Hi ,evryone!
As we all know, in including a supernatural, limitless agent, creationists theories are unscientific, theology in disguise. Aware of that issue, some creationists like Dean Kenyon claim that "creation science" is non-religious and falsifiable if it's just defined as abrupt appearance of complex lifeforms. Do you think that tactic really solves the aformentioned issue of scientificity?

No. Because as usual, creationists have it completely arse about face.

The abrupt appearance of complex life forms, if it had actually happened (which it didn't), doesn't impact upon this in the slightest.

First of all, let's assume, by way of hypothesis, that we had evidence for the sudden, abrupt appearance of complex life forms, namely, that we had physical data telling us reliably that this had happened. That data on its own would be interesting, if it was present, but it would be of relatively little scientific value without an accompanying explanatory mechanism. It might drive the development of an explanation and an accompanying testable mechanism, but until such an explanation and accompanying testable mechanism are developed, and said testable mechanism is established via appropriate test, the data remains largely a curiosity. However, once the explanation, testable mechanism, and empirical validation are in place, then the phenomenon pointed to by the data becomes part of the remit of science by definition.

As a corollary, the abrupt appearance of complex life forms doesn't provide any obstacles to scientific investigation per se, provided one can derive an explanation for this, along with a testable natural process in conformity with the data, and empirical validation of that mechanism. Once those are in place, the abrupt appearance of complex life forms would be every bit as much a scientifically investigated phenomenon as gravity, and that testable natural process would become in turn the foundation for a scientific theory about that phenomenon.

However, the above should be telling you that a lot of work is needed, in order to develop a genuine scientific theory. First, you need rigorously collected and analysed data. Second, you need an explanation that is empirically testable, that is in accord with that data. Third, you need empirical verification of that explanation, by demonstrating that the requisite process is in operation in the present. Creationists haven't even got past the first step with respect to this. All they've done is sit back, let scientists do all the hard work of collecting the data, cherry-picked from said data whatever appears superficially to conform to their presuppositions, and erected apologetic fabrications thereabout. They've ignored all the other data scientists have collected, that destroy their presuppositions.

But of course, abrupt appearance of complex life forms isn't what scientists have observed. Even the transitions that took place in the Cambrian took place over a period of eighteen to twenty-three million years, hardly "abrupt" even by the most egregious apologetic abuse of terminology. None of which, of course, factors in the large number of Pre-Cambrian fossils that scientists have found, pointing to the emergence over time of increasingly more specialised bauplan developments from simpler, antecedent forms. Indeed, I'm aware of the existence of a confirmed multicellular eukaryote fossil, in the form of Bangiomorpha pubescens, dating back fully seven hundred million years before the Cambrian era.

As a consequence, this attempt to conjure "scientific status" for so-called "creation science" by an act of apologetic legerdemain is laughable.

termina wrote:Hi ,evryone!
As we all know, in including a supernatural, limitless agent, creationists theories are unscientific, theology in disguise. Aware of that issue, some creationists like Dean Kenyon claim that "creation science" is non-religious and falsifiable if it's just defined as abrupt appearance of complex lifeforms. Do you think that tactic really solves the aformentioned issue of scientificity?

It's quite simple: how is it falsifiable?

If, for example, you take the argument from, supposedly, obvious design - a limitless creator could effect anything they so desired, so any possible organisation of the universe or life could be interpreted as 'obvious design' with no way to falsify such a contention. Of course, they don't acknowledge that if anything could be taken as design, equally so could nothing.

termina wrote:Hi ,evryone!
As we all know, in including a supernatural, limitless agent, creationists theories are unscientific, theology in disguise. Aware of that issue, some creationists like Dean Kenyon claim that "creation science" is non-religious and falsifiable if it's just defined as abrupt appearance of complex lifeforms. Do you think that tactic really solves the aformentioned issue of scientificity?

Well, Kitzmiller v. Dover kinda put an end to the notion that creation science is science and that by whatever name people like Kenyon and the Discovery Institute want to call it it is religious to the core.

And not only is Kenyon's brand of young earth creationism falsifiable it is falsified before it ever gets started. Falsified by geology, anthropology, archaeology, cosmology, and astronomy just to name the big five.