Lublin
Poland
March 2009
EU Socrates-Erasmus European Community
Intensive Program
Bioethics of Life Sciences
And
Environmental Sciences
Neo-creationism
-
A Scientific Obscurantism ?
Oana-Janina
Iacobescu
Alexia Didou
Quentin Pascal
Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire
Nantes - France
Universitatea de Stiinte Agricole si Medicina Veterinara
a Banatului Timisoara – Romania
1
NEO – CREATIONISM
A Scientific Obscurantism ?
Abstract …................................................................................................3
I. Introduction...........................................................................................3
II. Basics of Neo-creationism....................................................................4
2.1. The bases of the born idea of Neo-creationism.........................................................4
2.2. Seducing alternative to related theories...................................................................4
- Creationism
- Evolutionism
- Neo-darwinism
2.3. The motivations of the emerging idea of Neo-creationism......................................5
III. Neo-creationism between science and obscurantism......................6
3.1. Explaining the terms of Neocreationism...................................................................6
3.2. Neo-creationism as a scientific hypothesis................................................................7
3.3. Analytical approach of the true value of this theory................................................8
- Truth theories
- Notable philosophers' views
3.4. Symbolism of the theory..............................................................................................16
IV. Followings of the Neo-creationism.....................................................18
4.1. Positive and negative acknowledgment in public opinion.......................................18
4.2. Scientific and cultural polemics on the topic of Neo-creationism............................18
- Theologically
- Politically
- Public education
- Mass-media
4.3. Ethical consideration about Neo-creationism of international observers..............20
−American
−European
Conclusion.................................................................................................................21
Bibliography..............................................................................................................22
2
Abstract
Since Creationism was forbidden for teaching in the United States of America in the
eighties, a new movement appeared and was introduced as a science by eminent scientists : Neocreationism. This movement lauds the Creation of Humanity by an Entity claiming there are proofs
of this theory and banishing the theory of Evolution. However, as any new hypothesis, this one must
satisfy some requirements to be qualified of scientific and all the more to be accepted by the
scientific community and the public opinion. Implementing some principles such as Karl Popper's
principle of falsifiability, we will explain why this Neo-creationist theory is not a scientific theory.
After having seen the value of this theory, we tried to show the implications of that theory on our
society, the polemics raised by it and the different points of view in the world, but especially in
Europe and the United States of America.
I. Introduction
The Nietzsche's announcement of the Death of God seems a little bit too early considering
the events which highlight the revival of interest about the creationist theories. In particular, we can
think about the trial which took place in Dover in 2005 where the Kansas Council voted for the
learning of other theories than the Evolutionist one during classes. This suggestion was judged
against the Constitution of the USA in this case.
The society in which we are living and that we build day after day is totally based on
Science and Technology. Yet, after an important decline of the Sacred turning to the Scientism from
the seventies to the nineties, we noticed a significant renewal of Spirituality for the next century.
The Creationism and today the Neo-creationism are ways of thinking using arguments as scientific
theories tending to prove that the Creation of the World is only possible thanks to God's
intervention. Science and Religion don't answer, a priori, to the same question : When the Science
is looking for “how” the Religion is looking for “why”. Therefore, is it not a mystification to rationa
lize God ? Indeed, philosophers have always tried to keep Science and Religion clearly separated
since the Enlightments. We can think about Voltaire and his motto : “Ecrasons l'Infâme” (Struggle
againt the Obscurantism). Our point is not to prove that Science is more important than religion, it
is more to show that these two entities answer to two different human needs.
Sometimes, scientists find that the same evidence can be explained in more than one way.
When there are competing theories, reasonable people can (and do) disagree about which theory
best explains the evidence. In the historical sciences, neither side can directly verify its claims about
past events. Fortunately, even though we can't directly verify these claims, we can test them. How?
First, we gather as much evidence as possible and look at it carefully. Then, we compare the
competing theories in light of how well they explain the evidence.
However, is Neo-Creationism – as it is presented today – not the rebirth of obscurantism ?
We can wonder at first how escaped in a over technological-scientific word of today, such a
obscurantist idea of Neo-creationism. May be nothing more than an empirism like alchemy that
leads us in time to chemistry, in order to be updated as a science by today's world. We will try to
understand a possible scientific base of this theory and establish degrees of ethical and practical
value. The implications and dangers of this theory are of great importance through a citizen's point
of view.
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II. Basics of Neo-creationism
2.1. The bases of the born idea of Neo-creationism
Neo-creationism is a movement based on another which is the Creationism. Creationists
believe that human being, the Earth and all the living being were created by a deity (Muslim, Jewish
or Christian) in the same form as they are today. Neo-creationism was born in 1987 when the
Supreme Court in the United States of America decided that Creationism was a religious concept
and that it was unconstitutionnal to teach it in public school. In a response to this decision, Neocreationists introduce this theory as a scientific theory, with non-religious terms and no reference to
sacred texts. Therefore, they try to be well-received by the scientific community and the public
opinion.[1]
Neo-creationists are divided in six major groups. Each group has a different theory - mostly
based on the Genesis - about the creation oh the Earth and living being by God :
− Young Earth creationism is the religious theory that the creation of all things on Earth was
made by God, during a short time (it can be between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago). Those
creationists believes literaly in the Genesis (Old Testament). Therefore, they disagree with
the scientifically determined age of the Earth.
− Old Earth creationism (including Gap creationism and Progressive creationism) much
more agrees with the scientifically proved age of the Earth.
• Progressive creationism is based on the belief that God created all the forms of life gradually and
that He allows some natural process such as mutations.
• Gap creationism is based on the belief that there was a gap of time between the divine creation of
the Earth and the creation of humanity.
− Day-age creationism is the theory that the six-days of the creation of life were in fact much
more longer periods, which suits with the age of the Earth.
− Intelligent Design is the most famous creationist theory and it claims that some events can
be best explained by an intelligent cause than by chance or natural selection. However, to be
best accepted by the scientific community, the creationists who support this theory don't
clearly define the Intelligent Designer, although they believe in acts which could only have
been made by an immaterial form, that is to say a God.[1]
All these theories are mainly supported by Christian people, even if some people of other
religion (Muslim, Jewish, Buddhism) agree to some creationist theories. However, the neocreationist movement is much more spread among Christian people and the Evolutionist theory is
well accepted by other religions.
