Christianity is the Source of All Science, Well According to AiG is it.

Here's something . . . well not new, but certainly consistent . . . from little kennie ham: "Is Science Secular?"  Now before getting into the article, I want to consider just the title, 'Is Science Secular?'.  Looking at all of the scientific advances, from Newton to Einstein, from the Industrial Revolution to today's most cutting edge science, can you find one iota of religion within those scientific theories?

I've asked this before -- when you look at something like Newton's work, where is the part where you say "And here is where God does his thing!"?  You might notice that there isn't one.  There is nothing that identifies where the 'magic' happens.  How I see it is that there are many Theists who have advanced many scientific theories, but when the science conflicts with religious views, they manage to rise above those views and see the world in a much clearer and sharper light.  Does anyone really think this is how Newton did his scientific work:

I don't believe it, but one of the many arguments made over the years is that many of the greatest scientists were Christians.  I would even phrase it differently, many of histories greatest minds were Theists!  I word it that way because often Christians forget that many advances were made by other-than-Christian believers, I do have to wonder if kennie will forget that little item.  OK, with my point made, I have to wonder what direction little kennie is going to take his article?  OK, here goes -- time to get muddy.

"Many people today insist that science can only be done by people who have a secular worldview—or at least by those who are willing to leave their religious views at the door as they enter the science lab."

Strawman alert!  While little kennie and his Hamians may think this, this is not what is being said. Many current scientists are Theists and believe in one religious tradition or another.  What has been said, and proven over and over again, is that if you let your viewpoint blind you to the realities of the world around you, you aren't doing much in the way of science.   This goes for religious or other viewpoints, for example political.

A perfect example is little kennie's concept of the 'same evidence but different conclusions' nonsense. Little kennie's 'creation paleontologists' do not look at the same evidence as an actual paleontologist, his start by rejecting the majority of the evidence because it conflicts with kennie's story of a 6,000 year old Earth.  How is that starting from the same evidence?  An honest answer is that it's not, but don't expect kennie to admit that.  A real scientist starts with a much cleaner plate than one of kennie's.  Imagine if one of his pet 'scientists' put out a paper even suggesting an older Earth.  How long do you think they will be employed by kennie?  Not for very long, I would think.  Or, like what happened to Wild Bill Demski, the 'scientist is question would have to retract any suggestion to the contrary, or he will get kicked out of the club.

"Strictly speaking, my project in The End of Christianity  . . . at the very end of the book, I raised some questions about Noah’s flood in light of an old earth . . . At the meeting with president, provost, dean, and senior professor, the president made it clear to me from the start that my job was on the line.  . . . My questioning the universality of Noah’s flood meant I was a heretic . . . I said just enough to keep my job, and just enough to give me room to recant, as I’m doing here." (Dembki Interview)

What kennie has done here is create a strawman to tell you one thing and then he will try and demolish the strawman and claim victory.  He tried it a few months ago when he was bragging how one of the inventors of the MRI is a creation scientist.  But back then I pointed out that at no point in kennie's bragsheet was any evidence that supported how Creationism was involved in the MRI.  His second sentence compounds his error.

"Several popular atheists and evolutionists have contended that people who reject the big bang and the evolution of living things are so backward that they cannot even be involved in developing new technologies."

No, that is not what is normally said.  What has been said over and over again is that someone's belief set is in no way part and parcel of any scientific breakthroughs.  I don't care how many prominent Theists you can name, and I figure name-dropping is next, but at no point can you point to their work and say "God did this part!"  It's not part of a single equation, it's not listed in the documentation and explanations.  If there is a conflict, the scientist has to be able to see clearly, and Biblical-colored glasses don't allow that.  How many new technologies has kennie and his cohorts actually developed using their religious beliefs?  Again, none!  OK, let's read the rest of the article before commenting further.

OK, a few more comments:

"If science is a strictly secular endeavor without any need for a biblical worldview, then why were most fields of science developed by Bible-believing Christians?"

As expected, kennie focuses on Christians, ignoring contributions from any other religion.  But it does lead me to another comment.  Is kennie forgetting that the education system, for decades and centuries, was dominated by religious groups?  Even Charles Darwin went to religious schools and even once studied to be a Parson (Wikipedia: Charles Darwin Early Life and Education).  

So, now that I think about it, would kennie classify Charles Darwin as a Christian?  Based on his early life and education, an honest person would.  If you look at the details of his religious views (Wikipedia: Charles Darwin Religious Views), you would see he was certainly a Christian in his many viewpoints -- at least a Christian as defined by his times.  What you could never call him is a Christian as little kennie ham see it.  Simply put, one of the areas Darwin and kennie would disagree on is the Bible as a history book.  The list would grow from there.

