What about Forensic Science?

The strict definition of the word “science” is “knowledge.” Our expanded definition, it will be remembered, was “systematized knowledge derived from observation” (Webster’s). According to this strict definition, evolution cannot possibly be called science precisely because no one has ever seen anything evolve in the Darwinian sense ^[1]. Evolution must be taken simply as an article of faith. At this juncture a valid question is raised concerning various branches of forensic science. Crime scene investigators, or air crash investigators are called upon, as scientists, to carefully examine the relevant data and reconstruct events that occurred in the unobserved past. Could not these types of endeavours, including other disciples such as historical geology, paleontology and archaeology rightly be called “science?”  I’m willing to grant, with several qualifications, that the term “science” may rightly be expanded to include disciplines dealing with that which is not observed directly.

To begin with, we have to remember that science refers to knowledge. Now a person can believe things that are either true or not true. But a person can only know something that is true. It is impossible to know something that is not true. Science therefore by definition is concerned with truth. Secondly, and corollary to the first point, one engaging in scientific enterprise must be prepared to follow the evidence wherever it leads. This is of course easier said than done. Often the evidence leads in a direction contrary to long held and cherished ideas. A true scientist is always prepared to jettison such ideas in favour of tangible evidence^[2].  Thirdly, scientists must operate with the reasonable assumption that similar causes will produce similar effects.

Scientists who conduct their investigations in such a manner have our respect. Though the majority of their theories may turn out to be incorrect, we respect their honest search for truth and rejoice with them on those occasions when their theories are vindicated.  On the other hand, what are we to think of, say, a crime scene investigator who wanted to blame a specific person with a murder, no matter what the evidence suggested? What would we think of an investigator who regarded a clear knife-wound as a gunshot? Or a burn victim as someone who died by drowning? I think we can agree that whatever else he may be doing at the crime scene, it could hardly be considered “science.”

I’m convinced that many scientists holding to the evolution story, despite the sophisticated lingo, are really doing the same thing as our unscrupulous crime scene investigator. Just as the investigator “knew” that X was the murderer, and forced the evidence to conform to this fact, many scientists today just “know” that evolution occurred. In other words, commitment to the evolution story was decided upon prior to an examination of the evidence^[3]. It was not derived from it. Facts that ostensibly conflict with the evolution story are dealt with in various ways. Either an elaborate “just so” story is concocted to account for it^[4], or the facts themselves are simply ignored or denied^[5]. Again, a crime scene investigator guilty of such anti-intellectual duplicity could hardly expect to keep his job for very long! But evolution is a different story. It’s not a real scientific theory at all but a carefully guarded state religion and scientists are encouraged to do whatever it takes^[6] to keep their god alive in the minds of an unquestioning general public.

Notes and References:

1. Many evolutionists argue that evolution has been observed in things like bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant, or viruses mutating. Others may point to various examples of speciation. These kinds of changes do no damage to the biblical creation position whatever. Creationists believe in change over time. Our position however is that these kinds of micro changes cannot possibly be extrapolated over millions of years to accomplish evolution in the Darwinian sense. In other words, though we must admit that living things are changing, the kinds of changes we see taking place are not sufficient to change one kind of animal into a fundamentally different kind.

2. One would think that those willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads would receive some sort of respect from the intellectually elite. Sadly, where evolution is concerned, this is not the case. Ben Stein’s eye-opening 2008 documentary film “Expelled” does a great job exposing the discrimination on the part of mainstream science towards anyone who even dares to question the evolution story.

3. “It is not the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations…” Geneticist Richard Lewontin (As quoted by Philip Johnson, "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds", 1997, p. 81)

4. Examples abound. The fossilized Laetolie footprints for instance, are unmistakably human. Because they were supposedly made nearly 3 million years ago the evolution story cannot permit them to be classified as human. Their solution? The australopithecines, ape-like creatures from which we supposedly evolved are now regarded as having human feet! Note that the actual fossil evidence for the australopithecine foot is very scanty; certainly not enough to know the creature had human feet. Furthermore, what they do have resembles an ape’s foot, not a human’s. See: Scientific American, August, 2005, p. 19

5. Over 900 pages documenting discoveries that conflict with the evolution story are found in Michael A. Cremo and and Richard L. Thompson, “Forbidden Archaeology”, Torchlight Publishing; 2nd edition (January 1998).  Their work has been largely ignored or ridiculed.

6. In May 2005 I heard Dr. Jack Cuozzo lecture on Neanderthal people. Commenting on the 1911 discovery of the Neanderthal fossil specimen known as Quina V, Cuozzo stated,

“I was in the laboratory of the Musee de L’Homme in Paris, France in 1979 when a human paleontologist cut off the chin of the lower jaw of La Quina V, a female Neanderthal. When this skull came out of the ground in 1911, it had a chin. Apes have no chins, so he tried to make it look more ape-like.”

Cuozzo, and orthodontist by trade, also explained how many of the so-called human “missing links” are being put together horribly wrong. For instance, the Neanderthal known as La Moustier I was reconstructed to look more ape-like by setting his jaw 30mm out of the socket. A better interpretation of the Neanderthal fossils may be found in Cuozzo’s book “Buried Alive”, Master Books, 1998