Creationism is not scientifically valid - problem of falsifiability.
How (generally speaking) do we determine which scientific theory is valid or not?
Typically, we look at the evidence to see if there's any supporting or refuting that theory. But what happens if... we are inherently unable to even hypothetically find evidence that could refute it? Here comes the concept of falsifiability.
Falsifiability is a concept introduced by Karl Popper - a famous philosopher of science known for his rejection of the classical inductivist view on the scientific method. The concept is typically defined as: "Standard of evaluation of scientific statements, including theories and hypotheses. A statement is falsifiable if it belongs to a language or logical structure capable of describing an empirical observation that contradicts it."
Karl Popper in year 1990.
But, you may ask, why do I think that falsifiability is important? Well, if we can't falsify a scientific claim then we essentially can never evaluate whether or not it is true (at least scientifically). For example, Big Bang theory is considered to be well supported because there is a large amount of observations that fit neatly into predictions made by this theory. If Big Bang theory would allow for any kind of evidence to exist then it would be impossible to determine whether it is true. If a claim can accommodate any type of evidence then even if it was false we could never find out about it because of the way it is structured. Why should we even bother to entertain such a claim if its propositions can't be tested scientifically.
Imagine if galaxies were not generally traveling away from each other and Cosmic Background Radiation was strictly heterogeneous (there would be large fluctuation of temperatures across universe). In that case Big Bang theory would collapse. But what if theoretical physicists would just say "oh yeah, that's cool but what if there is some kind of really cool particle that just does the opposite thing of what we would normally predict?". In that case, the theory would simply become unable to be disproven - it would become unfalsifiable. Why should we then take it seriously?
Fortunately, for the Big Bang theory, it is in fact falsifiable and thus high levels of uniformity (homogeneity) of Cosmic Background Radiation and galaxies typically traveling away from each other confirm it to be true.
Temperature map of the cosmic microwave background measured by the Planck spacecraft.
And this brings as back to the title of this ✨amazing✨article. Since we've established why falsifiability matters we can look at why creationism (in any of it's many flavors - be it Intelligent Design, Young Earth Creationism and so on) does not fit the criteria of falsifiability.
If you've interacted with creationists on the internet or in real life at least a couple of times you've probably stumbled upon one that said something akin to "well that seems to disprove creationism but it could be different in the past". It's essentially a thought-terminating slogan that allows them to confidently believe in something that is not scientifically supported.
And such slogan can be applied to many arguments. For example if a creationist is shown that a given rock is radiometrically dated to be much older than 6000 years they frequently just say "that's cool but rates of radiometric decay could just be different in the past". Similarly, when a given creationist is shown that all organisms share DNA they will simply claim "this totally proves nothing! An intelligent designer could just use the same blueprint if he wanted to".
And that, unfortunately for them, exposes the biggest glaring problem with creationism - lack of falsifiability. Sure, the Earth could be dated to be 6000 years old but it also could be dated to be 10 trillion years old and Young Earth Creationism would still stand unshaken. Similarly, an intelligent designer could re-use the same blueprint but he could have also decided to, let's say, be very creative and design organisms with not only completely different genomic sequences but also relying on completely different biochemistry and make them coexist on Earth.
In other words, no matter what evidence is provided, creationists will still assert that their beliefs are totally true and you're the delusional one if you don't believe in the same exact dogma. Creationism essentially can explain everything but in doing so it also...explains nothing. A fair comparison could be a knight that has never challenged anyone for fight and ran away when he was challenged and thus would claim that he never lost any battle. Surely, he would never lose but not because he's a great warrior but merely because he's a coward. He can't say he lost any battle but he also can't say he won any either.
And at last, some of you may ask: "but what about evolutionary theory?!". I'm very glad you've asked because evolutionary theory just like Big Bang theory and unlike creationism is actually very much falsifiable.
Let's take a look at what differentiates different organisms. Well, firstly, it's DNA differences. So if all organisms shared common ancestor there should be some mechanism that would allow the DNA of such ancestor to change over and over again so it could allow for such a diversification of life on Earth. An excellent example of such mechanism are... mutations! But what if mutations didn't exist? Well, then sequences couldn't be altered and thus our common ancestor would be incapable of diversifying into wide array of organisms. In other words - evolutionary theory would be obliterated. Thus, it is in fact falsifiable. It merely wasn't falsified yet.
Gene duplication - a common mutation and one of mechanisms of antibiotic resistance found in bacteria.
And here's a picture of Simosuchus since they're really cool.
Sources:
1. Falsifiability: https://share.google/tymLdx0XwhPJVKCn3
2. Karl Popper: https://share.google/pRJEQWi9AXRcixuqT
3. Mutations: https://share.google/AgA5ILXQJjDOsKh3P
PS. It's also noteworthy to point out that there is also much much more that could lead to evolutionary theory being falsified. I simply used such words because I thought that this ending of the article was really fitting.
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