A simple reading of the first 11 chapters of the bible shows God forming all of creation in seven ordinary days, and recounts a tale of a global flood that wiped out the earth. “Refuting Compromise” is a scientific and biblical defense of this tradition, mostly written to Christians who embrace some sort of “compromise” with contemporary science: claiming the universe is billions of years old, that Noah’s flood was small and local rather than global, etc.
I have been asked “Why are you even bothering to read that?” Well, I have no illusions about my status as a scientific ignoramus. I have no formal scientific education beyond high school, and so hold no scientific doctrines as inviolable. I have no reason not to give the young-earth creationists a hearing. So I bit the bullet and waded through this 400-page tome of fundamentalism.
I have one caveat in defense of my intellectual integrity: I did insist that the young-earth creationist I would listen to have some legitimate scientific qualifications. Sarfati has a PhD in physical chemistry from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Like Johnson, Behe, and Miller, he has done enough cognitive legwork to be worth listening to.
Genetic Information
One thing I really like about Sarfati is his criticism of “micro/macro evolution”. A lot of Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design claim that only “micro evolution” is true. So for example, they would have no problem with Darwin’s observations of the Galapagos finch beaks: a finch’s beak changes abit from island to island, being adapted to its environment. Sure, a bird’s beak, that’s “micro” evolution. But for a Hippo to turn into a whale, that’s too much, that’s “macro” evolution.
I agree with Miller and Sarfati, that this isn’t a helpful distinction, because it’s impossible to put parameters on what qualifies an evolutionary event as “micro” or “macro”. A Chihuahua and a great Dane, if we never saw these animals before, appear to have pretty “macro” differences between them.
Sarfati claims that what is objectionable to evolution is not the size of a change, but the notion that natural selection can increase an organism's genetic information. To move from an amoeba to a fish is not plausible because such a shift means there is an increase in genetic information. To increase in genetic information is for a cell to create information out of thin air, which has no scientific evidence to back it up he claims. However, Sarfati does believe that mutations may cause decreases in genetic information that benefit an animal in its environment. So if global temperatures drop to ice-age conditions, and a dog loses the genes (via genetic mutation) that tell his fur to cut off growth at 1 inch and therefore grows longer fur, he has inherited a beneficial mutation as a result of a loss of genetic information.
This is a far more appealing view than Johnson’s micro-macro distinction, but I’m not sure if it really works. What exactly qualifies as an increase in genetic information? Say a mutation in a single-celled organism causes a doubling of all information? (this happens sometimes in the lab) There’s no new information perse, simply a duplication of existing information. Sarfati claims this is not the kind of increase he excludes. But what if a cell’s DNA re-arranges its information so that it bears new traits? Sarfati doesn’t go into much detail with this “no increase” model, and so I’m not sure if it’s all that sound. He may go into more detail in some of his other books, so I’m putting a question mark at the end of this theory. Sounds like it could be promising, but sounds suspect enough that it may just end up in the dust-bin of Creationist theories.
The Earth’s Magnetic Field Decay
Another promising argument of Sarfati’s was about the earth’s magnetic field decay. This one caught my interest, because it was the one Creationist argument that Miller said stumped him for awhile. The argument goes that we observe the earth’s magnetic field decaying: at current decay rates, if the earth really was millions of years old, its magnetic field would have decayed to such an extent as to be virtually non-existent. Sarfati’s view is that God charged the earth with a magnetic field at creation some 6000 years ago, and it has been decaying ever since. Current decay rates are a strong witness to the earth’s young age.
Miller replied to this view by explaining that the earth’s magnetic field is caused by the rotation of the earth and the inner convection circulations of the earth’s core: in essence, "a self-sustaining dynamo." According to Miller, this is the consensual view of contemporary geologists.
Sarfati fires back at this explanation, saying that if the “dynamo model” is correct, it requires its adherents to maintain that the earth is a 100% effective perpetual motion device that has flawlessly maintained the magnetic field over millions of years. Again, I know too little to confirm or disconfirm the arguments, but it sounds to me like Sarfati is on to something here. Like most of the science I have learned through these books, I’m leaving this one as a question mark to explore in more detail later.
A Deep Irony
So just how did Noah fit all of the current species we see today on the ark? Sarfati’s model claims that what Noah had on the ark were “created kinds”, and the multiplicity of animals we see today are a result of natural selection operating on these original species which lost genetic information to create the many species we see today. What this amounts to is that Sarfati accepts some version of the theory of “common descent”. More than that, his views on the young earth mean that this evolution of species occurred much much faster than contemporary Darwinists believe!
Out of these four books, this is perhaps the most confusing thing I have read. All of these authors embrace some form of evolution, some form of “common descent.” Sarfati so far, with his “no increase of information” is the only one to put some roughly coherent scientific parameters on evolution, while Miller is consistent with saying no laws exist which prevent one species from evolving into another.
Sarfati’s Geological Models
Like reading Johnson, the information on paleontology and geology caught my interest. Apparently before Darwin’s theory came in vogue, some form of catastrophism was popular among geologists. In other words, the geological science of Darwin’s day proposed no threat to a literal take on Genesis: it even supported it. Of course, it is no commendation of Sarfati to observe that a lot of the geological evidence he advances comes from sources over a hundred years old!
The Politics of Science
At a few interesting points, Sarfati gives illustrations of a community of earth scientists that dismiss any kind of catastrophism out of hand, even though some of these views have eventually been vindicated. (The specific example Sarfati gives is the Spokane Flood) These examples intrigue me, because it gives me a picture of the scientific community embroiled in the very ecclesiastical politics that religion is so roundly criticized for having. Scientific communities have creeds, and standards of orthodoxy that actually obstruct innovation and discovery within science. Behe also decried this lack of freedom within scientific circles to think outside of the Darwinian box.
