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Comment by Shenglong | Hacker News Reader

It hurts science because it's wrong. I'm not trying to be a jackass here, but believing in creationism is the same as saying "I believe acceleration at the Earth's surface is exactly 10 km/s^2 because it says so in the Bible." (it doesn't... I hope)

It discourages scientific criticism of ideas. When you are taught a scientific fact or theory, you are always welcomed to, and often encouraged to question it. "Why is acceleration 9.81m/s^2? How do I know that it is true as of right now? If I carry out my own experiment, will I see this?" When you listen to the "word of god", this is no longer the case. You know it's right because someone, thousands of years ago, apparently said it is.

Yes, it can waste tax dollars - but we can always make more dollars. An innovative generation that can carry on mankind's survival? That's a little more important.

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I wouldn't go quite that far. A belief in a creator can be tempered with rationality. Let's not forget that Newton, for example, devoted more of his writings to Christianity than he did to science and in fact sought natural laws because he believed that God would create a universe that behaved like clockwork. Einstein's intuition that a simple solution existed to the Michaelson-Morely paradox also derived in part from some kind of unempirical preconception about how "God" (his was impersonal) operated the universe.

Let us also not forget that people are largely the products of their society. Would Newton have been devoutly Christian if he were born in Sweden in 2012?

How many discoveries in the past (and even in the present) were made by people who believed in Creationism?

Why didn't that belief stop them from advancing science?

Why would it now do so?

Back ten, there wasn't a good scientific explanation for evolution. Now there is. Back then, believing in creationism, didn't mean rejecting science. These days, If you still believe in creationism, it means that you reject science.

This is a list of famous thinkers/scientists who were also christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...

Science has practically been a branch of Christianity for the last 1,000 years. It's only since Reagan that science has essentially been hijacked by new atheism and private industry.

The other people replying to you are making some good points. Your claim is not right, actually. Reporting that phenomena such as acceleration are different from what is measured would be wrong--that is true. But you cannot claim that scientists who doubt theories such as macroevolution and lean towards some form of creationism are as wrong as that. The reason is that you cannot observe who caused the big bang, how they brought all the universe into being, etc. Physics keeps yielding surprises, and so do other sciences, and our models are constantly adapted. To me, biological theories are fuzzier than some of the others, but I'll admit I have not studied it much. Dr. James Tour mentions the creation versus evolution debate on his website, and while he doesn't feel like either side can make a strong scientific case, he did tell me a few months ago that he doesn't think the leading evolutionary biologists understand the chemistry that they claim led to the formation of life. Dr. Tour isn't the only intelligent person making great strides in the natural sciences who believes that, either. You can believe he and other researchers are wrong to doubt macroevolution, but you should be careful about making strong claims you cannot back up, because they do not promote constructive debate.

I'm actually not following your logic. We'll never be able to prove everything in this world, but the important distinction here is the quest for knowledge--an answer. Even those scientists who may not fully understand the chemistry behind the creation of life, they are making strides towards it. They are trying to find a justifiable answer.

Unless you count prayer as an attempt to further an understanding of the world through Creationism, I'd say my post was right on the money.

Science is moving forward, creationism is not. Regardless of which is right or which is more justifiable, it's not even debatable, which one promotes the pursuit of knowledge.

Scientists who believe in a deity are not necessarily bumping into contradictions to their faith. Plenty consider theistic evolution to be a possibility. A deity actually makes a lot of the problems with our current theories much easier. It is actually possible to analyze all that can be observed and still be left with questions, and reserve the possibility that a deity is involved. You don't have to believe that, and I'm actually all for science education based on questioning and reasoning rather than forcing dogma down students' throats, but you shouldn't just assume that all creationists reason in the same ways and blatantly claim none of them advance scientific knowledge.

This isn't a mathematical theorem, and you can't use anecdotes to disprove a claim. I am not claiming that creationists in general do not advance scientific knowledge - I am claiming that creationism as a whole does not aid in advancing scientific knowledge.

Can a creationist benefit scientific knowledge? Will a person benefit scientific knowledge more by choosing creationism over evolution? I doubt it, at least in a general case.

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