2.2. Seducing alternative of Neo-creationism to related theories
− Creationism
The poor level of theologists opening to a dialog with the common people, promote this
creationism theory for the new modern generation in an obsolete and rather dogmatic idea.
Scientifically interpretations are suspecting Creationism to have more than one gap.
− Evolutionism
Charles Darwin resolvability of the matter in question was more debated in all circles of
science and public education. Although theological debates didn't disapprove the whole idea, they
4
did not exchange theirs on this. Darwinism was an interesting idea in the 19th century, when his
explanations gave a plausible, if not properly scientific, framework into which we could fit
biological facts. However, what we have learned since the days of Darwin throws doubt on natural
selection's ability to create complex biological systems. (Professor Colin Reeves, Dept. of
Mathematical Science, Coventry University).
− Neo-darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is a term used to describe certain ideas about the mechanisms of evolution
that were developed from Charles Darwin's original theory of evolution by natural selection: while
separating them from his hypothesis of Pangenesis – out of space origin of life, as a Lamarckian the small scale evolutionism, source of variation involving blending inheritance. Weissman realised
that the cells that produce the germ plasm, or gametes (such as sperm and egg in animals), separate
from the somatic cells that go on to make other body tissues at an early stage in development. Since
he could see no obvious means of communication between the two he asserted that the inheritance
of acquired characteristics was therefore impossible; a conclusion now known as Weismann's
barrier. From the 1880s to the 1930s the term continued to be applied to the panselectionist school
of thought, which argued that natural selection was the main and perhaps sole cause of all
evolution. [2]
2.3. The motivations of the emerging idea of Neo-creationism
Neo-creationism appeared to restate Creationism in the public opinion and in the scientific
community. Its proponents are motivated by the fear that science-especially the theory of evolutionthreatens their religious convictions. Indeed, Science by trying to explain natural events that
formerly belonged to the mystical or spiritual field – such as men's origins or diseases – may appear
in contradiction with some religious precepts. Moreover, according to creationists, this search for
natural explanations has for consequence an increase of materialism today. This way, they think that
theories such as the Evolution devalues human life by denying spirituality and final goal to
mankind. Still in their opinion, this kind of devaluation can lead to human-to-human atrocities
because human lives wouldn't worth anything. These arguments lead the creationists to spread their
movement and try to get it taught as well as or instead of the theory of Evolution.
Furthermore, these theories aim to gather people around a spiritual idea in order to restore
the social structure. Indeed, this scientific mask is helpful for religion to come back through medias
and to keep the religious message in people's mind.
Eventually, this theory is an answer to the wide-spread theory of Evolution which disagree
about the roots of humanity. This way, Neo-creationism, by answering in the scientific field,
introduce itself as a possible alternative to Neo-Darwinism.
In order to get their theories about the creation of life, the neo-creationists describe them as
scientific theories. However, to be accepted as a scientific theory, an hypothesis must fit to some
criteria : is the Neo-creationism a scientific theory ?
5
III. Neo-creationism between science and obscurantism
3.1. Explaining terms of Neo-creationism topic
Psychological and philosophical approach of obscure things explain that are not such things as
monsters, but only our dark side of mind that scares. Obscure means an unclear, unknown feature
of a subject. And we are born with a deep rooted fear for dark sides, in where we can not see, and
where we don't have the courage to make steps forward. This fear is in fact an effect reasoned in
our healthy survival instinct. And could very easily to gain a bad turn, generating the undesired
effect of fear to be yourself or only with yourself, and making the hardest thing to know yourself.
In top of this instinct, controlling desire of civilizations seeds another fear – the fear of God's
punishment inoculated along centuries through religious doctrines. Regarding Neo-creationism and
Religion related to Science - it is important to mention that both Catholic and Orthodox Christiane
Church tend to unify and update their opinions regarding Human Creation. Said in another words
that nowadays, Church prefer the Neo-creationism version of Creation instead of Creationism's.
Every generations has its own grasp of reality. New quests in rediscovering old things as new
can lead to improve results. As an apple means a very different thing for our ancestors and gains
other implications for us along time. As the world is in need to unify opinions and became
conscious that parts growing do not mean the same thing with a whole world that grows. This might
one of the motivation of Neo-creationism's born.
Another emergency's explanation of the idea is that growing means pain and detachment of
the obsolete worlds that we used to be. Sometimes means dieing in order to be reborn in spiritual
terms. The answer is not so important than the energy implied in that ask-quest. Asian philosophy
states that “anything that stops moving will go deep-down”, and “there is not such a thing as good
or bad – there are only ways”. Beside this every generation that arise is reinventing the
archetypes “after their own face and resemblance” in order to make the difference and gain
individuality. This pattern follows in fact the movement that can not stop for the world to go around
transforming itself – the energy of life that can not stop. One of those archetypes is the great search
of every generation for its true origins, every one hoping secretly that will solve the mystery.
Looking at residual effects consisting in apparently unreasoned pain in the souls of whole
generations – psychologists gathered in time enough symptoms to build the Syndrome of Falling
from Heaven's Punishment. So that contested Neo-creationism may be rooted in our efforts to rise
back to a sky who punished us so hard. A human need to restore dignity. This theory might be
reasoned in the same thing that abandoned children feel when they are in search their mothers.
They are trying so hard to forgive and justify an act that hurts them from who they love through
assuming guilt. Science also did not establish what love is, psychology speculates still.
The Science can explain things only in the restrained frame that also The Science builds along
time for its self from obscurantist empiric ideas. Science is struggling to identify Neo-creationism
as being one statement that deserve to be scientific. Science do not have momentary all the
instruments to test itself for being scientific or not, from its perspective of testing all theories.
Eventually Science will chose consider Neo-creationism obscurant from same reasoning that
also science consider love being only proven chemistry effect.
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3.2.Neo-creationism in a scientific frame
A scientific hypothesis is a testable conjecture which tries to explain an observed
phenomenon but which has not been tested yet to be confirmed as a scientific theory. To become a
scientific theory, this kind of hypothesis must permit to predict the right results of an experiment
and to avoid the incorrect ones.[3]
Neo-creationism could be considered as a scientific hypothesis. As for considering Neocreationism a scientific theory – it should predict without reason of a doubt of being wrong the
right result of a verification through experimentation.
