Creationism - real science or just a myth?

A few months back I attended a presentation by Michael Cremo, a renowned creationist and author of a few books on this subject like Forbidden Archeology, Hidden History of Human Race, Human Devolution, Forbidden Archeologist, etc. All these books deal with similar subjects, they claim to present a lot of scientific data in support of the theory of creationism. His presentation was interesting. He presented what he already discussed in his books, but as this was a gathering of ISKON devotees, he gave a religious touch to his presentation which is not there in all the books. People who attended loved it because it was designed to confirm their beliefs in the ideas that their society preaches. Everything was linked with ancient texts from India and there was a pathetic attempt to prove Darwin's theory wrong. There was even a sentence in his slide that called Darwin stupid. So, as I said it was very interesting, I mean it's not easy to call Darwin stupid, to do this you should be totally blinded by your faith that you can not see proofs around us that point towards the process of evolution or you should be dumb enough to reject everything which doesn't agree with your way of thinking. 

Everyone has the right to express their views and share their ideas and creationists definitely have the right to propagate their views and share them on any platform they want. I have nothing against it. At the same time, I feel that while sharing these things instead of targeting Darwin, his theory of evolution, and other scientific theories without giving any evidence they should focus their efforts on producing some reliable evidence that can support their own theory. As far as Mr. Cremo's presentation was concerned, like his books, this presentation also included many references to research papers some of which were more than a hundred years old which concluded that very advanced human civilization existed on this planet millions of years ago. This contradicts the theory of evolution but it matches perfectly with some texts like Vedas and other scriptures. These research papers are really old and the techniques used to calculate the age of some specimens were not that accurate. These types of books and such presentations also fail to mention (maybe purposely) data and conclusions from some recent publications that use more reliable and modern techniques. I think they ignore them just because they don't support their hypothesis. They cherry-pick the references that only support their own hypothesis and have the audacity to accuse other people of knowledge filtration.

These people love to accuse the entire scientific community of knowledge filtration. They accuse most modern-day scientists of not allowing these people's research to be published in reputed journals and textbooks. They also accuse them of lobbying against their research which doesn't allow them to get government funding and many other things that are aimed to sabotage their research. Publishing research in any scientific journal is done through a peer review process where experts in that particular field evaluate the research work submitted and then judge whether it is acceptable for publication in that particular journal or not. Normally to get a balanced view there are at least two referees for each article and if both give contradictory reports then it goes to a third reviewer. So, as much as possible, care is taken to get an unbiased evaluation. This process is common with most reputed national and international journals and every submitted research paper has to go through this process. Sometimes the paper gets accepted and many times it gets rejected, and referees are supposed to give a detailed explanation of why they accept or reject any article submitted to that journal. I am sure the rate of rejection is more than the rate of acceptance for most of the reputed journals in all research fields. If authors are not satisfied with the referee's reports for some reason they can appeal to the editor. Most journals have some procedure to follow and most of the time this results in fair evaluation. We all know that no system is perfect so there can be a few isolated instances where there can be some complications or issues but in general, this process works smoothly. But even after all this surprisingly only this group thinks that this system has serious flaws and only they are being targeted and victimized but they don't bother to present any evidence to support this claim.

In the field of science, the source of knowledge or information is not at all important. It doesn't matter who has proposed the theory, equation, or hypothesis, if there is not enough data or evidence to support it then that thing doesn't stand. But in religion, it's not like this. The source of knowledge is very important in religion. Rather, it is the most important thing. If the knowledge is from the book that the religion considers sacred. then no matter what, it has to be true according to all their followers. This attitude is against the basic principle of scientific thinking where everything can be questioned and discussed. 

If they have verifiable data to prove the theory of creationism they should publish it in scientific journals or anywhere on the web where people can evaluate it. Because of tremendous progress in communication technology, it's really easy to reach people all over the world and communicate with them So why don't they do it? Why except for people from their own belief system (that is people who follow that particular religion or sect) no one accepts their hypothesis? There is disagreement between various religions about the details of the theory of creationism. So the big question is which one among them is right? Why don't they first settle the differences between themselves and come up with some common theory that they can claim as a common theory of creationism and then try to prove it? Why do they insist their work should be in a textbook without going through a proper verification process? 

I asked all the questions I mentioned above to many people who believe in and support creationism but didn't get any satisfactory answers for any of them. I also didn't see any scientific data presented during Cremo's presentation, not that I expected it but then at least he shouldn't claim it as scientific research and just say it's a religious presentation. If you claim something to be scientific, then at least present it in scientific manure. Do not try to mix things at your own convenience and please don't blame the entire scientific community for your own failures and shortcomings.

I am interested in knowing more about creationism and eagerly looking forward to some evidence that supports this theory. But please don't present some quotes from some book without any verifiable data. I don't care who said it but what was said matters to me. I hope they understand this simple fact and then act accordingly. It's easy to accuse others but first get your acts together and then complain about others and if there is something worthwhile to share please share it. I think the scientific community is interested and looking forward to any data with an open mind.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)