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Creation As Science: A Testable Model Approach to End the Creation/evolution Wars

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Reasons To Believe's third in a series of books proposing a testable creation model takes on the origin and design of the universe. Creation As Science develops a biblical creation model and compares the predictions of this model to naturalistic, young earth creationism, and theistic evolutionary models. This biblical creation model is divided into four main areas, the origin of the universe, the origin of the Solar System, the history of life on earth, and the origin and history of mankind.

Cosmological implications of the biblical model include extra dimensions, cosmic expansion, size of the universe, the anthropic principle, constancy of the laws of the universe, and humanity's specific viewing platform. The characteristics of the earth are compared to those of known extrasolar planets, showing that the earth is rare, if not unique among the planets.

Other chapters examine life's origin in terms of the naturalistic processes that would be required. The naturalistic model is shown to be lacking in that life appears early and is complex. Subsequently, new species are introduced at the right time to transform the earth into a planet suitable for advanced life forms. The origin of humanity is examined in detail to complete the biblical model of creation.

Naturalists primary complaint about intelligent design is that it offers no model and makes no predictions. The strength of Creation As Science lies in its challenge to naturalistic models of origins through specific predictive claims. Chapter 11 examines specific predictions of the four models examined. Along with Appendix F, 22 cosmological and planetary sciences predictions are given for each model. Fifty-two predictive tests are listed for the origin and history of life on earth. In addition, 15 specific theological and philosophical predictions are made for each model. The success or failure of these predictions will determine the value of this approach in future years.

The book seems to be titled to attract Christians, but I hope that secular readers will not be dissuaded by the close opposition of "Creation" and "Science" to dismiss it outright as just another deceptive creation science book. The science is generally quite good, other than a few errors (Figure 7.4: "Oxygenation history of earth's atmosphere" seems to attribute oxygenation of the atmosphere earlier than most published studies, and the claim that when carbon dioxide falls below about 225 parts per million, all photosynthetic life dies is false, since the earth goes through such periods on a regular basis), and missing citations for some key data. Hopefully this book will begin a dialog among the various groups to sort out what each model predicts and which reflects the science better.

This work by Dr Hugh Ross goes far in order to first establish what a scientific principle is, and later to use this definition in order to argue his case.

Contrary to other reviewers, there is nothing that can be found in the way of pseudoscience in this work. All of the facts are presented objectively, and are quite scientific (take for example the WMAP of the background cosmic radiation, or the series of events that lead to the formation of the moon and atmosphere. If there is indeed pseudoscience, how come nobody pointed out where he made an incorrect or spurious scientific claim?). One of the points made in the book is that a vast array of factors had to be done with precision far beyond that which is within the bounds of human ability (and most certainly beyond any reasonable probability of being carried out by random accident), and therefore would imply a creative intelligence.

All of these arguments are also used within a movement called the Intelligent Design theory. The problem with Intelligent Design is that it does not identify any creator or causal agent: this is one of the reasons that it did not hold up in court recently, and perhaps one of the main reasons why, upon its rejection from the court, people consider it to be pseudoscience. In fact, many court cases dealing with evolution and creation can be found within the book!

Dr Ross attempts to formulate his model on the assumption that the creator is identified as the God of the Bible, and then use predictions based on this and an interpretation of the Bible to predict results of as yet unresolved scientific dilemmas. For those who claim that this book contains pseudoscience, refer to the appendix within the book which actually lists a large number of as yet unresolved issues in science, and see for yourself whether the outcome favors the theory of Dr Ross or of other, competing theories.

There have been reviews claiming that and religious claim must fall out of science, and that the two should be separate in their scope, otherwise the necessary addition of faith is needed within the scientific enterprise, which is contrary to the purpose of science. It is, however, not difficult to see why this view is completely wrong, simply because it requires that faith in this assumption be placed, and according to the above, any faith is contrary to the functioning of the scientific enterprise. In fact, it says within the book that theories and their underlying assumptions are to be tested objectively, and it is precisely this objective testing (without choosing any favorites, just putting the theories to the table and seeing which set of assumptions best explains the results) of assumptions that makes science work.