The scientific hypothesis that wants to be upgraded to a rank of a scientific theory and to
be generally accepted in the domain of science, must accomplish the simplicity's condition imposed
by The Law of Parsimony, also known as Occam's Razor. All theories that include multiple
phenomena, being version of the same premise are under incidence of the same law. “Of two
equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simplest one is to be
preferred.” (Occam's razor concerning Intelligent Design versus Creationism, Evolutionism and
Neo-darwinism).
Because Science has another grounds then Mathematics, we can not use only the same
reasoning for demonstrating a statement using the sufficiency and the necessity of a condition.
There can be no guarantee about what evidence we will discover tomorrow. But also scientific
theories are based on so known lemmas – that are accepted for being absolutely true and no
contestable.
Karl Jaspers, from his Christian, existentialist and philosophical point of view, wrote that the
existence of God can't be proved. In that case, how can we imagine that a theory implying the
existence of God - such as the Neo-creationism's Intelligent design - has a scientific criteria as a
base ?
Furthermore, according to the falsifiability principle developed by Karl Popper : “A theory
which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. The criterion of the scientific
status of a theory is its falsifiability or testability.”.[4]
And it emerge another big question about a scientific theory - if is it right or wrong ?
Unfortunately, it's impossible to know if Neo-creationism, from a scientific theory point of view, is
right. But the theory may agree beautifully with all the evidence – today we are here debating the
subject. To prove Neo-creationism theory being wrong., we must just find some evidence that
contradicts what the theory says. The theory is then falsified and stays that way. And in that case,
applying The Falsifiability Principle developed by Karl Popper - we arrive at the acceptable
paradox that a scientific theory is one which can in principle be falsified
In another order of interpretation - the theory has to make strong statements about evidence.
If the statements aren't strong, then the theory fits any evidence, and is unfalsifiable. That is bad for
three very practical reasons. First - a theory must lead to an expected result or make ground to a
result or predict a real fact, in order to serve to a practical reason. Second – if it serve to no practical
reasons, it would be useless. Third - if we have other rival theories, we will want to choose between
all theories for this practical reason. If they prove to be unfalsifiable, then evidence doesn't help us
in choosing the real, practical one of those rival theories.
Eventually Neo-creationism can't be considered as a scientific theory because it can't be
tested and because of possibility's lack to test the event.
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3.3. Analytical and philosophical approach of the truth value of a statement
In order to be scientifically tested, the Neo-creationism must be proven to have a value of
truth. The word truth has a variety of meanings, from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general,
to agreement with fact or reality in particular. The term has no single definition about which a
majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and various theories of truth continue to
be debated. That time differences between doxa and truth. The doxa being the truth of the moment.
An accepted and builded truth, just like a new fashion. Every generation – even it has a parental
legacy will tend to promote new fashions concerning everything that builds the world around them.
Main theories of truth
Correspondence theory of truth or objective reality
Correspondence theories state that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual
state of affairs. This type of theory posits a relationship between thoughts or statements on the
one hand, and things or objects on the other. It is a traditional model which goes back at least to
some of the classical Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This class of
theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle solely by
how it relates to "things", by whether it accurately describes those "things".
We are in a world that transcend through science the known saying “Seeing is believing”.
And it is expected for the better to be this way. Neo-creationist hypothesis is only proved by our
immediate reality and this can be acceptable as a truth.
Constructivist epistemology of truth
Social constructivism holds that truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and
culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community.
Rather, perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent on convention, human perception, and
social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological
reality, including race, sexuality, and gender are socially constructed. Giambatistta Vico was
among the first to claim that history and culture were man-made. Vico' s epistemological
orientation gathers the most diverse rays and unfolds in one axiom “Verum ipsum factum"meaning that “truth itself is constructed". Hegel and Marx were among the other early
proponents of the premise that truth is socially constructed.
Constructivism views all of our knowledge as "constructed" and not reflecting any external
"transcendent" realities, and that's why Neo-creationism as a simple hypothesis might hold.
8
Consensus theory of truth Consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or
in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. Such a group might
include all human beings, or a subset of consisting of more than one person. Among the
current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is the
philosopher Habermas who maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech
situation – that is found within communication between individuals when their speech is
governed by basic, but required and implied, rules.
The topic of Neo-creationism accomplish the required rules for an ideal comunication :
1. Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in a discourse.
2. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever.
3. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse.
4. Everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires and needs.
5. No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising his rights as
laid down in (1,2,3,4).
And this sort of truth is achieved also through the fact that the idea of Neo-creationism is not
impose in any way to nobody and can be based on the existence of a Creator.
Pragmatic theory of truth The three most influential forms of the pragmatic theory of truth
were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Pierce, William James, and John
Dewey. All three of them hold in common that truth is verified and confirmed by the results of
putting one's concepts into practice.
This is a problematical issue in debating Neo-creationism. In a particular way, those whom spend
their lives in recreating live as they scientifically think they can, those who are recreating
primordial Big-Bangs and even those who thing that they know better about which of human
raises deserve to leave – are good or less intentional those who are trying to imitate A Creator
even they don't know or recognize this as being their reason to act.Viewing Neo-creationism,
next to rival or related theories, it proves that is a non-practical verifiable, but this is only for now.
Pluralist theories of truth Most traditional theories of truth are about one and only property the
having of which makes a belief or proposition true. Pluralist theories of truth deny this
assumption. According to pluralism, there may be more than one property that makes
propositions true: ethical propositions might be true by virtue of coherence; propositions about
the physical world might be true by corresponding to the the objects and properties they are
about. Pluralism, in short, holds out the prospect that propositions might be "true in more than
one way". Philosopher Michael Lynch recently championed a different type of pluralism about
truth. In a series of articles and in his 2009 book Truth as One and Many. Lynch argues that we
should see truth as a functional property capable of being multiply manifested in distinct
properties like correspondence or coherence.
At this point Neo-creationism look like having some value of truth. The fact that is not practical
provable not being the topic of this pluralistic view of truth.
