I was once asked if the account of creation in Genesis could be considered to be a scientific explanation. I answered that in so far as it offered an explanation then I supposed it was but I was left feeling quite uneasy about the answer and wanted to find a more adequate response. I eventually had the following thought.
Imagine that you have been presented with a huge jig-saw puzzle perhaps with several thousand pieces. There are basically two ways in which you might tackle it.
Whichever approach you take the first step would naturally be to tip out the pieces and turn them all face up on a flat surface so that the patterns on them can be seen (there is an approach that says the challenge is even more fun if they are all turned face down but that seems overly masochistic!).
From that point on there are broadly two methods. The first is to look at all the pieces and look for similarities. I would also suggest that this applies whether or not we also take the approach of looking for all the edge pieces and creating a frame in which all the others fit. If there are a number of pieces that are blue they can be grouped together and examined more closely to see if some may be sky and some may be sea or some wallpaper and so on. They can be tentatively put together where they seem to fit and if there is an overlapping pattern between several pieces that creates a recognisable image, perhaps a bird or a house, then that can provide confirmation that those pieces belong together. The same approach may be used with other pieces that seem to have similar patterns on them and by trial and error gradually a picture of a landscape or a person may emerge. As the process goes on an idea of the overall picture begins to be built up. Others may be working alongside you on other sections of the puzzle and from time to time whole sections may be placed together to see if they fit and the larger image makes more sense. Perhaps it does and perhaps not. Sometimes a section may need to be dismantled and reassembled and so an idea even of what the whole picture is may change. Eventually, though, the jigsaw becomes completed and the total picture can be seen. That picture may then, of course, be recognised as simply one picture within an even larger picture and so the whole process continues. This is, I suggest, a simple metaphor for the scientific approach.
The second method is to take the picture on the front of the box, set it up in front of you on the table and then look for the pieces in front of you that fit the image. Pieces can be grouped together in the correct area of the table that correspond to the area of the picture so that the whole process becomes smoother and quicker. Any uncertainties can be sorted out by careful reference to the picture on the box. This is the approach that those who, for example, have a literal interpretation of the opening verses of the book of Genesis might well take.
The problem with that method is that it assumes that the ‘picture on the box’ is indeed an exact representation of what the pieces will look like when the jigsaw is assembled, but what if it isn’t? The picture on the box might be a brand image of the company marketing the jigsaw. It might, for example, show a picture of a family sitting together around a table putting together a jigsaw puzzle in front of a roaring fire near a window with a view onto a landscape and a painting of some boats in a harbour hanging on the wall. But the actual puzzle itself might be a picture of something only related by a general theme. If that is the case then the process will be distorted and become an impossibly confusing exercise.
At some point in trying to assemble it we might realise that the pieces don’t match the image on the box and so set that image aside recognising the brand picture for what it is and use the scientific approach I have described. If we are so utterly convinced that the image on the box is correct, however, we might begin to suspect that there is actually something wrong with the pieces before us and even start to reshape them and paint them differently in order to make them fit, shaving a little bit off here, adding a dab of colour or a new pattern there until the pieces finally seem to fit what we believe to be the correct picture.
Pablo Picasso might be impressed but it is hard to see how that could ever be anything other than an exercise in self-delusion and it also means that we will never discover the richness and beauty of the actual picture.
The tragedy is that there are numerous and bizarre examples of this process to be found. For example, the fossil record has been ‘explained’ by some as having been placed in order to test our faith. Some conspiracy theories supporting a flat earth hypothesis suggest that NASA has been lying to us either about the moon landings and showing us faked pictures of the planets of the solar system. So the attempt is made to reshape various pieces of the jigsaw in order to fit the picture on the box that is believed to be true.
Arguing with these views by offering the vast amount of additional evidence available is far harder than we might suppose. Psychological defence mechanisms come into play. Evidence offered is seen as an attack on faith and interpreted as proof of just how vast the conspiracy is rather than evidence that should change our views. This could be explored in much more depth but that will be considered elsewhere.
Thinking Aloud 