In 2006, the Skeptic's Dictionary published an article describing 10 characteristics of pseudoscience. Although it seems to have been written with the intention of attacking Creationism, even using Creationism as a case in point, the list ironically fits Evolution almost like a glove. Let's go through each one and compare it to Evolution.
"Some pseudoscientific claims are based on an authoritative text rather than observation or empirical investigation."
Although not based on a specific authoritative text, Evolution certainly argues more from authority than from any kind of observation. How often do we hear "99% of scientists believe in Evolution", or some variation of that claim, in defence of Evolution? I've personally had the displeasure of debating a few scientists on the issue, and every single one of them has attempted to pull rank.
But it's not just your average Joe on the streets who will argue this way. Consensus is a very heavily entrenched argument in Evolutionary apologetics. For example, in an article entitled "WHAT THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY SAYS ABOUT EVOLUTION AND INTELLIGENT DESIGN", the ACLU lists a number of organisations and gives their opinions on Evolution, particularly as it pertains to the educational system. For example, their entry about the National Academy of Sciences says "Those who oppose the teaching of evolution in public schools sometimes ask that teachers present evidence against evolution. However, there is no debate within the scientific community over whether evolution occurred, and there is no evidence that evolution has not occurred."
Aside from being very wrong (there is a debate within the scientific community, and there is definitely evidence against Evolution), consensus appears to be given equal footing with evidence in that statement. Why should it matter if there was no debate within the scientific community? There was once "no" debate about the geocentric model either.
But really, "no debate within the scientific community" actually means "no debate within the Evolutionist community". This is the No True Scotsman fallacy. i.e. claims that "no debate" happens is sustained only by defining the scientific community in such a way that any debate that does happen is not classed as happening within the scientific community. You can claim the entire human race is extinct in the same way. Simply claim every human that is currently alive is not a true human because they are not dead.
As you can see, Evolution appeals to, and heavily relies on, the very unscientific method of "consensus science", and thus, although this is not necessarily written down as an authoritative text, Evolution is absolutely based upon a living authority structure rather than observation and empirical investigation. Therefore, this element is satisfied.
"Some pseudoscientific claims explain what non-believers cannot even observe."
Two words: Geologic column. Evolution has an explanation for the geologic column, which is convenient, because it is the only theory that can see the geologic column. The geologic column is an entirely fictitious and circular concept. The geologic column does not exist anywhere on earth, and so Creationism does not explain it, but also does not need to explain it, because it does not exist. Evolutionists sometimes even acknowledge that it is entirely hypothetical, and attempt to explain this fact away, along with a number of anomalous fossils that either show up in the "wrong" place, or span through "millions of years" worth of layers.
While this is anecdotal, I also remember one particular debate I had with an Evolutionist, and he tried to argue from trends in Evolution. He couldn't understand why I, as a non-Evolutionist, would not accept that "we see trends in Evolution, therefore it just makes sense to believe in Evolution" is a valid argument.
One other thing Evolutionists frequently do is bring up examples of their own stories. It's entirely reasonable to say that dogs "evolved" from very similar looking dog, but we often hear stranger examples of bigger transitions happening. The problem? These transitions must be accepted on faith, which only an Evolutionist is likely to have.
Evolution, therefore, explains what can only be observed if one already believes in Evolution. This element is satisfied.
"Some pseudoscientific claims can't be tested because they are consistent with every imaginable state of affairs in the empirical world." (...) "Some pseudoscientific ideas can't be tested because they are so vague and malleable that anything relevant can be shoehorned to fit the claim." (separate points in the original article, but both are basically identical).
This describes Evolution perfectly. Not only are there a number of things in reality that should disprove at least one element of Evolution (e.g. soft tissue being found in dinosaur fossils should prove that they are not 65 million years old), but there are actually things which, in times past, were said to be impossible for Evolution to gradually create, and yet they have since been found in nature, but Evolutionists refused to back down.
For example, J.B.S. Haldane said Evolution could not create "various mechanisms, such as the wheel and magnet, which would be useless till fairly perfect." Yet, we now know that extremely complex wheel-like structures exist in single celled organisms, planthoppers use gears, and a wide range of animals use magnetic navigation systems. Has Evolution backed down? Nope. This doesn't mean Evolution is false, it means Haldane had too little imagination to foresee the wonders of the great god Evolution.