So the bottom line here is no one is saying Theists or any religious tradition cannot be scientists or perform actual scientific work.  However, that is more than just hanging a label on a door.  You have to be willing to set aside your religious viewpoint if and when it conflicts with your scientific work -- either that of set aside your scientific work and add the label 'creation', as does kennie and his stable of pet 'creation scientists'.

"The U.S. will lose out in “science” when its education system limits science in the classroom exclusively to the religion of secular humanism."

Wow another strawman!  US science classes do not teach secular humanism, science is guided by a philosophy called "Methodological naturalism", which states:

"Methodological naturalism is concerned not with claims about what exists but with methods of learning what nature is. It is the idea that all scientific endeavors, hypotheses, and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events." (Wikipedia: Methodological Naturalism)

Science is, and has been for a long time, based on the natural world, on explanations that can be repeated and explained without the involvement of any supernatural causation.  Little kennie hates that because it doesn't pay homage, or even address, his personal deity.  What kennie can't handle is that science does not address such things on purpose!  How do you replicate an occurrence when it relies on the actions of a deity?  It's not possible!  Science may not be the only world view, but it's the only one that gives us repeated results and rational and usable explanations, isn't it?  Drop something, does it fall because a deity wanted it to fall, or does it fall because of the attraction between two objects of mass as explained by the Scientific Theory of Gravity?  Learning about Gravity doesn't require paying homage to one deity or another, and even paying such homage wouldn't advance our understanding of it, would it?

Now when it comes to something like Gravity, kennie tries to tell us that the whole basis for Gravity is his version of a deity.  So, how does that add to our understanding of Gravity?  Think it through, look at current gravitational theory, where does adding in a homage to a deity add anything?  You see my point, science doesn't address it because it adds nothing to our understanding.  Injecting the actoins of a deity does nothing but give kennie a warm feeling.

Little kennie tries to take things up a level and claim this:

"Real science is observable and repeatable experimentation that only makes sense in a biblical worldview where God’s power keeps the laws of nature consistent. In other words, science proceeds from a biblical worldview."

He was close, but he should have ended his comment after the word 'experimentation'.  What has the Biblical worldview offered in the way of explanation?  Does our understanding of any scientific discipline improve when you try and insert a religious viewpoint?  No, it doesn't improve, it degrades.  For example denying geological evidence of the age of the Earth or trying to explain geographic biodiversity using log rafts after Noah's flood.  These viewpoints limit our understanding, they do not improve it.

Here's another quote from kennie:

"In the secular view, where all matter originated by chance from nothing, there is no ultimate cause or reason for anything that happens, and explanations are constantly changing, so there is no basis for science. "

Why does there have to be an 'ultimate cause'?  Seriously, I can't have any answers to any questions until I know absolutely everything 100% perfectly, including how it all started billions of years ago? So science has no basis, and yet science took us to the moon, science built that stupid ark pseudo-replica kennie is so proud of, science cures and treats diseases that would have killed people if they tried to rely on prayer . . . science has more of a basis, and one based on rationality, than any of the thousands of religions that exist or have existed in the world, including kennie's narrow version of Evangelicalism I like to call 'Hamian'.

After all his name-dropping, as expected, he goes on to the tired argument how science is supposedly some sort of religion.  Really?  What religion took us to the Moon?  What religion explains thermodynamics that lets us build engines?  What religion developed this world-wide communications system we call the Internet?  If science was just another religion worshiping a book, meeting once a week to self-flagellate ourselves with guilt, and keep our minds as closed as possible to other people and ideas, we wouldn't have left the cave!  No, I take that back, we wouldn't have gone into the cave to seek shelter, because since God created the rain, seeking shelter is obviously a form of blasphemy!

One final point from kennie:

"Christians will continue to conduct scientific inquiry and invent things, processes, and science fields as we always have."

Again I would say 'Theists' rather than just limiting it to Christians..  I would have to add and just like the past few centuries, not one of those scientific inquiries or inventions will reference any part of ham's, or anyone else's, religious dogma.  If you disagree, I offer anyone another chance to explain how Newton's specific religious beliefs are used in his work?  If you don't like that one, tell me how even little kennie ham's religious beliefs are used in actual scientific inquiries?  What box do they put God in on the diagrams?  If there a PowerPoint clip-art defining 'God'?

Between kennie and his Answers in Genesis (AiG) Ministry, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and the Discovery Institute (DI), they have many people on staff they like to call 'scientists'.  Just how many scientific advances have been made by any of them using their religious beliefs?  I believe the answer is a resounding 'None!', not a single one!  Oh they will still make claims, but nothing validated by reality.  Just keep kneeling in front of the Bible, kennie, and maybe one day you will understand the lessons it was trying to teach instead of just worshiping the words.