making these claims, they will often sound kind of scientific because they use scientific lingo. You will often hear them talk about quantum mechanics when they are making these claims, and that's a legitimate branch of physics. And they often have lots of mathematics. But that doesn't mean it's science for the simple reason. That no one has ever observed a universe popping into existence.
Likewise, what about the claim that the first single-celled organism evolved from a primordial chemical soup? That's not a scientific claim either. No one's ever seen this happen. No one even knows how it could have happened, even in theory. And you will notice that the evolutionists sort of hand wave on this part.
They will say, well, somehow this happened. And they use, as our colleague Randy Galusa says, here at ICR, they use magical words to kind of make you think they know how it happened when they really don't. Thank you for joining us on Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. That's all the time we have for our program today, but we would love to connect with you through our website at icr.org. For over 45 years, ICR has equipped believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority by showing how science supports the Genesis creation account.
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