oh wait, you’re serious?

Isn't a graduate degree in science supposed to be in, you know, actual science?





When I first read about the Institute for Creation Research trying to award a Master of Science degree in creationism, my jaw found itself very comfortable in my lap. Texas’ Higher Education Coordinating Board swiftly told the ICR to forget it and the ICR cried to the media about how its academic freedom is getting stomped on by evil politicos who won’t let them issue a degree in theology and pretend that it’s science. My jaw returned to its upright and locked position, but I was still curious how exactly the ICR could even claim that it taught anything about science or the scientific method.

You see, if you get a degree in science, you have to be well versed in the scientific method. This means you should be able to form a hypothesis, observe and experiment to test it and find out whether your hypothesis is true or false. Simple enough. But the ICR teaches the very opposite; that there already is an answer and that by virtue of something existing and the personal views of our ancestors, it must be a deity. There is no hypothesis, no experimentation and, above all, there’s no research. Ironically, an organization with the word research in its name doesn’t even do any actual research about anything other than how to proselytize. And now they want to get the same certification as people who actually do real scientific work? What a sick joke!

If you really want to have a facepalm moment, try to read their evidence for why God exists. It’s nothing but short, talking point essays reflecting the authors’ personal opinions on culture and their admiration for how beautiful our planet is along with the predictable creationist strawman of infinite reduction, i.e. something can’t come from nothing. Where’s the evidence? Where are notebooks with detailed charts of human DNA signed by God? Where are videos of miracles or demonstrations of prayers coming true before our very eyes? All we get are clichd essays and pretty pictures from Getty and Corbis libraries. Even worse, the ICR essay which tries to assert that “God caused love,” says the emotion can’t be proven “like gravity or aerodynamics.” If you haven’t randomly floated off into space, you’ve proven gravity. If you’ve ever flown on an aircraft, you’ve proven aerodynamics. And after such a public demonstration of ignorance, the ICR expects to be given the right to award science degrees?

Creationism neatly packaged all the questions and problems it can’t answer into a black box it labeled God and then pretends as if it has a solution. But it really doesn’t have anything besides its black box. Scientists don’t claim that everything came from nothing. They think that there’s a very long process where everything changed forms and the universe as we know it still needs to be studied to find out exactly what happened. Creationism has created its own Quixotic quest in its desperation to find some sort of justification for its beliefs but in doing so, they’ve turned to an idea which requires an eternal, all knowing, all powerful and incredibly intelligent being and if a scientist or a curious bystander ask how can this God come from nothing, creationists are at a loss. They have no idea. They just wanted to believe they’re special and were designed by divine manifestations for a greater purpose than they can imagine. And now, it seems that a group of them wants permission to present their security-blanket view of the universe as a science.