Religion and science: Answering creationists' questions.

Creationists Have Questions. I Have Answers.

Creationists Have Questions. I Have Answers.

Bad Astronomy
The entire universe in blog form
Feb. 6 2014 7:45 AM

Answers for Creationists

answers for creationists
You got questions? I got answers.

Photo by Phil Plait

After writing yesterday about the now-famous/infamous debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, I don’t want to make this blog all creationism all the time, but indulge me this one more time, if you will. On BuzzFeed, there is a clever listicle that is a collection of 22 photos showing creationists holding up questions they have for people who “believe” in evolution.

Phil Plait Phil Plait




Because of this, it’s worth exploring and answering the questions presented. Some could be simply answered yes or no, but I’m all about going a bit deeper. With 22 questions I won’t go too deep, but if you have these questions yourself, or have been asked them, I hope this helps.

I’ll repeat the question below, and give my answers.




2) “Are you scared of a Divine Creator?”

No. In fact, if there is a Judeo-Christian god, that would have fascinating implications for much of what we scientists study, and would be a rich vein to mine. Perhaps a more pertinent question is, “Are you scared there might not be a Divine Creator?” There is more room for a god in science than there is for no god in religious faith.


It might be internally consistent, even logical, but a bit of a stretch. After all, we can posit that God created the Universe last Thursday, looking exactly as it is, with all evidence pointing to it being old and your memories implanted such that you think you’re older than a mere few days. Consistent, sure, but plausible? Not really.








See No. 4. Also, as far as the Big Bang goes, we don’t know how or why the Universe came into being (though there are some interesting ideas). But “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer in science. It leads to asking more questions, which leads to more exploration, which leads to more understanding. Just being given an answer is like using the answer key to fill in a crossword puzzle. It’s no fun.

7) “What about noetics?”



There is also a more New Age-y field called noetics, which posits that the mind can have an effect on matter (though there is more to it than that). I’m not sure what that had to do with God, except the idea that God gave humans mind. But for that claim to sway me I want evidence, not just a proclamation that it is so.



Meaning in life is what you make of it. For me that’s love, beauty, art, science, and learning. For others it may be different, but those are what call to me.







We don’t.




This is incorrect on many levels; we have many bones from different individuals of Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy’s species), and we have lots of bones from other ancient humans and their predecessors, including branches of hominids that did not lead to us. We also see huge numbers of transition fossils from various species, implying we too evolved from earlier species. And there aren’t hundreds needed; it’s not hard to draw conclusions from fewer samples. You might as well ask for every single bone from every single individual who ever lived, going back millions of years. It’s not needed.

13) “Does metamorphosis help support evolution?”

Let me say it this way: It doesn’t disprove evolution. While we don’t understand how it began, that leads to asking more questions and learning more about it. And we do have some understanding of it.


First, creationism and the Bible aren’t theories. Second, evolution is a fact and a theory. If this question is an argument to allow creationism to be taught in schools, that’s a violation of the First Amendment anyway.


Actually, science is testable, observable, and repeatable! That’s the very definition of what science is! And if you actually mean evolution, that fits the criteria as well. There are countless examples. Here’s one.



Again, here you go.





19) “Can you believe in ‘the big bang’ without 'faith'”?


I agree; it is amazing! I’ve written about this many times. But we know that complexity can arise naturally through the laws of physics. It doesn’t take very complex rules to create huge diversity. Look at poker; a simple set of rules creates a game that has so many combinations it’s essentially infinite to human experience. We can figure out the rules of nature by studying the way processes follow them, and deduce what’s going on behind the scenes. And whenever we do, we see science.


A quibble: It wasn’t an exploding star, but an explosion of space and time. But as I said for No. 6, we don’t know, but that’s OK, because we learn more about it every day. Someday we will know, but until then, using a supernatural explanation without explaining why doesn’t give you any true understanding of it. That only leads to the stopping of learning, not the growth of it.



The answer is that evolution is not a line from one species to the next. Different species branch off from earlier ones, they don’t replace them. You can imagine a pair of primates (not monkeys; those are different from apes) had two children, one the same as the parents, and one slightly different. They both breed, passing down their genes. Sometimes mutations happen, sometimes they don’t. Over time, you can get two different species: One close to the original, and another distinct, both living at the same time. That’s a gross simplification, but this might help.


