Ken Ham Once Again Demonstrates That He Has No Understanding of Science

Ken Ham says that evolution is religion.  In an interview with The Christian Post, Jeannie Law writes:

“You see, evolutionists have beliefs just like creationists have beliefs. For instance, this movie — ‘Is Genesis History?’ — the Ph.D. scientists that are in this movie, their role as scientists in a modern world is to show that observational science confirms the Bible’s history about creation, and then the flood, the tower of babble,” Ham stated. “So it’s not science and creation, it’s not science and religion, it’s really a battle of two worldviews.”

The 65-year-old describes it as a conflict of two starting points — God’s word or man’s word. He said the dispute lies in historical science, which is science about beliefs in the past. Some believe in what God says happened throughout history and others believe in what men say.

“So it’s really a battle between two religions. Evolution, that’s a religion. It’s really the pagan religion of this age to explain life without God,” he argued. “There’s always been a battle of two religions since the beginning.”

Is Genesis History? is a new film out from The Truth Project, an organization that has a record for botching truth when it comes to science.  Steven Martin wrote, in 2009, the following:

Focus on the Family is promoting their “Truth Project” to churches and small groups. A quick look at the lesson overview shows that, ironically, the Truth Project doesn’t seem to put much stock in truth when it comes to science (see lesson 5). For example, this lesson states that “Darwinian theory transforms science from the honest investigation of nature into a vehicle for propagating a godless philosophy”. Completely untrue.

If you phrase the study of evolution in this way, you don’t have to address the scientific merits of the theory. Instead, this is a craven appeal of the emotions of Christians to get them to reject the perfectly valid scientific theory of evolution because it is not of God.

Onward.

Ken Ham’s entire talking point for this perspective is his mistaken impression that we cannot reconstruct the past.  He is quoted as saying:

“When it comes to knowledge of our past, concerning our origins, that knowledge is very different because now you’re talking about, ‘How did the universe come into being [when] I wasn’t there to see that happen?’” Ham explained.

This is completely facile and betrays a complete lack of understanding of how science works. Indeed, daily events require us to reconstruct events for which we were not present. This is no different than reconstructing a crime scene or conducting an archaeological excavation, in which we reconstruct past events. Would Ken Ham actually have us believe that we cannot know anything about our past because we weren’t there? That is nothing short of idiotic and comes from someone who has no understanding of science.

Off-Topic: I have complained to the Christian Post about their website before.  When I went to the site today, a video ad that covered the right side of the screen auto-loaded and played, which I watched and then stopped.  While I was writing the post, the stupid video reloaded and played three more times.  This kind of thing is what is ruining the internet.