The Two-Brain Solution : Why Young Earth Creationists Are Attracted to Physics and Astronomy

Touchstone ^ | Phillip Johnson

[SirLinksalot]

The January/February 2007 issue of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors, features an article by a college teacher named Alvin Saperstein, of Wayne State University, about how his introductory astronomy and physics courses are attracting many young-earth creationists.

These may be very good students, but they frustrate him because he cannot convince them that the universe and all it contains, including our planet, came into existence in a natural evolutionary process over billions of years, rather than in the six days of creation a few thousand years ago, as creationists calculate from the literal words of Genesis.

No problem arises when the professor explains how the universe works now. It is only when he lectures about cosmology, or evolutionary theory in geology, biology, or anthropology, and asks his students if anything he has said bothers them, that discomfort begins to appear. The class skeptics are not disruptive or rude; they express their contrary opinions only after the professor asks for their reactions to his exposition of orthodox scientific theory.

Saperstein infers that the few students who openly voice their doubts represent a much larger number of silent creationist students. He asks himself, “Are they silent because of fear of professorial retribution, because they don’t know whom to believe, or because they just don’t care?” Clearly, the students who openly express their doubts deserve more respect than the apathetic ones (if there are any) who just don’t care.

Saperstein reports that “a serious, dedicated student asked me, ‘What am I supposed to believe? You have spent the semester explaining to us why I should believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old in a universe created 13.5 billion years ago.

[Alamo-Girl]

Fortunately, the truth of Genesis doesn't depend on either of us: It is God's Word. We both try to understand it. And that's the important thing.

Beautifully said, dearest sister in Christ!

[sbhitchc]

Mike,

I’ve read a lot of your posts (here and in other threads) and far be it for me to question your science or accept it for that matter. It is to complex of a subject to be explained in a free republic post, or a least for me it is. I do work an analytical field and have for about the same time as you it sounds (50+ years old)... so i need to question your logic in coming to the conclusion that you have.

It can be easily proven through science that the virgin birth is impossible.

It can be easily proven through science that the River Nile turning to blood was impossible.

It can be easily proven through science that a man can not turn water to wine.

It can be easily proven through science that a bush can not burn without being consumed.

It can be easily proven through science that a man can not walk on the surface of water.

It can be easily proven through science that three children could not survive in a furnace burning so hot that you could not stand next to it.

It can be easily proven through science that the resurrection is impossible.

What is left? Are they all misinterpretations? What do we believe, a lie? I choose to believe that science has not caught up to reality, like when some believed the earth was flat, or that we would have the air sucked out of our lungs if we traveled 60 miles an hour.

Of course I could be wrong and if I am, I am eaten by the worms in my grave and it made no difference in the end anyways.