1.9 Comparing Theories of Creation and Evolution

The previous sections have discussed several different varieties of creationist theories and several different evolutionary theories from the natural sciences. Each one proposes or implies a variety of scientific evidence and philosophical rationale for its position. How are we to evaluate these various theories and compare between them?

This section illustrates and compare these various theories in several different ways. One method of comparing them is to look at what aspects of science (including various forms of evolution) are accepted by the different creation science theories, and which aspects are rejected. Then one can compare the relative strength of the scientific evidence.

	<1800	YEC	OEC	TE
Microevolution	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Age of earth > 4 b.y.	No	No	Yes	Yes
Stellar Evolution	No	?	Yes	Yes
Age of universe > 13 b.y.	No	No	Yes	Yes
Macroevolution	No	No	No	Yes
Chemical Evolution	No	No	No	?

None of the above points accepted by modern science were in wide acceptance before the year 1800, because the evidence had not yet been widely studied. Most advocates of creation science in all modern varieties are willing to accept evidence of microevolution (small changes within species), where it was once thought that species were individually created by God and were fixed and unchanging. Old Earth Creation is willing to accept the age of the earth and the universe and its development over time, but is unwilling to accept macroevolution. Theistic Evolution accepts all of these (with the provision that God is in indirect control of all these things), but is split over whether the first development of life (chemical evolution) could have happened through explainable natural forces, or whether this is an example of where God’s direct supernatural intervention was required. Intelligent Design is not included in this table, because ID advocates do not claim to take a position on these issues.

A different form of this comparison is found at Craig Rusbilt’s page “Definitions and Comparisons in Logical Scientific Evaluation of Evolution and Creation) (http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/logic.htm).