Minimalist theories of truth A number of philosophers reject the thesis that the concept or
term truth refers to a real property of sentences or propositions. These philosophers are
responding, in part, to the common use of truth predicates (e.g., that some particular thing "… is
true") which was particularly prevalent in philosophical discourse on truth in the first half of the
20th century. Whichever term is used, deflationary theories can be said to hold in common that
9
the predicate ''true'' is an expressive convenience, not the name of a property requiring deep
analysis. Among the theoretical concerns of these views is to explain away those special cases
where it does appear that the concept of truth has peculiar and interesting properties – like
semantical paradoxes.
• as deflationary theories of truth, since they attempt to deflate the presumed importance of
the words "true" or truth,
• as disquotational theories, to draw attention to the disappearance of the quotation marks
– like in math, wher 2+2=4 true it is replaced with 2+2=4 – being the only thing necessary to
its value of truth.
• as minimalist theories of truth, that are resuming some other propositions with true value
as in The human was created, the humans are of feminin and masculine sexes, the human are
populating the Earth, the theory is a Neo-creationist one. So we can minimise to The theory of
Neo-creationism is true.
The truth being so deflated by this theory - we are literally forced to admit that Neocreationism affirmations can be minimised to a true value, according to its true disquational
formulations, in fact as any other theory on this subject.
Performative theory of truth Attributed to P.F. Strawson is the performative theory of truth
which holds that to say "The human was created in order to exist today" is to perform the
speech act of signaling one's agreement with the claim that “we exist today”(much like nodding
one's head in agreement). The idea that some statements are more actions than communicative
statements is not as odd as it may seem.
Considering that when the bride says "I do" at the appropriate time, in a wedding, she is
performing the act of taking this man to be her lawful wedded husband. She is not describing
herself as taking this man, but actually doing so - perhaps the most thorough analysis of such
"perlocutionary" statements is J.L. Austins “How To Do Things With Words”.Strawson holds that
a similar analysis is applicable to all speech acts, not only to special perlocutionary ones: "To say
a statement is true is not to make a statement about a statement, but rather to perform the act
of agreeing with, accepting, or endorsing a statement.”
When one says “It's true that we are created” - one asserts no more than “We are existing.”
The function of .”It's true that...” is to agree with, accept, or endorse the statement that “we are
existing” in fact.
Redundancy theories of truth According to the redudancy theory of truth, asserting that the
Neo-creationism statement is true is completely equivalent to asserting the statement itself.
Redundancy theorists infer from this premise that truth is a redundant concept; that is, it is merely
a word that is traditionally used in conversation or writing, generally for emphasis, but not a
word that actually equates to anything in reality. This theory is commonly attributed to Frank P.
Ramsey who held that the use of words like fact and truth was nothing but a roundabout way of
asserting a proposition, and that treating these words as separate problems in isolation from
judgment was merely a "linguistic muddle''.
So – if somebody can prove the theory – that it is not for the truth analyze, but for proving
its verifiability.
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Formal theories. Truth in Logic, Validity, Fact, and Interpretation
A necessary truth is a statement which is true in all possible worlds. A logical truth is a
necessary truth the truth of which is determined by its so-called logical constants (eg. if, then,
or, and not, every). A contingency is not a necessary truth and its truth depends upon the world.
"All bachelors are unmarried" a necessary truth but not a logical truth. One theory is that
necessary truths are all and only analytic truths, true because of their meanings, but this is
disputed. In a formal languages (or artificial) language a sentence has a truth-value only under
some interpretation, a logical truth being true under all intepretations.
Truth in mathematics There are two main approaches to truth in mathematics. They are the
model theory of truth and the proof theory of truth. Historically, with the nineteenth century
development of Boolean algebra mathematical models of logic began to treat "truth", also
represented as "T" or "1", as an arbitrary constant. "Falsity" is also an arbitrary constant,
which can be represented as "F" or "0". In propositional logic, these symbols can be
manipulated according to a set of axioms and rules of inference, often given in the form of truth
tables. In addition, from at least the time of Hilbert's program at the turn of the twentieth century
to the proof of Gödel's theorem and the development of the Church-Turing thesis in the early
part of that century, true statements in mathematics were generally assumed to be those
statements which are provable in a formal axiomatic system.
The works of Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, and others shook this assumption, with the development
of statements that are true but cannot be proven within the system. Two examples of the latter can
be found in Hilbert's problems. Work on Hilbert's 10th problem led in the late twentieth century
to the construction of specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they
have a solution, or even if they do, whether they have a finite or infinite number of solutions.
More fundamentally, Hilbert's first problem was on the continuum hypothesis. Gödel and Paul
Cohen showed that this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved using the standard axioms of
set theory and a finite number of proof steps. In the view of some, then, it is equally reasonable
to take either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as a new axiom.
Semantic theory of truth The semantic theory of truth has as its general case for a given
language:'P' is true if and only if P where 'P' is a reference to the sentence (the sentence's
name), and P is just the sentence itself. Logician and philosopher Alfred Tarski developed the
theory for formal languages (such as formal logic). Here he restricted it in this way: no
language could contain its own truth predicate, that is, the expression is true could only apply
to sentences in some other language. The latter he called an object language, the language
being talked about. (It may, in turn, have a truth predicate that can be applied to sentences in still
another language.) The reason for his restriction was that languages that contain their own truth
predicate will contain paradoxical sentences like the Liar: This sentence is not true. As a result.
Bertrand Russell is credited with noticing the existence of such paradoxes even in the best
symbolic formalizations of mathematics in his day, in particular the paradox that came to be
named after him, Russell's paradox. Russell and Whitehead attempted to solve these problems in
Principia Mathematica by putting statements into a hierarchy of types, wherein a statement
cannot refer to itself, but only to statements lower in the hierarchy. This in turn led to new orders
of difficulty regarding the precise natures of types and the structures of conceptually possible type
systems that have yet to be resolved to this day.
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Kripke's theory of truth Saul Kripke contends that a natural language can in fact contain
its own truth predicate without giving rise to contradiction. Notice that truth never gets defined
for sentences like This sentence is false, since it was not in the original subset and does not
predicate truth of any sentence in the original or any subsequent set. Since these sentences are
never assigned either truth or falsehood even if the process is carried out infinitely, Kripke's
theory implies that some sentences are neither true nor false. This contradicts the Principle of
Truth's Bivalence that implies as every sentence must be either true or false. Since this principle
is a key premise in deriving the Liar paradox, the paradox is dissolved.[5]
Considering truth such a relative value – those lines can be only a simple try to submerge the
truth's value of Neo-creationism to a various philosophical analyses.
