"Barnes and Morris both choose processes that we know to operate at different rates at different times, and then use the observed rates to estimate the time at which the process began. Dating the past is a complicated and technical business, and one cannot ignore the technical details simply to generate the ages one wants. Without a thorough understanding of which rates are constant overtime and which rates fluctuate wildly, Creationist dates are bound to be stabs in the dark. However, Creationists know what they want the age of the earth to be. So just as in the case of the second law of thermodynamics, important parts of science are abused. By carefully picking a process on the basis of its ability to give the desired result, without attending to the question whether it is reasonable to think that it happened at a constant rate, Creationists attempt to convince the uninitiated that their blind dates have scientific references. Nobody should be taken in."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from EnglandBiographers from the United KingdomAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from EnglandSkeptics
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 5, “What Price Creationism?” (pp. 163-164)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Kitcher
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Philip Kitcher
31 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Philip Kitcher →
Related Quotes
"Creationist strategy is often to run entirely different issues together, to concoct a muddy paste out of distinct all…"
"The book that follows is a chase. The Creationist is allowed to choose one battleground after another. Given each cho…"
"Creationists are actually criticizing methods that are used throughout science. As I shall argue extensively, there i…"
"Ironically, philosophers of science owe the Creationists a debt. For the “scientific” Creationists have constructed a…"
"In almost any natural population of organisms, more offspring will be produced than are able to survive. The offsprin…"
"Evolutionary change is change in the genetic constitution of a population. This type of change can come about as a re…"
"Do the doctrine’s problem-solving strategies encounter recurrent difficulties in a significant range of cases? Are th…"
"Consistency is not the hobgoblin of the Creationist mind."
"The road to Creationism is paved with bad philosophy."
"Even if Creationists continue to lose in the courts, they may still succeed in wreaking havoc upon science education …"