I personally found this book to be very enjoyable, it is well written and has a convincing argument for those willing to listen. It contains hundreds of references to scientific sources such as journals, papers, and books by renowned scientists: even if you disagree with its message, any careful reading and thorough investigation of the facts will show that no claim in this book is made without careful and purposeful consideration, and it certainly does not contain even a hint of pseudoscience.

"Creation as Science" actually contains, in a 25-page side-by-side table, four models of creation: the Reasons to Believe (RTB) Model, Naturalism, Young-Earth Creationism and Theistic Evolution, with a total of 89 predictive tests for each model.

In addition to the models, the 225 pages of preceding text contain a lot of worthwhile material, including a list of ten parallels between the "evolution" of the universe and Scripture (p. 75) and an extensive description of the careful, many-faceted preparations God orchestrated over a period of 13.7 billion years to prepare planet Earth for us humans.

While he may or may not have gotten everything right, Hugh Ross seems to have made a good first pass that should stir up much discussion and, hopefully, progress.

Hugh Ross has pioneered a brand new, innovative, step forward in Christian apologetics that actually dares to take the science seriously. So much of the science apologetics out there lacks credibility in that it totally disregards the scientific data in favour of a certain interpretation of Genesis. The great thing about Dr Ross' book is that he works to incorporate more than just Genesis 1 into his creation model but actually takes a more systematic and hence wholly Biblical approach.

The remarkable thing was that Dr Ross, working with the help of his scholar team no doubt, was able to cover many different fields of scientific research and display the wonderful concordance between the scientific details and the Biblical model. To appreciate the integration of science and faith adds far more dimensions to your spiritual walk with God and actually puts your faith on to the factual and objective level and out of the private and subjective.

Dr Ross' commitment (and willingness to put his own credibility on the line) to the truth is evident from his working out of a model that can be tested on the basis of scientific research. Given that God is the author of nature as well as the Bible, we would expect that the latest scientific knowledge to come down the pipe would confirm the Biblical model with the most credibility. Over the years I have followed Dr Ross' ministry (Reasons To Believe) and noted how the young earth creationist rival position has had to retreat further and further away from mainstream science in order to protect its own model from critique and testing. By contrast the RTB model is receiving confirmation right from the scientific journals themselves!

All in all this is a great book that will show the magnificent harmony between the record of nature and the words of the Bible and fill you with awe at the Creator of heaven and earth.

While the four major "camps" around the evolutionary/creationism "debate" tend to avoid direct challenge(s) to their belief systems, Dr. Hugh Ross has put his (and his organization's, Reasons to Believe) belief system on the chopping block for all to see, challenge, and discuss. It is hoped that the other camps will do likewise.

This is not the first time that Dr. Ross has attempted to enter into reasonable discussions with the other camps, but it is the best attempt to date. The approach of offering a testable model will hopefully encourage the kind of meaningful discussion that Dr. Ross wants to foster.

It must be acknowledged that this will not be a discussion that many in the "young-universe creationist" camp will enter into willingly. There is so much emotion and religious history tied up in those of the "young universe" camp that it will be a difficult thing to offer to discuss competing ideas.

It will probably actually be easier for naturalists and theistic evolutionists to enter into discussion, than it will be for the young-universe creationists. There has been huge opposition to Dr. Ross from the young-universe groups, but scientists of the naturalist and theistic evolutionist persuasions often congratulate Dr. Ross on his humble and scientific approach, when they actually hear the arguments.

And yet it is hoped that this book will be the beginning of rational, courteous, and intelligent dialogue with all people. Congratulations on a very good book, Dr. Ross!

The book is written well, the grammar is impeccable, the content is extremely informative, the notes are comprehensive, and the tone is conciliatory. Great book!

Hugh Ross, the "Christian Carl Sagan" has been on the forefront of intelligent design for years. Long before the current movement, he was writing about the massive amounts of evidence for fine-tuning in astronomy. Current design promoters often don't give Ross his due because he dares connect ID to God. But now, he has done what they have negelected to do, turn ID into a testable scientific model. This book continues the ground-breaking work found in his previous books, The Creator and the Cosmos, Origins of Life and Who was Adam?