Notable philosophers' views
Ancient philosophers The ancient Greek origins of the words "true" and "truth" have some
consistent definitions throughout great spans of history that were often associated with topics of
logic, geometry, mathematics, deduction, induction, and natural philosophy.
Socrates's, Plato's and Aristotle's ideas about truth are commonly seen as consistent with
correspondence theory. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle stated: “To say of what is that it is not, or of
what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is
true”. Most influential is his claim in De Interpretatione (16a3) that thoughts are “likenessess”
(homoiosis) of things. Very similar statements can also be found in Plato (Cratylus 385b2, Sophist
263b).
Although he nowhere defines truth in terms of a thought's likeness to a thing or fact, it is clear that
such a definition would fit well into an overall philosophy.
Medieval philosophers In early Islamic philosophy, Ibn Sina defined truth in his Metaphysics
of Healing, Book I, Chapter 8, as: What corresponds in the mind is what is outside it. After
elaborates on his definition of truth in his Metaphysics, Book Eight, Chapter 6: The truth of a thing
is the property of the being of each thing, which has been established in it. However, this
definition is merely a translation of the Latin translation from the Middle Ages. A modern
translation of the original Arabic text states is : Truth is also said of the veridical belief in the
existence of something.
And starting from this, the only detail remained to prove for science would be the existence of God.
And I can not stop myself to ask : But whom God ? - linking this to a quote of an Muslim To
choose Allah - a warrior God, in a fair comparable with Jesus Christ – willing to forgive all that are
we were so teached to consider sins, in a Creator God, or Buddha – being one with everything in a
just a passing level to another level of being - God ?
Thomas Aquinas stated in his Disputed Questions on Truth: A natural thing, being placed between
two intellects, is called true, insofar as it conforms to either. It is said to be true with respect to its
conformity with the divine intellect insofar as it fulfills the end to which it was ordained by the
divine intellect... With respect to its conformity with a human intellect, a thing is said to be true
insofar as it is such as to cause a true estimate about itself. Thus, for Aquinas, the truth of the
human intellect (logical truth) is based on the truth in things (ontological truth). Following this,
he wrote an elegant re-statement of Aristotle's view in his Summa Teologicae : Veritas est
adæquatio intellectus et rei. Truth is the conformity of the intellect to the things. Aquinas also
said that real things participate in the act of being of the Creator God who is Subsistent Being,
12
Intelligence, and Truth. Thus, these beings possess the light of intelligibility and are knowable.
These things (beings; reality) are the foundation of the truth that is found in the human mind, when
it acquires knowledge of things, first through the senses, then through the understanding and the
judgement done by reason. For Aquinas, human intelligence="intus" (within) + "legere"(to read)
has the capability to reach the essence and existence of things because it has a non-material,
spiritual element, although some moral, educational, and other elements might interfere with its
capability.
Modern philosophers as Immanuel Kant discussed the correspondence theory of truth in the
following manner, criticizing correspondence theory as circular reasoning. Truth is said to consist
in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my
knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. “Now, I can only compare the object
with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to
be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to
me, and the knowledge is in me.”
And this lead to next speculative philosophical conclusion. From Kant's point of view, our existence
– of whom “we take knowledge'' every day of our lives, do not seams to contradict - although ''it is
far from being sufficient as a truth'' , a possible Neo-creationism.
Hegel tried to distance his philosophy from psychology by presenting truth as being an external
self–moving object instead of being related to inner, subjective thoughts. Hegel's truth is
analogous to the mechanics of a material body in motion under the influence of its own inner force.
"Truth is its own self–movement within itself.". For Hegel, the progression of philosophical truth
is a resolution of past oppositions into increasingly more accurate approximations to absolute truth.
H.M.Chalybäus used the terms "thesis", "antithesis" and "synthesis" to describe Hegel's
dialectical triplicity. \
The "thesis" consists of an incomplete historical movement. To resolve the incompletion, an
"antithesis" occurs which opposes the "thesis." In turn, the "synthesis" appears when the "thesis"
and "antithesis" become reconciled and a higher level of truth is obtained. This "synthesis" thereby
becomes a "thesis," which will again necessitate an "antithesis," requiring a new "synthesis" until a
final state is reached as the result of reason's historical movement :
History is the Absolute Spirit moving toward a goal. This historical progression will finally
conclude itself when the Absolute Spirit understands its own infinite self at the very end of
history. Absolute Spirit will then be the complete expression of an infinite God.
For Schopenhauer, a judgment is a combination or separation of two or more concepts. If a
judgment is to be an expression of knowledge, it must have a sufficient reason or ground by
which the judgment could be called true. Truth is the reference of a judgment to something
different from itself which has in it sufficient reason (ground). Judgments can have material,
formal, transcendental, or metalogical truth. A judgment has material truth if its concepts are
based on intuitive perceptions that are generated from sensations. If a judgment has its reason in
another judgment, its truth is called logical or formal. If a judgment, of, for example, pure
mathematics or pure science, is based on the forms (space, time, causality) of intuitive, empirical
knowledge, then the judgment has transcendental truth.
And in fact, this may be the transcendental truth of Neo-creationism that can not be denied,
even as a pure science.
When Kierkegaard, wrote that "Truth is Subjectivity", he does not advocate for subjectivism in its
extreme form the theory that something is true simply because one believes it to be so, but rather
13
that the objective approach to matters of personal truth cannot shed any light upon that which is
most essential to a person's life. Objective truths are concerned with the facts of a person's being,
while subjective truths are concerned with a person's way of being. Kierkegaard agrees that
objective truths for the study of subjects like mathematics, science, and history are relevant and
necessary, but argues that objective truths do not shed any light on a person's inner relationship
to existence. At best, these truths can only provide a severely narrowed perspective that has little to
do with one's actual experience of life.
While objective truths are final and static, subjective truths are continuing and dynamic. The
truth of one's existence is a living, inward, and subjective experience that is always in the process
of becoming. The values, morals, and spiritual approaches a person adopts, while not denying
the existence of objective truths of those beliefs, can only become truly known when they have
been inwardly appropriated through subjective experience. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes all
systematic philosophies which attempt to know life or the truth of existence via theories and
objective knowledge about reality. As Kierkegaard claims, human truth is something that is
continually occurring, and a human being cannot find truth separate from the subjective
experience of one's own existing, defined by the values and fundamental essence that consist of
one's way of life.