What about the innumerable transitional forms Darwin predicted would appear in the fossil record? He blamed the incomplete fossil record, and the fact that wholly soft organisms could not fossilise (which was known to be false even in his time), for the non-existence of such fossils, yet despite having fossils of wholly soft organisms and a relatively complete fossil record, we don't have many possible transitional forms. Thus, Stephen Jay Gould came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. Effectively, we see no evidence for Evolution, therefore Evolution must have happened too quickly to have left any evidence behind.
Because Evolution is so malleable, it's not falsifiable. In other words, every imaginable state of affairs in the empirical world is consistent with Evolution, satisfying this element.
"Some ideas have been empirically tested and rather than being confirmed they seem either to have been falsified or to require numerous ad hoc hypotheses to sustain them."
Uniformitarianism is a principle of geology that states that the way things are happening now is the way it has always been. The present is the key to the past, we are told. This principle, designed by Charles Lyell to "free science from Moses", was instrumental to the acceptance of Evolution. Yet, recently, it has fallen into disrepute. Warren Allmon even described it as "snake oil" simply because it rejected any evidence of catastrophes on the basis that they are not gradual processes.
In a desperate attempt to maintain the freedom from Moses that Lyell bought for science, modern Evolutionists have resorted to Neo-Catastrophism. That is, Uniformitarianism, but with the occasional reference to a local catastrophe. But still no global floods!
Uniformitarianism, which is the very philosophy by which old earth views is sustained, has been tested and falsified, and rather than accept that, Evolutionists just tacked on the occasional catastrophe. This element is satisfied.
"Some pseudoscientific ideas rely on ancient myths and legends rather than on physical evidence, even when the interpretations of those legends either requires a belief contrary to the known laws of nature or to established facts".
This is the first of only two characteristics described in the article that Evolution does not satisfy. That being said, there are examples of ancient myths that closely resemble Evolution, which suggests that although modern Evolution does not rely on these myths, it could well have drawn from them.
To rattle off a few examples, Anaximander taught that human beings initially resembled fish. Epicurus taught that God is not necessary to explain the universe, it came from a chance movement of the atoms. Democritus taught that humans "gradually articulated words" after originally speaking unintelligibly. The list goes on. So prominent were ideas similar to Evolution that there were actually Creationists defending the same view of the Bible we do today against some very similar objections.
Which does bring me to a noteworthy phrasing in the paragraph. "even when the interpretations of those legends either requires a belief contrary to the known laws of nature or to established facts". The author of this article is apparently not just trying to attack Creationism as is found in Genesis, but even promulgate the idea that this isn't even what Genesis teaches.
This element of pseudoscience, while it is not satisfied, does come very close. To be as generous as possible, I will not count it. However, I do want it to be known that the modern Evolutionist religion has many ancient counterparts, and that you could possibly gather together all the ancient pagan religions and reconstruct modern Evolutionary mythology almost perfectly. It should also be noted that Evolution very much does violate known scientific laws.
"Some pseudoscientific ideas are supported mainly by selective use of anecdotes, intuition, and examples of confirming instances."
Evolutionists are expert story tellers. For example, there is a famous picture of Richard Dawkins standing beside a whale Evolution display. Ironically, despite supposedly showing how whales are related to hippos, there is actually a ghostly figure at the bottom of the tree, showing that not only do Evolutionists selectively use anecdotes, the anecdotes they use are pitifully are weak.
Selective examples of confirming instances are also common arguments. Blind cave fish, for example, have a pretty good chance of being brought up in debate. But this ignores the fact that even Creationists believe that species change. These examples are given in place of the examples that are actually required, mainly to cover up the fact that these examples do not exist, nor could they.
Thus, Evolution is supported mainly by selective use of anecdotes and examples of "confirming" instances, satisfying this element.
"Some pseudoscientific ideas confuse metaphysical claims with empirical claims"
This is the second of the two elements not directly satisfied by Evolution. That being said, although Evolution does not make any direct metaphysical claims, it does have metaphysical implications. Richard Dawkins, ironically, summed it up best by saying the universe has "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." Purpose, good and evil are all metaphysical claims.
You cannot scientifically determine purpose. The very question "what is this for?" Assumes design, whereas if we are merely evolved, our bodies have no purpose. We can describe what things do, if anything, but we cannot determine that they were specifically intended to do so.
Good and evil are also undetectable. You cannot scientifically prove that an action is "good" or "evil". Really, every moral deed is just chemistry and physics. We cannot say a shooter is evil any more than we can say the gun is evil. We cannot say a charitable deed is good any more than we can say a coin is good.