Creation as Science does a remarkable job in reviewing the sides in the debate, but it's not about directly critiquing evolution. It's about showing how empircal science has shown that design is scientific and true (but then if it's true, then evolution is false). Ross makes a good point that most evolution/creation court cases threw out creation/design because of the lack of science, not because of religion. While ID has spent a great deal of effort showoing how design is detectable and logical, it has spent amazingly little on how the empircal science supports design. Would the Dover trial have been different if they would have focused more on hard science instead of theory? Ross' testable design model marks a new stage in the design revolution.

This is an important book; It changes the context of the debate regarding evolution and creation. Those who believe in God of the Bible as author of creation, need never feel defensive or uncertain again. Those who cling to an evolution world view may see their position atrophy as years pass. For you boomers, who have carried this conflict in your head since grade school, you may rest easy, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Plunged into darkness for nearly 150 years since Darwin's Origin of Species, science may see a rebirth of honest inquiry and truth seeking now that Dr. Ross has framed the conflict between evolution and creation world views. Dr. Ross simplifies for the reader the complex discoveries of recent years, describes how each of them fit within the Reasons to Believe creation model and rationally challenges others to explain the increasing conflicts of science with other world views (Naturalistic evolution, Young earth creationism and Theistic evolution). Dr. Ross repeats Saint Paul's responsible challenge to all to "test everything and hold on to the good" (1 Th 5:21). I especially liked his explanations on how "fine tuned" the universe is to allow for human life and the chapter on the Why of creation; why are there seemingly bad things like carnivores, parasites, and destructive "acts of God"?

The science discussed in this book is not pseudoscience as one other reviewer here has mentioned. And this book is a very scholarly exposition of the science it covers. Unfortunately, the claim it makes is that this scientific evidence is a direct test of naturalistic theory, and that the evidence does not support the theory is completely specious.

What the author is doing here, is first, applying interpretations and meanings to scientific results outside the scope and the implications of those results. In other words, he's trying to use the criteria to evaluate apples to make judgments about oranges. This also happens in the sciences and in academia all the time, people get notoriety because they come up with a powerful explanation for some natural phenomena, some kind of human behavior, etc. and then make a career out of trying to extend it to other things and make claims that aren't warranted because of substantive differences in the nature of the topics involved. As a good example, just look at any of the recent work by Noam Chomsky or George Lakoff.

The other thing this book does is exploit the indeterminacy of scientific explanation. It is a common misconception that experimental results provide "proof" of the theories that generated that research. The author here is making that assumption, and it shows how poorly informed even such an intelligent and erudite person as the author can be about what science is and how it works.

As part of preying on that indeterminacy, this book makes the further mistake of assuming a Popperian view of the scientific process, the idea that research results are supposed to be tests of the validity of a theory. Lots of anthropological study and work by philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn and Bruno LaTour have shown the Popperian view of science is not how science is actually conducted or explains the results of research.

A theory cannot be proven or disproven, rather, a theory is a collection of assumptions, definitions, and empirical evidence that together provide support for a larger explanation of 'why', not of 'how'. The individual elements of a theory show 'how' things happen, but the explanation for 'why' they happen is one that requires an inductive leap that cannot be encapsulated in the if-then method of empirical scientific observation and research. In other words, no question of 'why' can ever be answered scientifically because science asks and answers questions only of 'how', not of 'why'.

Given that indeterminacy, that scientific evidence never 'proves' anything, the author uses that fact to offer an alternative 'why' meaning of the scientific findings that are discussed in this book. The most telling problem with this book is that it does not even once, offer any scientific results supporting creationism, let alone offer any hypothesis based on creationist explanations that could be tested with a scientific experiment. This is because creationism focuses on questions of 'why' and not 'how'. Creationists specifically avoid questions of 'how' because predictions based on creationism have all been shown to be invalid. Rather, what this book does is take the scientific evidence it discusses and attempts to show that evidence is invalid by applying it to topics it was not meant to explain, and by evaluating it from the perspective of 'why' explanations rather than 'how' explanations.