So, if I choose Kierkegaard as my philosophical advocate, and choose to be a believer in the
truth of Intelligent Design as being a cause of my existence. And, so on, if choose to consider that I
am a child of a benevolent God, even assuming or not the way of life from Christianity's Bible –
just because it promotes the free choose of humans – nobody can tell me to believe other way.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed the search for truth or 'the will to truth' was a consequence of the
will to power of philosophers. He thought that truth should be used as long as it promoted life
and the will to power, and he thought untruth was better than truth if it had this life
enhancement as a consequence. As he wrote in Beyond Good and Evil, "The falseness of a
judgment is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgment... The question is to what extent it is
life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding..." (aphorism
4). He proposed the will to power as a truth only because according to him it was the most life
affirming and sincere perspective one could have.
Robert Wicks discusses Nietzsche's basic view of truth as follows: Some scholars regard
Nietzsche's 1873 unpublished essay, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" as a keystone in his
thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we
call "truth" is only "a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms." His
view at this time is that arbitrariness completely prevails within human experience: concepts
originate via the very artistic transference of nerve stimuli into images; "truth" is nothing more
than the invention of fixed conventions for merely practical purposes, especially those of repose,
security and consistence.
And might be so, but someone who can be recognized as being more pragmatical, through his
legacy to the world – Einstein, used to say that he spliced humans in two groups – one who
chooses to believe that magic exist in everything that surround them, and another who believes that
nothing is magic in this world, and he chooses to be amongst the first group.
Alfred North Whitehead a British mathematician who became an American philosopher, said:
"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that play the devil".
The logical progression or connection of this line of thought is to conclude that even truth can lie,
since half-truths are deceptive and may lead us to a false conclusion.
According to Kitaro Nishida, "knowledge of things in the world begins with the differentiation
14
of unitary consciousness into knower and known and ends with self and things becoming one
again. Such unification takes form not only in knowing but in the valuing (of truth) that directs
knowing, the willing that directs action, and the feeling or emotive reach that directs sensing."
All things being more and more recognized as linked to each other, as Butterfly Effect implies, the
acknowledge of the existence of a God being the Creator of all things and living in all things, would
solve all the existentialist dilemma of how we were created.
Erich Fromm finds that trying to discuss truth as "absolute truth" is sterile and that emphasis
ought to be placed on "optimal truth". He considers truth as stemming from the survival
imperative of grasping one's environment physically and intellectually, whereby young
children instinctively seek truth so as to orient themselves in "a strange and powerful world".
The accuracy of their perceived approximation of the truth will therefore have direct consequences
on their ability to deal with their environment. Fromm can be understood to define truth as a
functional approximation of reality. His vision of optimal truth is described partly in "Man from
Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics" (1947), from which excerpts are included
below. the dichotomy between 'absolute = perfect' and 'relative = imperfect' has been superseded in
all fields of scientific thought, where "it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but
nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles". In that respect "a scientifically
or rationally valid statement means that the power of reason is applied to all the available data of
observation without any of them being suppressed or falsified for the sake of a desired result".
The history of science is "a history of inadequate and incomplete statements, and every new
insight makes possible the recognition of the inadequacies of previous propositions and offers a
springboard for creating a more adequate formulation." As a result "the history of thought is the
history of an ever-increasing approximation to the truth. Scientific knowledge is not absolute but
optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period." Fromm also
notes that "different cultures have emphasized various aspects of the truth" and that increasing
interaction between cultures allows for these aspects to reconcile and integrate, increasing further
the approximation to the truth.
Michel Foucault prefers not to use the term truth itself but "Regimes of Truth". His view shares
much in common with the concepts of Nietzsche.
Jean Baudrillard considered truth to be largely simulated, that is pretending to have something,
as opposed to dissimulation, pretending to not have something. He took his cue from iconoclasts
who he claims knew that images of God demonstrated the fact that God did not exist. Baudrillard
wrote in "Precession of the Simulacra": The simulacrum is never that which conceals the
truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true — Ecclesiastes
Baudrillard, Jean: "Simulacra and Simulations" (in Selected Writings ed. Mark Poster, Stanford
University Press, 1988/166 ). Some example simulacra that Baudrillard cited were: that prisons
simulate the "truth" that society is free.
15
Alain Badiou has gained renown in contemporary continental philosophy for his theory of truth as
a situated "truth-procedure" consisting in the practice of fidelity to an event. According to
Badiou, truth-procedures are situated, singular, subjective, and universal. Badiou defines love, art,
science, and politics as the four domains of truth-procedures, and defines philosophy as a space
of thought conditioned by and concerned with thinking through the interaction of truthprocedures in these four domains.[5]
This so contested Neo-creationism looks to be maid of all these ingredients : ''love, art, science,
and politics'' and mass-media can complete very easily the missing aspect of practice of fidelity.
This can be one recipe of a new doctrine called Neo-creationism. Have doctrines a desperate need
of science to exist and manifest themselves or it is exactly the other way ? This almighty science
seams to be fueled with unproven truths that are waiting in line to be dissected, tested and proved
and contradicted, rediscovered after hey were forgot, reconfirmed or abandoned.
3.4. Symbolism of the theory
The psychologist, Carl Jung, who studied archetypes, proposed an alternative definition of
symbol, distinguishing it from the term "sign". In Jung's view - a sign stands for something
known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand
for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a
symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called “self".
Religious symbolism may have a long history that could be over 100,000 years old. The cross
together with the crown is an important symbol of Christianity which symbolizes not only the
sufferings of life that Jesus experienced (the cross), but also the victory Jesus proved was possible
by following his teachings about God as divine Love, proved by the healing he accomplished, and
which we see throughout the world today in His Name (the crown).
The word "symbol" came to from the Greek “sýmbolon” from the root words “syn-” meaning
"together" and “bolē"-“a throw", having the approximate meaning of "to throw together",
literally a "co-incidence" and also "sign”. The earliest attestation of the term is in the Homeric
Hymn
where
Hermes,
seeing
the
tortoise
exclaims"symbolon
[as
symbol/sign/portent/encounter/chance find ?] of joy to me!". One of the versions of the very
popular Tarot cards who was conceived following this concept. "Symbolon is a game of
remembrance. It allows us to remember things hidden deep inside which have been prevented
from surfacing over decades. For those who prefer a psychological approach, you might say the
power inherent in the images helps raise the unconscious into the higher levels of
consciousness." Images of all 80 cards of Symbolon are supplemented with astrological signs.
