How is Elon Musk Like a Young Earth Creationist

Evidence is always interpreted within a paradigm.

I am not a young-earth creationist (YEC), but many people whom I respect are. How can I respect YECs, you might ask? Those rubes are hopelessly naive. Science has conclusively proven that the universe is billions of years old. To which I respond that I have known many extremely intelligent YECs. They are not naive. They are not rubes. Indeed, some of them are more philosophically sophisticated than some mainstream scientists.

Now, you’re talking nonsense, Barry. Get a grip. Almost by definition, someone who bucks a scientific conclusion like the vast age of the universe—a conclusion based on overwhelming empirical evidence— cannot be more scientifically sophisticated than the mainstream scientists who accept that conclusion. I did not say YECs are more “scientifically” sophisticated than some mainstream scientists. I said they are more “philosophically” sophisticated. Let me explain.

Consider how scientists calculate the age of the universe. The most precise estimates come from observing the cosmic microwave background and fitting those observations to the standard cosmological model using sophisticated mathematical tools. Now, let us consider how YECs calculate the age of the universe. They observe the same evidence that mainstream scientists observe. But instead of fitting that data to the standard cosmological model, they fit it to a different model, a model derived from a particular interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis.

The point is that both mainstream scientists and YECs interpret the data in the context of a model. This is necessarily the case. Evidence is not self-interpreting; it is always interpreted within a paradigm. You might say that the standard cosmological model is obviously superior because it comprehensively accounts for the data. To which a YEC will respond that their model comprehensively accounts for the data too.

I think most people believe that YECs either ignore the evidence or hold their beliefs in the teeth of that evidence. That is not true. Ask a YEC about the evidence and they will always be prepared to tell you how it can be accounted for within their model. Take the evidence for the age of the universe from distant stars. The mainstream view is this: If a star is two million light-years away, the light we see from that star tonight must have started traveling to us two million years ago. That means the universe must be millions of years old. Otherwise, the light would not have had time to get to us.

Are YECs stumped by that evidence? Do they deny that evidence? Do they ignore that evidence? No, no, and no. Again, they interpret that evidence within a different model. The YEC says we know the universe is a few thousand years old, because that’s what the Bible says. (Whether the Bible actually says that is an issue for another day.) And they have an answer (answers actually) for the evidence of light from distant stars. One answer I have heard is that when God created the universe, he created light in transit. And just as Adam appeared to be many years old the second he was created, the universe appeared to be billions of years old the second it was created.

In response to all of this, you might say the standard cosmological model is obviously true and the YEC model is obviously false. Therefore, we are back to “YECs are naive rubes.” And this is where we learn that many mainstream scientists, not the YECs, are philosophically naive.

Some scientists say they do not need philosophy or that philosophy is dead. Stephen Hawking famously said that in his book The Grand Design. But Hawking was wrong. Indeed, the truth is exactly the opposite of what Hawking proclaimed. Far from not needing philosophy, science is built on a foundation of philosophy. Take away the philosophy and the science crumbles.

For example, one of the most important philosophical underpinnings of science is the assumption of uniformitarianism. At its most basic level, uniformitarianism asserts that the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are invariant—they do not change over time or across space. But this is an a priori assumption that scientists make. It is not itself a deliverance of science. And that ASSUMPTION is absolutely foundational. It is required before science can even begin. As the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould explained, you cannot observe the constancy of nature’s laws directly at a rock outcrop; you must assume it first, then go test hypotheses against the evidence. Hawking, for all his brilliance as a physicist, seems to have lost sight of this foundational philosophical assumption. So, who is naive now?

YECs do not subscribe to the assumption of uniformitarianism. They believe God created everything in an instant a few thousand years ago. If that is true, we cannot extrapolate backwards in time from the processes we see today. Indeed, a YEC would say that such an extrapolation leads to a false conclusions because the way things worked in the past was radically different from the way we see things working now.

But you might say the mainstream scientists’ assumption is obviously correct and the YEC assumption is just silly. To which I would respond, how do you know that? They are both assumptions. Neither can be empirically demonstrated.

All of this brings me to the question in the title of this post. How is Elon Musk like a young earth creationist? This morning I was thinking about YECs and how they have an answer for every question you throw at them. And for any observation X, their answer will always be a variation of “God created the universe in a particular way and that is why we observe X.” It is like the universe is a vast simulation that God created with certain initial conditions. We live within that simulation and the conditions God created are what we observe.

On a number of occasions Elon Musk has discussed the simulation hypothesis, arguing that the odds of us being in “base reality” (the original, non-simulated universe) are extremely low—something like “one in billions” (implying a near-certainty, or well over 99.9999999% chance, that we are in a simulation). But the existence of a simulation implies the existence of a being that created that simulation. Suppose Elon is right and suppose also that another name for the being that created the simulation is “God.”

It turns out that the answer to the question in the title of my post is this: Elon is not “like” a YEC at all. He IS a YEC.