Thus, although Evolution does not directly make metaphysical claims, it does have metaphysical implications. I'm going to be kind and say this element is not satisfied, but I want it to be known that it came close.
"Some pseudoscientific ideas not only confuse metaphysical claims with empirical claims, but they also maintain views that contradict known scientific laws and use ad hoc hypotheses to explain their belief."
The law of biogenesis is a triumph of science over paganism. And yet, Evolutionists insist that the law of biogenesis is not actually a law, it's just a general principle, and it's technically impossible to prove that life cannot come from non-life, so it's possible that it did. They even sometimes trumpet the Miller Urey experiment, even though this did not create anything even remotely close to life (despite the fact such life would have been intelligently designed), but rather, it created a poisonous mess. Stanley Miller was even spotted at a Creationist presentation in which his experiment was brought up, and he was given the opportunity to respond. He declined. Miller himself does not believe his experiment made any progress in refuting the law of biogenesis.
It should be noted that due to the insanity of abiogenesis, even Evolutionists often try to distance themselves from it by claiming abiogenesis, which is also known as chemical Evolution, is not a part of Evolution. This, however, is merely a cop out. Aside from the fact it is literally called chemical Evolution, Evolution obviously cannot begin if there is no life to evolve. Thus, if you insist on taking God out of the picture, you must believe in some form of abiogenesis. Just because it's indefensible doesn't mean you shouldn't be taken to task and made to defend it.
Thus, Evolution satisfies this element, as it directly contradicts the known scientific law of biogenesis.
"Pseudoscientists claim to base their ideas on empirical evidence, and they may even use some scientific methods, though often their understanding of a controlled experiment is inadequate."
The key to the unique success of science at producing true knowledge is “The Scientific Method”, which, on the standard account, involves formulating hypotheses, making predictions, and then going into the laboratory to perform the crucial experiment. In contrast, the work of many evolutionary biologists involves the reconstruction of the past. The methods they use do not conform to the standard view of “The Scientific Method”.
The above italicised paragraph is not my own words. Rather, I have used a tactic I like to call the "silent quote", wherein I appear to be using my own words, but really I'm quoting a hostile source. The original quote is by the National Center for Science Education, who were lamenting the fact that students "naively" fail to "understand" and accept the "fact" of Evolution. In other words, the National Center for Science Education readily admits that Evolution does not conform to the scientific method, which involves controlled experiments.
This is because as many instruments as we have to observe the natural world as it is now, there is no such thing as a pastometer or a timeoscope. Evolution is a myth about history, not an observable fact about science, and so there are no experiments that could possibly confirm or deny Evolution. We can't even draw the comparison between Evolutionary "science" and forensic science, because whereas forensic science at least depends on things that can be observed to possibly reconstruct the past (and even then this can lead to false conclusions), Evolution does not do this. Much of it relies on things that take too long to ever be observed. What's even more embarrassing for Evolutionists is that no, these things don't take that long at all. Almost everything Evolutionists either used to claim, or continue to claim must take millions of years has now been observed to occur extremely quickly. New species becoming established, the formation of canyons, fossils, stalactites, diamonds, opals, oil, this has all happened within a few centuries, even in some cases within less than 24 hours. All of this is another example of the above element of falsifiable elements having been falsified.
Thus, while Evolutionists do rely on some science, and dogmatically assert that there are "mountains of evidence" for Evolution, the fact is there is no controlled experiment that can confirm or falsify Evolution. This element is satisfied.
We see, then, that although Evolutionists insist Evolution is science and Creationism is pseudoscience, Evolution satisfies 8 out of 10 elements of pseudoscience provided by the Skeptic's Dictionary, and even the two it doesn't satisfy, it comes very close to satisfying. Evolution, far from being settled science, is a pseudoscientific religion with about as much evidence in its favour as Astrology.
Meanwhile, Creationism was never intended to be scientific. Creationism is a claim about history, and therefore is not intended to be repeated. More importantly, Creationism is part of a much larger philosophy, namely Christianity. Christianity is all about the God who created the heavens and the earth. As human beings, we have all sinned against Him, and yet He loves us enough to seek to free us from the punishment of that sin. The punishment is death, but He offers us the free gift of eternal life through faith in the death, resurrection and Lordship of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is a metaphysical claim, not a scientific one, and yet it is 100% true, and far more worthy of belief than the idea that we're descended from fish.
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