Although many people might find not any truth in astrology - its philosophy is maybe the
most symbolic of all Obscure Occult Sciences. The Occult meaning is “hide”. And all truths
have an obvious side – like that we can see looking in mirror, but also one hide side just for not
any of us, who are not willing to asume the painfull death of Falling from Heaven in order to
reborn – given by the Biblical Snake. In astrology - this way it is indicated by North Node - being
The Lesson of Present Life that must be learned and assimilated and by the South North –
meaning The Formal Lessons that we are tempted to repeat – that's the easy choice and the wrong
one of not moving along your way. The same meaning of An Eternal Quest of a Creator God in
order to Find Oneself is the endless struggle of The Dragon-Snake - Ketu and Rahu from Indian
Veda's – in a self destruction and regeneration, who never stops biting its tale in a permanent circle
rotation. Like in Buddhism – karma being our duty to furfill our dharma that is our purpouse on
Earth, in order to achieve Illuminations or rising above limitations of this World.
In European esoteric philosophies - symbolically our word may be reduced to four simple
elements meaning :fire – creation, start of action ; earth – material, shape, stability ; water –
16
emotions, transformations ; air – movement, inspiration, intelligence. An esoterist could translate
the Genesis in a way like this : God having the inspiration (air) of creating (fire) life, gave us
shape from soil (earth) mixed with water (emotions), after his own face and resemblance.
After ancient Chinese writings, there are five elements that forms our world : fire, earth,
metal, water, and wood. And the metal as an element could rhyme with other theories that implies
Pangenesis – our life here being brought from out of space from a super-technological world.
The symbolism of Neo-creationism is being a part of the Permanent Quest of Humanity
for Its Origins is also semantically represented in almost all spoken language as the saying : Who
was first, The Egg or The Chicken ? And there is no a right or wrong answers – there is only YinYangs in a perpetual movement to regain The Equilibrium through acceptance of being.
We keep forgeting what enlightened human beings were trying to teach us in more than one
ways : “The time was invented just for things not to happen all in the same time”- Einstein. And
there are not such things as directions for this search Above or Up for Our Origins – or Under or
Down - for finding Our Roots.
Scientific Research of Neo-creationism is simply The Enlightement In The Dark Of
Obscurency in itself that must go on for and in each one of us on the infinite way of
Moebus's Band.
Our endless struggle to rediscovery of our
Our
endless struggle to rediscovery of our Roots by recreating Life might be The Old
Fashion To Move A Rock - like we were educated ourselves to Think.. Or is simply
The Paradoxic Truth that Our Origins were not Created yet.
17
IV. Followings of the Neo-creationism
4.1. Positive and negative consequences of Neo-Creationism
Economical and social consequences
Adopting the point of view of Neo-creationists is a way to admit the Intelligent Design
theory. To acknowledge such a theory means adopting the existence of God as a scientific fact. But
thinking and believing are two different process. Many sordid stories happened in the name of
religion ; “Who is the Intelligent Design's God?” would raise a lot of questions for all the religions
to determine who the scientific god is. Moreover, accepting Intelligent Design implies that life has a
meaning, a finality : in the name of an aim, we can do everything... The elites say that they keep the
control for the world safety or use slavery again... In the french daily newspaper “Le Monde” was
shown that a lot of important people from Economy and Finance where supporting this theory.
Cynical people could say that man created God and even if some became his subjects, it would be
easy for these cynic people to use God for their own purpose.
Scientific consequences
First of all, accepting Neo-creationism implies the falsification of Evolutionism and
replacing an evolving theory opened to the discussion which – even if it has still gaps – is based on
more and more evidences. For example, the butterflies Biston betularia and Biston carbonaria :the
fact that in polluted cities B. carbonaria is mostly selectionned whereas in clean areas the B.
betularia was mostly selectionned is an evidence of natural selection. Last year a lizard in the Pod
Mrcaru island were noticed because it changed his alimentary diet, and according to the scientific
community, it's the Evolution moving. [6]
Such a religious theory would also transform completely the vision of all the Science,
especially in biology because of the finalistic vision we would adopt. Furthermore it would mean
the end of the dissociation between Science and Religion which implies a control of the research by
the Church, maybe it could make a more ethical science but more restrained also.
Original consequences
However, this theory does not only composed of drawbacks. Let's think about the Origins of
Human kind. It may be more reassuring for people to believe they've always been human and that
they don't share the same roots than apes, cows or bacteria. Besides, it's certainly one of the most
important reason why public opinion is more likely to agree with Neo-creationists' point of view, it's
also reasuring for people to have a meaning in their lives. Knowing where people do come from and
where they are going is a relievant feeling. Cynic people could say they don't like thinking. A
religion can answer to questions without answer, it can define the limits of science through the ethic
as science can define the limits of religion.
All these implications grant more power to the Human kind. So the ethical range of this
movement has to be discussed. To do this, we'll try to see the problem from different points of view
: the religious and theological point of view, the education, the politics, the mass medias.
4.2. Scientific and cultural polemics on the topic of Neo-creationism:
- Religious perspective
A priori, we could think that Church would be a fervent supporter of this theory yet Vatican
has adopted different point of views since Benedict XVI's investiture. At his first speech he declared
that Human kind is not “some casual and meaningless product of evolution” meaning that at least
he falsified the idea that Evolution is dued to random but it has above all been interpretated as a
deny of Evolution by the public opinion. The Church's opinion has been discussing a lot during the
year 2006 and an assembly of religious and scientfic people has been gathered at the vatican : the
18
Vatican, the pope statuated that “ theology is not going to interfere with science”. Besides, the
former chief astronomist of the Vatican said that he was not opposed to the Evolution theory. A
dialog has to be establish between Science and Faith because of their opposite nature.[7]
-Political propects
The implantation of creationist ideas are more difficult in countries where State is separated
from Religion (it's only the case in Turkey and France) because the government have to prevent all
forms of proselytism. In all the other countries the State is less powerful, in the U.S.A. The first
amendment grants cult freedom.
