Kevin Cauley
There may be no two words loaded with more assumptions than “science” and “evolution.” What do these concepts entail? Are they compatible? Two aspects of science relate to how we understand “evolution.”
First, science concerns itself with things that are observable, repeatable, and demonstrable. A scientist may observe a rainbow. He may artificially create a rainbow. He may demonstrate how a rainbow is made through the refraction and diffusion of light. A rainbow is an observable, repeatable, and demonstrable phenomenon.
Second, science is concerned with extending such observations to draw general conclusions about the world through the inductive method. The inductive method entails formulating hypotheses and devising experiments to test these hypotheses. In an open system, hypotheses can only be falsified. In a closed system, hypotheses can be both falsified and verified.
The word “evolution” simply means change, but it entails two concepts that lineup with the two aspects of science discussed above. First, there are those processes of evolution (change) that are observable, repeatable, and demonstrable. Microevolution is a genetic change that does not result in the emergence of an organism genetically incompatible with its state prior to the change. Creationists do not doubt these processes.
Second, there is the hypothesis of evolution (known as macroevolution), which refers to extending observable processes of evolution inductively to historical biology. This hypothesis entails a series of genetic mutations that randomly and chaotically occurs over very long periods of time, resulting in the eventual emergence of all genetically incompatible organisms (i.e., life on earth). Evolutionists want us to think that observable evolution (microevolution) and the hypothesis of evolution (macroevolution) are both the same process; but this is the assumption that evolutionists must demonstrate!
Consider the potential logical fallacy of extending something that is observable, repeatable, and demonstrable beyond the immediate conclusion. The ancient astronomer Ptolemy did exactly this. The phenomenon of the Moon going around the Earth was an observable, repeatable, and demonstrable phenomenon. This phenomenon in the ancient world was confirmed through observation of lunar and solar eclipses. However, the same concept was then extended to the Sun, the planets, and all of the stars as well. Ptolemy then drew the unwarranted conclusion of geocentrism (i.e., the idea that the Earth is the center of the solar system).
This is the same fallacy evolutionists make. They observe, repeat, and demonstrate small changes in the genetic code, and then conclude that these small changes are responsible for the “creation” of all life from a single organism. Such may be a hypothesis, but it does not fall within our first category of science. Such changes are not observable, repeatable, and demonstrable precisely because such changes are said to be historical. Unless scientists have invented a time machine, they still cannot observe, repeat, and demonstrate history.
Moreover, the evolutionary hypothesis rests upon an invalid logical premise as well. As noted, science concerns itself with the inductive method. In an open system, conclusions using the inductive method can be falsified, but they cannot be verified. Historical genetic changes are part of an open system. The best scientists can do in such a system is to conclude that nothing has falsified the hypothesis. The bottom line, though, is that the hypothesis is still a hypothesis, and a hypothesis is not the same thing as an inductively verified fact. It is an invalid conclusion to state that the evolutionary hypothesis is a verified fact from an open inductive system.
What is disturbing about macroevolution, however, is that evolutionists permit no historical information to falsify their theory. But if no falsification is allowed, that places the conclusion of the evolutionary hypothesis outside of the inductive method. And if those conclusions are outside of the inductive method, they are outside of the realm of science.
Any way you look at it, the evolutionary hypothesis is not scientific. It is not observable, repeatable, or demonstrable. Nor is it a verified conclusion from the inductive method. Moreover, historical evidence can be brought forth that falsifies the hypothesis of evolution, but such is beyond the scope of this article. Other historical evidence that claims to prove evolution to be true has also been falsified. If you would like to see some of that evidence, please visit http://www.apologeticspress.org.
Kevin Cauley is a graduate and instructor at the Southwest School of Bible Studies. He is also a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (B.A.) and a Master’s candidate at St. Edward’s University. You may contact him at k.cauley@swsbs.edu.