HOW DO BELIEFS IMPACT INTERPRETATION OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE
QUORA - How does the Belief in Creationism Impact how one Interprets Scientific Evidence?
All evidence is common regardless of the belief system you hold to. The question could just as easily be (but seldom is), how does the belief in atheism impact how one interprets scientific evidence? Evolutionists love to pretend they are the truly unbiased ones. Yet I have heard endless illogical arguments that commit fallacies one should have learned to avoid in Logic 101. Reification, Equivocation, Begging the Question, and the Question-Begging Epithet fallacies are some of those.
For example, how many times have you heard “The Evidence says that evolution is true!” - Reification fallacy, Evidence, Science, or any other non-human entity cannot talk or make value judgments. One constantly hears “Creationists are wrong because we see evolution happening all the time. Organisms are constantly changing and adapting to their environment.” Creationists do not deny organisms change, but they do deny we all have a common ancestor. The equivocation fallacy is in full swing - the entire meaning is changed to total misrepresentation of the issues to cover the fact there is zero proof we have a common ancestor. How about the argument that “The Bible cannot be true because it teaches that the earth is only thousands of years old, whereas, we know the earth is billions of years old. That is Begging the Question - the accuser is assuming naturalism, and uniformitarianism and that everything is as it always was. St. Peter actually pointed out this fallacy in his writing almost 2,000 years ago. Finally, we have the Question-Begging Epithet. How many times have you heard evolutionist adherents say, “ To be a Creationist, you would have to ignore tons of scientific evidence!” Emotional language to be sure, not logic.
I believe the Holy Scriptures, as eyewitness testimony supplants the notions of fallible men. I also believe that things are not as they always were – because God said so, and everything from the breakup of the Pangean continent to a careful study of geology and fossils substantiates that. The argument that the age of matter and life is much older rests on unproven assumptions intrinsic to the dating methods, and the R.A.T.E. project exposed that many err by many orders of magnitude. Physical and cultural evidence for the worldwide flood are at the heart of the different core assumptions which have global impact on the resulting interpretations. We would be much more unified if the real issues were honestly discussed by all parties.
Moses sat with the Creator in the tent of meeting so if anyone had doubts about any part of the Bible, the Pentateuch for sure should not be among them. The simple fact is that evolutionary ideas extrapolated to the origins of man and the universe is atheistic to the core, and many logical arguments cast great doubt on that aspect of the theory. Evolutionists largely circumvent the major problems with that portion of their theory and instead censor, attack, and seek to marginalize all who question any portion of their dogma. That is not science. Science means “Knowledge”. The matter of one idea of origins does not cross that threshold.