- Public education
In the domain of education, Neo-creationism provokes tremondous demonstrations from the
defenders and opponents of this theory. In the European union, on the 8th june 2007, a report was
written about the dangers of Neo-creationism in Education. In the USA, even after the trial of
Dover in september 2005, the Neo-Creationist ideas where disapproved again. However it has not
always been the same : let's make a brief historic of the story of Neo-Creationism in the USA in the
education field. In 1925, a biology teacher was condamned to have broken the Butler law – law
which forbade the teaching of Evolution in high-school – but the prosecution lawyer is ridiculised
during this case and the Butler law was no more applied after this trial. But in Mississipi (in 1926)
and Arkansas (in 1928) the teaching of the Evolution was forbidden and it's only in 1968 that the
Supreme Court cancelled the decision taken by the Arkansas. In 1981, Arkansas tried to introduce
Creationism in public schools one more time in vain. In 1987, the teaching of Creationism is judged
against the constitution because it's a theory depending on Religion and not on Science. In
November 2005, teaching council of Kansas voted that different theories than Darwinism have to be
taught, even if it's still considered against the Constitution.[6]
So, we can see that, even if the theory of evolution is more and more improved, creationist
ideas are having a growing mediatic window. Accepting to teach Creationism in school is an
investment on future because young people are easier to manipulate, to teach it in class as an
alternative to Darwinism is dangerous because religious theories can't answer to a scientific
question and vice versa (we might be a little redundant but we have to take the risk).
In the scientific journal “La Recherche”, an article tries to show that Evolution is not well
performed in French high schools, in a too narrow minded way, because teachers are lacking
formation in this quite recent theory. Evolution is a pillar of modern biology and is not well taught
enough, because, for example in France a very short time is granted for the teaching of Evolution. If
people want to make their point about Evolution and Darwinism they need more formation so we
need more scientific review for the general public.
-Mass-media
When we search “Creationism” in the research motor (google), we have more outputs than
for “Evolutionism” and “Darwinism” cumulated (this might not be a great proof that creationists
have a wide-spread influence but it's all the same quite revealing) (3,640,000 vs 2,297,000). During
the trial of Dover, the crowds in USA were really implied in the debate, the medias shew a lot of
people in front of the court during this case with signs and placards.
19
Endorsement of Creationist Position in Canada[8]
Opinions about Human
Creation
Biblical Creationists%
Creationists%
Strong Creationists Position
20
7
Weak Creationists Position
12
17
Don't know
22
26
Weak non-creationist position
19
14
Strong non-creationist position
28
36
160 people
115 people
No. of surveyed people
Chi square = 12.14, df = 4, p<0.02
With this table we can see that 24% believe in the biblical creationism and 32% believe in
creationism in their own way. It means also that 7% people strongly believe that Earth was created
6000 years ago which a lot of proofs tend to falsify.
It suggests that it's quite easy to influence a huge masses of people. Moreover as it has been
say before, Neo-Creationism is supported by quite a lot of rich people. For example, It has recently
been built a big museum about that purpose giving some credit to this theory as a scientific theory.
4.3. Ethical consideration about Neo-creationism of international observers.
We have been showing during the previous argumentations that Neo-creationism is defended
by many groups for different reasons however we can see that this idea is more accepted in the USA
than in the European Union. But let's cast a closer eye on how creationism is felt by american and
european citizen and scientists.
Here is a graph published by the journal “Science”[9]About
american population we can see, they far more don't believe in Evolution
than the europeans. Number of people surveyed : 1004 older than 18 from
the 5th to the 7th of august 2005. Confidence interval 95%Standard
deviation : 3%[10]
Evolution
Probably true
(%)
Probably
false (%)
Don't know
(%)
Overall Evolutionist
55
34
11
High school or less
46
32
22
Some college
56
39
5
College grad
60
36
4
Post grad
74
24
2
Overall Neo-creationist
58
26
16
High school or less
57
20
23
Some college
64
23
13
College grad
63
27
10
Post grad
48
45
7
20
What we can notice is that the more people are educated the more they believe in evolution.
Moreover the trend is inverted with Neo-creationism but not as significant as for the evolution.
As we said before, the first amendment of American Constitution authorizes all the religious
opinions, moreover the neocreationists are supported by quitre a lot of influent people and powerful
groups (for example Jehovah's witnesses).
Now let's have a look at the European situation : as we can see in the graph evolution is
more supported than in USA but there is a lot of divergences between the countries. We can suggest
that the degree of separation between state and Church has a big role in this repartition. For
example, in France laicity is a really important value. We can also see that the countries which have
a staete religion believe more in evolution than the countries which signed an agrement with the
Vatican.
In june 2007, europe ratified a report about the dangers of neocreationism in education. A
book about the creationism and falsification of evolution was written by a creationist muslim has
been forbidden. But we can't say that Europe is a safe stronghold against creationism... for example
the teaching of evolution have been forbidden in Romania in 2006.
Conclusion
Eminent scientists have introduced Neo-creationism as a science. But, once subjected to the
most important principles that permit to define a scientific theory, such as Karl Popper's principle of
falsifiability, it appears that this hypothesis is above all a religious theory which can't be considered
as a scientific one. Therefore, the consequences of the acceptation of this theory in the scientific
community are wide-spread in different areas : religiously, economically and socially. This idea is
shaking the scientific world because it tends to modify all the ideas we had about the validity of a
theory by putting in the balance the paradigm based on Karl Popper's principle of falsifiability. This
work might be too superficial to make a good point about this theory but it was interresting before
all for us to understand that this theory can not be easily destroyed - that is what it makes it
dangerous.
21
Bibliography
• [1] Wikipedia : Creationism
• [2] Wikipedia : Darwinism
• [3] Theoretics Vol.1-3 Aug/Sept 1999 Editorial Retrieved December 31, 2006
• [4] Conjectures and refutations By Karl Raimund Popper
• [5] Wikipedia : truth
• [6] La recherche n°396, Avril 2006 : Dieu Menace-t-il Darwin?
• [7 ] Nature n°443, 7 septembre 2006 : How Science and Theology meet
• [8] Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 28, n°1 (2003)
• [9] Science n°313, 11 august 2006
• [10] Gallup, 23 september 2005 : Most Americans Tentative About Origin-oflife explanation
22