Can Science Definitively Reject Special Creation?

Actually Science does not have to explain everything… and there is no guarantee that it will be able to. You seem to not acknowledge this fact.

It’s a matter of epistemology. In this case, whether natural explanations exist for everything. You are actually taking a philosophical stand here.

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I never said it does. I’m getting tired of you putting words in my mouth. Please stop it.

Where did I put words in your mouth? I made a point… and you only picked half of the sentence.

I don’t see any reason for you to get irritated here.

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It seem fairly obvious that science can reject many models of special creation. It cannot, however, reject all classes of special creation. If such a model is well motivated from theology, and incidentally produces a pattern matching common descent, it could be plausible.

That is why I say that science tells us definitively that it certainly appears as if common descent is true.

From a theological point of view, there is not a good argument against it. The best arguments focus on the historical Adam, and assume this is incompatible with evolution. We have shown, however, that this assumption is not warranted. If we can reconcile the common descent of man with Genesis 2, I see not plausible theological objection to the rest of common descent.

To the point, I know of good theologically coherent system in which we could accept the common descent of man, but then simultaneously reject the common descent of all animals. So, having solved the hard problem of a literal Adam and evolution, I’m not sure a valid theological case can be marshaled to insist on rejecting common descent.

I think the only reason common descent comes up is because it can be transmuted to universal common descent, where the data is the weakest. This is really just a smoke screen. The central theological challenge is really Adam, and the Genealogical Adam solves this problem directly.

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I should also add that common descent is not argument against occasional special creation.

For example, it has been suggested that the whale of Jonah was a unique specially created beast for an otherwise impossible task of swallowing and sustaining him for 3 days. I’m not sure this is required by Scripture, but I am sure there is no scientific evidence against this.

So science cannot definitively reject special creation, but theology cannot make the case anywhere except perhaps with Adam.

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13 posts were split to a new topic: Engaging Questions on the Genealogical Adam

@Ashwin_s

Using your logic…there should be dozens of mixed-phenotype and mixed biochemistry species out there (emulating the platypus!)…

… with eyes of a squid, wings of a bat and so on!

I dont know how you arrived at that conclusion. can you describe how you came to that conclusion?

Exactly! That’s because absolutely anything is possible in a special creation because a creator can do whatever he wants.

That’s why science can’t test for special creation. And if it can’t be tested, it isn’t science.

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That’s the point. Since cannot address all possibilities in the history of organisms… what it presents is the best “natural explanation”. There is no reason to assume only natural explanations are allowed to explain the bio diversity in nature. Hence there might be n number of scenarios involving Gods action such as special creation which could explain the data as well as common descent…

Science cannot be used to reject scenarios like Special creation. And such views cannot be seen as anti science unless someone believes the only legitimate explanation of Natural history is the one provided through Science.

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Correct. If one leaves science and approaches the topic as a philosopher or theologian, everything is game. Philosophy is not restricted to the boundaries of science. (That takes us back to the evolution of natural philosophy, a subfield of philosophy, which gradually over the centuries became what we consider modern science.)

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Actually there is no reason to assume natural explanations even in science… natural explanations are an assumption connected to methodology… :slight_smile:

Science is natural philosophy, it can only test the physical world. Can it test miracles? Maybe, if such a miracle happened in a physical world. Special creation is not one such thing.

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What do you mean by a miracle that happened in the physical world?

Hypothetically speaking? A guy gets his leg amputated and it miraculously regrows. Scientist can test how it regrew. They won’t get a naturalistic explanation, but they can test it.

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They can? Thats interesting… how do they find out how it regrew?

I said they can test it, not find out how it regrew.

Unless a human evolves regenerative abilities of course.

What kind of testing would prove it was a miracle? Does it have to happen when the testing is done or can tests be done post the event?

what about eye witness accounts and past medical history?

No idea.

Does what have to happen?

Well, if there are no eye witnesses or medical history how the hell are they supposed to know whether his legs was really amputated?

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the “regrowth” of the leg.

I was just curious whether acceptance of such miracles were conjecture on your part.
May take is that individual scientists may be convinced (provided they have documented evidence such as medical history)…
while any such claim would be ignored by the vast majority of Scientists.