ABSTRACT

While scholars agree that young-earth creationism is problematic, divisions remain over the fundamental question of whether creationism makes testable empirical claims. The key to resolving this impasse lies in Philip Gosse's Omphalos (1857) where he argued that a miraculously created world would exactly resemble one that had formed naturally. Creationists have both adopted and contested the reasoning in Omphalos, but ultimately failed to displace Gosse's more coherent approach. Consequently, as this paper will show, the creationist framework is not only incapable of grounding testable scientific models, but entails the absurd position that much of the universe's apparent history never occurred.

摘要

虽然学者们一致认为年轻地球神创论是有问题的，但在神创论是否提出可检验的经验主张这一基本问题上仍存在分歧。解决这一僵局的关键在于菲利普·戈斯( Philip Gosse) 的Omphalos (1857)，他认为奇迹般创造的世界将与自然形成的世界完全相似。神创论者采用并质疑Omphalos的推理，但最终未能取代 Gosse 更一致的方法。因此，正如本文将要展示的，神创论的框架不仅无法建立可检验的科学模型，而且还提出了一个荒谬的立场，即宇宙的大部分表面历史从未发生过。