Overall, a great effort at preying on the general public's lack of knowledge about the rarified world of scientific research and the results it provides. It is a masterful work of deception that preys upon the inherent limitations of scientific explanation to try and say that science itself should be considered suspect. I'm just surprised the author didn't say we should abandon science altogether. That would be too much to put over even on creationism adherents however, because even they like the technology, medicine, computers, hot water, electricity, etc. that science has given us. I don't think they, any more than any one else, want to go back to the 14th century of sewage in the streets, witch burnings, exorcism for illness, etc. that was common in human society before Francis Bacon first proposed the scientific method in Novum Organum.

Is it possible to finally end the war between creationists and evolutionists? Hugh Ross, acclaimed apologetic speaker and founder of Reasons to Believe, brings his scholarly wisdom and biblical insights to this issue. Through careful research, a testable model has been developed that seeks to reconcile the goals of the scientific and the Christian community. These pages take a thorough look at this model, while detailing its foundation and future application.

The information in the book is exhaustive, yet comprehensible. A logical progression of ideas is presented, beginning with the strategies and principles behind both perspectives of the earth's origin. From that point, methods of discussing the validity of these ideas are explored. The rest of the book deals with the model developed by Reasons to Believe, and how it relates to the latest scientific discoveries. The testable features that this model offers, along with its benefits and possible shortcomings, are honestly addressed.

The focused and intense look at this vital issue brings new thoughts as well as hope to a heated debate. The scholarly insights are conveyed to the reader with precise writing and are corroborated by scientific research and biblical study. The finer points of this controversy are examined with purpose, highlighting the need for enthusiastic support of both scientific and theological enterprises.

The diligent reader will be rewarded with a wealth of ideas, as well as a better understanding of this issue. The author has taken great care in presenting this information in an understandable format. Key points are clearly explained, while the addition of graphs, photos, and charts visually enhance the text.

Creation as Science dovetails the facts of science with the authority of the Bible in a realistic step toward a peaceful coexistence. - Joyce Handzo, Christian Book [...]

I meet with a group of friends weekly to do Bible study. The group is made up of professionals, mostly engineers, with a strong interest in science and religion. The members are mostly evangelicals and mainstream protestant, with me as the token Mormon. The group has also had atheists, Catholics, and Jews attend from time to time. It's been a very interesting group to meet with and it's great to hear the different perspectives on things. We decided to take a look at this book due to a recommendation from one of the team members.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and the author's writing was very clear and easy to understand. I agree that the evolution/creationism debate needs to be tempered on both sides and I though his idea of presenting a testable model worth a try. Ross does a very good job presenting a strong case that everything that needed to happen to create a habitable earth and life by sheer chance is astronomical. He's clearly done his research and brought up many things that I hadn't thought of that support his thesis.

From a Mormon perspective there are two major areas of disagreement with his models. This first is his (and most Christians) assumption of creation ex nihilo (creation from nothing); Mormons believe in creation ex materia (creation by organizing existing materials). The second major area is the assumption that the Earth is the only world that God has created with the purpose of populating with man. Mormons believe that God has created and populated unlimited numbers of worlds. Many of Ross' predictive tests in the simple sciences lean heavily toward the assumption that the universe has a fixed age (an absolute beginning) and that the Earth is unique in being the only habitable planet. I would expect new data to show that the elements have always existed in one form or another and also to show that many other solar systems show the potential to support life.

The last thing I want to bring up is my opinion that the Bible is meant to provide a testimony of Jesus Christ and His plan of salvation, and is not meant to be a textbook on astrophysics or biology. The main point the Bible makes is that Christ is the creator, but does not explain sufficiently how he did that. I'm OK with science trying to figure that out. I appreciated Ross' last chapter where he discussed the problem of science and religion trying to be mutually exclusive. They don't need to be. Science can figure out how things happen, but not why they happen; that is the job of religion and philosophy.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in science and religion. It was a fun, thought provoking exercise to read.