thinkevolution.net

In the conflict between evolution and creationism, the weapons of each side are impotent in the hands of the other. The discipline of evolutionary biology uses the scientific method to observe, hypothesize about and test aspects of the natural world. Creationism, the literal translation of Scripture, requires faith. Creationists won’t find legitimate evidence of a young earth because adherence to the scientific method has only yielded data showing that our planet was formed billions of years ago. And likewise, scientists can’t “test for God” because science is unable to explore the supernatural.

Consequently, the whole “peer-reviewed journal” thing has always been a big sticking point in the evolution/creationism conflict. Scientific journals are reputable because the results published therein are reviewed (and often rejected, trust me!) by independent experts. The whole system sounds credible and reliable because for the most part, it is. It’s pretty much the reason why rational-minded folks accept and understand evolution.

Anti-evolution advocates try to fight science with science, but it doesn’t really work. Only pseudoscience, faulty science or scientific-sounding rhetoric has been presented as evidence for a young earth or an intelligent designer. But Answers in Genesis, the organization behind the Creation Museum, has added “peer-reviewed journal” to the creationist arsenal. Their Answers Research Journal “is a professional, peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework.” Three articles have been published so far. After the jump I discuss the wacky “science” employed in an article that investigates on which day the microbes were created.

Volume 1 of ARJ includes “Microbes and the Days of Creation” by Alan L. Gillen.

Where do microbes fit into the creation account? Were they created along with the rest of the plants and animals in the first week of creation, or were they created later, after the Fall? These are some questions that creation microbiologists have been asking in recent years.

The difficulty with fitting the appearance of microbes—a classification which has no taxonomic identity and which includes species from every kingdom of life—onto the six-day paradigm using the scientific process of observation and inference is that the six-day paradigm has no scientific basis whatsoever. According to Gillem, earlier considerations had placed microbes on day three, with the creation of plants and seed-bearing organisms (see Table 1 from the article, right). But microbes aren’t seeds, really, and Gillem correctly acknowledges that many microorganisms have known ecological roles interacting with other, macroscopic, organisms. Such examples include zooxanthellae algae in corals and Trichonympha protists in the guts of termites. Consequently, Gillem concludes (via an unlikely mix of biblical syntax and biology textbook factoids) that different microbes were created on different days, according to their associations with macroorganisms. The zooxanthellae arrived with coral and other sea creatures on day five, for example, and Trichonympha on day six with the creeping things/land animals known as termites.

My verdict on this article? It’s not science, of course, which tests hypotheses with controlled observations or experimental data. Therefore it’s no use to creationists looking for a good retort to the latest evolutionary discovery in Nature. But even as a rote exercise in matching up the Old Testament with Bio 101, it’s pretty superficial. In addition to the zooxanthellae and Trichonympha, Gillem handily dispatches nitrogen-fixing bacteria (day three, with peanut plants) and glowing Photobacterium (day five, with flashlight fish). But what about yeasts that raise bread and bacteria that ferment wine? What about pathogenic bacteria that cause plagues? What about miniature free-living organisms like diatoms, amoebas and the archaea that live in steaming hot thermal vents? Gillem has overlooked multitudes of tiny creatures in an attempt to justify the work of the Creator in scientific terms. It simply can’t be done!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 1:15 pm and is filed under ID / creationism, Pseudoscience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.