My point is that our worldviews, and we all have them, affect everything we do. Science is not free from the influence of one's worldview, as much as many would like to think. Science seeeks to be objective, but the interpretation of one's results requires one to sift them through one's worldview. So, scientists who are evolutionists or creationists are looking at their results through the lense of their worldviews and this can and does effect their interpretations.
You're conflating partial truths with things that don't apply. Though it is true science cannot be 100% objective, this does not mean what comes out of the creationist camps qualifies as doing science. It has been outright falsified. Point for point, it has been falsified in its methods and criticisms of mainstream science. It is not a matter of worldviews that determine the results using the scientific method. It is specifically designed to reduce biases. And though it cannot totally eliminate them, it is a far cry more than just a simple matter of one opinion being as good as the next. That is not true. The creationist's science, is bad science. Not just simply a worldview that does science differently.
Now, where worldviews do come in is when it goes beyond doing science and makes philosophical conclusions, such as in philosophical materialism. If someone says that science proves this philosophical position, that is not a conclusion of science. If that is being taught in a science classroom, that science shows that no God can exist because of evolution, that is bogus and should be thrown out along with all the other non-science, like creationism.
Creationism is not a philosophy. It is not a theology. It's just plain old junk science that doesn't measure up to modern science. It has nothing to do with worldviews and matters of equal opinion. What truth postmodernism exposes, does not apply here.
On another note, circular reasoning itself is not bad. This type of reasoning is used continually in our lives when we defer to an authority greater than ourselves. We say the answer is final because this authority has said so, because they are they highest and final authority.
Not in my world!
We see something of this in the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, they are the final authority in a court case's decision. We do not appeal any higher.
Except of course when a Supreme Court decision is reversed. And the processes of appeal that goes into that. So much for a final word.
So, it is with the Bible. God has spoken, He has the highest authority above all authorities since He is God. No one can challenge His authority, or if they do they will in the end simply be shown to be false. His authority is supreme, so to continually appeal to the Bible as one's final authority is not wrong, in fact it is right since God is the highest authority for all of life and existence.
Except of course for those who interpret this "final authority". It is not God speaking, of course. It's folks ranging from the Pope of Rome to Pat Robertson telling you their opinions of what God says as the "final authority". I reject this plea as it's full of inconsistencies and contradictions. It boils down to nothing more than simple biased opinion appealing to God to shut the mouths of those who disagree with you.
That's not how science works, by the way.
So, the challenge comes at the level of one's worldview and one cannot simply say Christians are wrong for continually appealing to the Bible. Since God has spoken, all are accountable to Him and to what He has said.
I would say they are wrong because they are appealing to their reading of the Bible, which in most cases is fraught with ignorance that they then impose upon science using unqualified hacks who claim to be doing science, and whose research has has failed peer review, and then in turn turn to popular opinion to try to appeal to emotions of the mainstream and call all that legitimate science.
It stinks. It's not science. And it's not good faith either. It's lies and manipulations that stink in the nostrils of man and God, IMHO.
I leave this with this perfect quotation from the
Statement on Evolution, Botanical Society of America Here's a few excerpts from it:
"Science is not about fairness, and all explanations are not equal. Some scientific explanations are highly speculative with little in the way of supporting evidence, and they will stand or fall based upon rigorous testing. The history of science is littered with discarded explanations, e.g., inheritance of acquired characters, but these weren’t discarded because of public opinion or general popularity; each one earned that distinction by being scientifically falsified. Scientists may jump on a “band wagon” for some new explanation, particularly if it has tremendous explanatory power, something that makes sense out of previously unexplained phenomena. But for an explanation to become a mainstream component of a theory, it must be tested and found useful in doing science."
...
"What would the creationist paradigm have done? No telling. Perhaps nothing, because observing three wheat species specially created to feed humans would not have generated any questions that needed answering. No predictions are made, so there is no reason or direction for seeking further knowledge. This demonstrates the scientific uselessness of creationism. While creationism explains everything, it offers no understanding beyond, “that’s the way it was created.” No testable predictions can be derived from the creationist explanation. Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. In those few instances where predictions can be inferred from Biblical passages (e.g., groups of related organisms, migration of all animals from the resting place of the ark on Mt. Ararat to their present locations, genetic diversity derived from small founder populations, dispersal ability of organisms in direct proportion to their distance from eastern Turkey), creationism has been scientifically falsified.
Is it fair or good science education to teach about an unsuccessful, scientifically useless explanation just because it pleases people with a particular religious belief? Is it unfair to ignore scientifically useless explanations, particularly if they have played no role in the development of modern scientific concepts? Science education is about teaching valid concepts and those that led to the development of new explanations."
[Emphasis Mine]
Say whatever you will about worldviews and opinions, it's not a matter of opinion to state that Creationism has not contributed one single thing to the applied sciences in any area. That alone disqualifies them being taught as valid science. Creationism consists of nothing better than criticisms of what it doesn't like. It contributes nothing, and is scientifically useless.
How sad.