At one point in Miller’s book, he criticizes opponents of Darwinism for failing to publish their theories in peer-reviewed journals. I think this view is a little naive, for it assumes peer-reviewed journals are willing to publish Creationist and Intelligent design researchers.
My point in all this is that one of the fruits of my research has been to discover to what extent science is politically motivated. Academia is not just about a noble quest for truth. It is also a business and a bureaucracy. There are a number of well-qualified young earth geologists with prestigious degrees in geology and earth science. But what would happen, given the prejudice against these scientist, if a leading journal of science was heard to publish a paper espousing young-earth geology? There are economic and political consequences for upholding a high view of freedom of speech.
Creationists and proponents of Intelligent Design want to be admitted to the academic debate. Johnson himself was regularly invited to speak in Michael Ruse’s science classes at Florida State University. Ruse is no Creationist sympathizer, but is running against the grain in defending the academic rights of these radical dissenters. If they’re false, what better way to bury these views than by roundly shredding them in academic debate? Excluding them from scholarly discussion simply aggravates the problem, and perpetuates bad science. For every academic that isn’t willing to give them a hearing or a response, there is a multitude of churchgoers unqualified to critique them who are. Who will defend the population from bad science if the scientists aren’t willing to?
What then? Hold the scientific consensus hostage to my personal incredulity until they demonstrate to my satisfaction that they have been careful in their observations, and speak the truth? I think my position must be something like that, and no, I do not find it satisfactory. Some sort of basic academic trust needs be exercised between "rival" disciplines. But this cuts both ways: if I am to accept what scientists say because scientists say so, by what rule are they exempt from believing what religious studies say about God, because a religious academic said it? There is a mutual contempt and suspicion between these disciplines that I haven’t worked out a satisfactory answer to.
Faith and Science
Sarfati’s scientific views will likely have little persuasive power upon non-Christians. This is a book for Christians to Christians, and the gist of his argument is that God has explicitly told us he made the earth in seven days some six thousand years ago. If scientific evidence claims otherwise, science simply got its information wrong, and needs to go back to the drawing board. Again, a non-Christian would have a very tough time accepting this as a persuasive argument.
Does Creationism deserve to be called science? Consider that scientific theories are brewed up out of ignorance: we cannot explain a certain observation of nature, and so someone comes up with a hypothesis and if the glove fits well enough (it never fits perfectly by the way), that hypothesis is elevated to some respect and adherence. Unlike Johnson, Creationists have a theory: a very general one, but a theory. Loosely speaking, a young earth, and loosely speaking, some global catastrophe as the explanation for geological observations.
I think the most offensive problem with this theory is that the source of the theory comes from a religious text, and most people have that darn intellectual wall that simply regards religion and science as mutually exclusive disciplines. Without giving it much thought, a lot of people simply disregard this theory as unscientific because it has religious qualities to it. Nevertheless, it functions just like any other scientific theory.
There is one other objectionable aspect to “Creationism as science” that makes it differ from other theories: it is unfalsifiable. That is, no amount of evidence to the contrary ever can or will demonstrate Creationism to be false. Sarfati is very clear on this point.
Despite this dissimilarity, I am not at this point willing to discount Creationism as “unscientific”, for Creationists and IDers criticize Darwinism on these same grounds. Consider how many nature videos you’ve seen that comment on the beautiful natural world by describing something as the product of millions of years of natural selection: am I expected to believe that every one of those comments is the fruit of the laboratory and critical field-work? More often than not, it’s the Darwinian imagination at work rather than actual scientific observation and experiment. Darwinism is the assumed theory, the orthodox position that has gained acceptance, therefore it is assumed to be able to explain whatever we observe, regardless if any experiments have been done on the many details we explain away through a general Darwinian view. So if that is the “science” you embrace, on what basis can you criticize Creationism as being “unscientific”? Creationism as a theory behaves in a similar way as other scientific theories. Creation scientists don’t have all the details figured out, they can't explain all observations, but their operational assumption is that their theory eventually will be vindicated by the laboratory. Darwinian adherents operate in exactly the same way when they encounter anomalies. And why shouldn't they? Has anyone yet discovered that great "scientific glove" in the sky that perfectly fits all observations?
Exegetical Criticisms
Sarfati spends alot of time interacting with the bible, but it was particularly disappointing for him to spend so little time addressing what’s called “the literary interpretation” of Genesis 1-11. This view of the first few chapters of Genesis considers it not as literal history perse, but mythico-historical literature, if I may invent a term to try and describe it. When Moses sat down to write Genesis, he was not motivated by a desire to give Darwin a rebuttal. Rather, the intention of the text is to take some shots at contemporary religious views, (land, sea and air are not ruled by a pantheon of bickering deities, but are all creations of one good God) and to give God’s people a concept of who God is, (his power and rulership of creation) and how they are to view the creation. (A gift from the one who made it) This view of Genesis 1-11 leaves questions about historical accuracy a blank: that is simply not the point of the text, nor should Moses be faulted for not reading like a dissertation on natural history.
Sarfati simply dismisses this view as “weird”, which seems to me to betray a fundamentalist view of the bible. The literary interpretation doesn’t register for Sarfati as a credible view worth refuting, nor does he seem to understand that the main proponents of this view have a very high view of scripture. In his defense, Sarfati does present ample exegetical reasons why he thinks Gen 1-11 is literal history, and does a good job of making his case. However, he does not directly address my views on Genesis, so it was a bit of a disappointing read. Nevertheless, Sarfati is impressive in the breadth of issues he tackles.
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