| Sodom and science |
[27 Jan 2005|08:23pm] |
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Creationism is sometimes referred to as a pseudo-science. It just occurs to me that this is wholly inaccurate: Creationism is based on anti-science; science abused and approached backwards. (Obvious analogies lend themselves to this, generally unflattering.)
The scientific method consists of collecting data and forming a hypothesis from the observations, which is then substantiated with further testing (and if further, independent tests confirm the hypothesis, we call it a theory). If the hypothesis does not fit the data in further observations, we discard it as inaccurate.
The anti-science behind collections of speculation such as creationism starts out with a theory (here in the colloquial sense) and collects data, then models the interpretation of the data on the original assumption. If the data do not fit the assumption, they are discarded as inaccurate.
(I'm not trying to be rigorous with my definitions of scientific methodology here, merely succinct. I'm sure you can all follow me, anyway.)
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