Paul, I found your suggested article to be very biased against creation science and very pro-evolution. The writer seems to try to be fair to people who bring some kind godly faith to their evolution as long as they don?t reject the basic conclusions of evolution, like creation science does. I don't think the paradigms or axioms are very well defined or developed. The Evolution Paradigm - 1) everything including the origin and complexity of life can be explained with the laws of biology, chemistry, math, and physics. 2) The earth is about 4.7 billion years old. 3) If God exists, man cannot observe anything that he does. 4)The evolution paradigm is based on two axioms. Statement 1) is the same as the definition of the naturalistic axiom. Statement 2) is a conclusion of the Evolution Paradigm and doesn't really define it. 3) does not belong in the paradigm but belongs to the naturalistic axiom The observable axiom - scientists can accurately observe reality and from these observations develop models, theories and laws to describe it. Just because accurate observation is possible does not mean it is not colored by prejudice, worldview or mis-conceptions. Nor does it mean the proposed models, theories and laws describing reality will do so with any accuracy or truthful content. Especially when coupled with the naturalistic axiom. The naturalistic axiom - reality can be fully explained with the laws of biology, chemistry, math and physics. This axiom should contain the portion about origins, also to include matter, energy, elements, stars, planets, etc?, That only natural causes are needed to explain anything. If it is true than what place is there for God? No God exists should be part of this axiom. The Literalist Paradigm - God created the universe and the earth in 6 days less than ten thousand years ago. The axiom is based on a literal interpretation of the creation story found in the Bible. The literalist paradigm is based on a two axioms. The existence axiom - God exists. The literal axiom - God wanted the creation story found in Genesis to be interpreted literally because it is a scientifically accurate account of creation. 5)The literal axiom and the observable axiom are mutually exclusive. 6) If one is true then the other must be false. Statements 5 & 6 are absolutely false. The author doesn't even bother to back up his statements. He even contradicts himself by saying "literally because it is a scientifically accurate account?". If that is true then the observable axiom should be available to confirm or deny Genesis. The Creation Science Paradigm - this paradigm shares the beliefs of the literalist paradigm with one important exception. This paradigm relies on three axioms: the existence axiom, the literal axiom and the observable axiom. This paradigm is inconsistent with basic logic. It is like claiming that the earth must be a cube, because some of the scientific evidence that suggests that it is a sphere has been misinterpreted. It just does not make any sense to do this. The literal axiom is strong enough to stand on its own. It is self evident to many people, and it does not need science to back it up. Creation scientists spend way too much time trying to prove the literal axiom by questioning the validity of scientific theories and techniques. This is just foolish - not only does he not bother to define the CS paradigm, be spends the whole paragraph giving his opinion as to why it isn?t viable. His logic is idiotic. There is no conflict with the observable axiom. Creation scientists make good use of the observable axiom, it's what constitutes the majority of their arguements. The Day Age Paradigm - Each day in Genesis should not be interpreted as a 24 hour day. The days represent long periods of time. This allows the earth and universe to be old. It also accommodates the fossil record, because with this interpretation one would expect simple animals to appear first. God is responsible for creation but he used evolution as a tool. This paradigm is based on the observable axiom, the existence axiom and the inspired axiom. The inspired axiom - the Bible is the inspired word of God. It should therefore be read very carefully, but different interpretations of scripture are possible. There are two flavors of the inspired axiom - one interprets the word inspired to mean that God did not allow any errors during or since the inspiration. The other allows for man to introduce errors. With the first interpretation, the Bible is the word of God. With the second, the Bible is man?s interpretation of God?s word. The Gap Paradigm - Each day in Genesis is a 24 hour day, but the days are separated by long expanses of time. Like the day age theory, this allows for the old age of the earth. Unlike the day age theory, it allows less freedom for God to use evolution as a tool. This paradigm is based on the observable, the existence and inspired axioms. The Allegory Paradigm - the amount of work that God needed to undertake to create the universe, the galaxies, stars, and life is almost infinite. If Genesis attempted to describe all of these events, then the Bible would require several billion pages of text (how much text is needed to say "God spoke it into existence"?). And God would have to spend an incredible amount of time explaining concepts like probability, physics, DNA, and chemistry to Moses Why go into the nitty gritty details?. So God never intended for the story to be scientifically accurate. The story is an allegory. The key points are symbolized in the form of a story whose purpose is to describe man?s relationship to God. The allegory paradigm relies on the existence, the inspired and the observable axioms. The Intelligent Design Paradigm - a designer created the universe and the earth. The earth is about 4.7 billion years old. The designer created life on earth 3 billion years ago. Since then, the designer has continued to guide many of the changes. It is this guidance that explains most of the information found in life today. Evolution and natural selection are responsible for the optimization and maintenance of information, but not its creation. The intelligent design paradigm is based on the observable axiom. This paradigm does not require a specific Biblical interpretation, so it is not restricted to Christianity. This is why the word designer instead of God is used to describe the paradigm. It is also interesting to note that this paradigm does not use the existence axiom. The paradigm does not assume that God exists. Instead it relies on the observation axiom to determine whether or not a designer exists. Creation Science also uses the observation axiom. The intelligent design paradigm is the only paradigm based on a single axiom, and it is the only paradigm that can be falsified Not true, everything that uses the observation axiom can be falsified. (the naturalistic axiom prevents the evolution paradigm from being disproved) Again, untrue, for example, if the geologic column could be shown to have accumulated in a short period of time, than the evolution paradigm would be falsified. . If the puzzles of life?s origin and its evolution are solved next year (now he's just being funny), then the intelligent design paradigm is false. If this happens, supporters of this paradigm will either fall back to the evolution paradigm or be forced to adopt the existence axiom. Paradigm Existence Axiom Observable Axiom Literal Axiom Inspired Axiom Naturalistic Axiom Can be disproved Intelligent Design X X Evolution X X Literal X X Gap X X X Day Age X X X Allegory X X X Creation Science X X X From this table, it should be clear that most people find the observable axiom and the existence axiom self evident. It should also be clear that all but one paradigm require two or more axioms. Because all axioms are assumptions based on faith, it is always desirable to minimize the number of axioms required to construct a paradigm. Why minimize? As long as your axioms are obviously true, who cares how many you have. All of these axioms are on equal footing with each other. All are assumptions. None can be proved or disproved. And not a single axiom is self evident to everybody. To most scientists, the observable axiom is self evident. To all Christians, the existence axiom is self evident. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the naturalistic axiom. Science relies heavily on the naturalistic axiom. This needs to be re-stated: Science and naturalism have become one and the same thing, to the exclusion of the observable axiom, if the observation doesn?t fit, it is ignored or discarded or a future explanation is assumed. This does not mean that all scientists are atheists Of course not, but try to use observation or logic against naturalism - not allowed!. But it does mean that they are only allowed to consider naturalistic explanations when they propose theories to explain their observations. This approach has served science very well Nope, it hasn't helped a bit, in fact it has saddled us all with pointless and untrue conclusions about nature and humanity that have had disasterous results in recent history. But it does have a potentially fatal flaw - if there is a Creator, then science cannot find Him. The axiom forces this possibility to be ruled out before the evidence is considered. can't argue with that. With the use of indirect logic, science does not require the naturalistic axiom. So this exclusion seems to be more for convenience and politics than for necessity. The result is that the truth is hidden and error reigns. To conclude: this author is confused about things because if his acceptance of evolutionary conclusions and completely wrong about creation science. --------------------------------- Check out the hottest 2008 models today at Yahoo! Autos.