State and Defend Ruse’s Argument That Creation Science Is Not Science

Michael Ruse is a Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and in reference to this essay the analyzation of the creation science vs. evolution controversy. In this essay, I will focus my attention on summarizing and supporting Michael Ruse’s argument on why he believes creation science is not a true science. As a background to this dispute, Michael Ruse was a witness for the American Civil Liberties Union in its case against a Arkansas legislation act titled “Arkansas Act 590”.

This act established and regulated equal time for evolution and creation science curriculum within public schools. Ruse was asked to testified as a philosopher and he was tasked with arguing that creation science is not a scientific discipline. As evidence, Ruse implemented five core concepts as to why he believes creation science should not be considered a true science. The five categories were centered around natural law, scientific predictions, theory testability, tentativeness, and scientific integrity in reference to researchers.

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Ruse ultimately believes that creation science fails to meet any of these requirements.

In order to properly understand the debate, one must understand what the two sides believe in. Creation science is ultimately rooted in the religions understanding of the earth and all aspects that exist within it. The core argument is based off of the beliefs written in the Bible. However, the central argument is that God created everything including matter, life, and even humankind in six days. On the other hand we have evolution theorists who believe that elution is the change over time in the characteristics of a species.

It primarily finds its core arguments and reasoning for life through the process of natural selection, natural law, and nature.

Michael Ruse believe that creation science solely bases its ideas though the perceived truths that are found in the Bible, instead of nature. In order to back his claims up, Ruse has created a requirements that scientific theories must fulfill. The first concept that Michael Ruse believes in is that all sciences should function in a way that is in accordance with natural law. Natural law is thus rooted in nature, objectivity and common understandings among humans. In layman's terms, all the phenomenons in our world that we perceive must be rooted in nature or formally accepted within nature. Additionally, the actual meaning of these occurrences and their behaviors must be explained through the visible characteristics that we can see within our world. Ruse ultimately references that in order for a science to be deemed valid, it must be able fulfill and abide by natural laws. Creation science ultimately fails to do this because it does not address natural history and furthermore, it is not capable of being tested. Ruse believes that supernatural phenomenons like God’s actions cannot be deemed as scientific.

The next criteria that Ruse references for scientific theories is that they must be testable. In the simplest of terms, a theory must be capable of passing real-world tests and pass or fail them. Hypothesis’ within these theories should give researchers the ability to verify their validity by correlating it to everyday commonalities that we can witness within our world. Furthermore, Ruse believes that science should naturally convey both historical and contemporary explanations for why things occur in our world. These characteristics are ultimately not met by creation science and that is where Ruse believes it fails. Creation science does not implement the examination of theories, but instead it aims to invalidate the process of evolution. Ruse ultimately sees the consistent action of “debunking” as a misinterpretation and an invalid scientific method.

The third criteria is rooted in a general sense of integrity and academic honesty within the science community in regards to their theories and or actions. Ruse believes that all scientists must be able to execute their research in an unbiased manner. Furthermore when researching categories that are subjective, one must remain objective. Additionally, Ruse acknowledges that differing opinions may arise, however he believes that a true scientists must take into account the other side and show respect for their arguments. For Ruse, creation science does not appropriately follow this description due to the fact that they manipulate and misrepresent the evolutionary theories and instead focus their time on trying to “debunk” instead of execute proper scientific reasonings. Ruse believes that creation scientists do this in order to fortify their arguments due to the fact that they are generally seen to be lacking any valid evidence.

The fourth rule that Ruse uses is the fact that a true science must be capable of making predictions. This requirement references and correlates to his previous rule regarding the use of natural law and how these predictions should be rooted in historical or contemporary evidence. Ruse believes that predictions are capable of ruling out random anomalies. Ruse connects this rule to creation science’s lack of ability to use predictions as well as any reference to phenomenons occurring within nature. Furthermore, there are no laws within creation science that allow us to explain anything that happens within nature, nor are there laws that prove a connection to the origins of life on earth.

Lastly, Ruse states that scientific theories must be “tentative”. What I believe Ruse means by this is that theories must be capable of being proven false, confirmed within our natural world, and continually tested. If a theory is not capable of any of these, then it is not considered to be not scientific. Scientists ultimately realize that no matter what they think, their theories are always capable of being proven false. However, creation science does not have any false possibilities. What is written in the bible is what is valid and deemed to be true. Followers of creation science must accept that the truth lies within the bible and nothing may be contested. This is ultiemly seen a unscientific due to the fact that it is one sided and there is no room for challenge.

In conclusion, Michael Ruse’s argument is valid due to the evidence he provides for why creation science is not a true science. Ruse effectively implements his five principle ideas regarding what he believes to be required for scientific theories with a core correlation to nature, natural law, and testability. What is crucial to gain out of his five principles is that scientific theories must abide in some way to natural law, they must be able to allow researchers to implement predictions, it must be testable in real life, and the individuals executing the research must be unbiased and possess a certain amount of integrity. For Ruse, a valid scientific theory is one that can be used to convey why things occur within our world by analyzing its location in regards to the natural order of the earth. In sum, Ruse ultimately believes that creation science fails to meet any of these aforementioned requirements.

Works Cited

1. M. Ruse, “Creation Science is not science”, Science, Technology and Human Values 7 (1982) pp.72-78
2. “Michael Ruse.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rus