The Electric Universe & Creationism

I've received a number of complaints from the Electric Universe (EU) advocates complaining about my comparing them to creationists. I've written a little about this before in my rebuttal to Donald Scott's The Electric Sky, describing my original motivations for getting involved with EU (See "The Electric Sky: Short-circuited"). I moved into examination of EU claims after young-universe creationist, Barry Setterfield, began referencing Don Scott's book, The Electric Sky.

Barry Setterfield is not the only supporter of electric universe claims who is a creationist, as one can discover with some simple searches, such as

• "Plasma Cosmology and the Bible"
  
• "The Electric Universe" at FixedEarth.com
  

The TalkOrigins web site, a repository of material from the Talk.origins USENET group, even has an FAQ on Catastrophism and other material related to the claims of Immanuel Velikovsky, who might be considered the precursor to the Electric Universe movement (see Velikovsky's Ghost Returns at thunderbolts.info.

Some EU advocates express incredible hatred for creationists (see this JREF Forum thread). The EU attitude is almost ideological/theological in its fervor, though I have yet to receive similar sentiments against EU from the creationists community. But there are obviously a number of EU advocates who are creationists.

Are the creationists drawn to EU because it is more satisfying as anti-Big Bang cosmology? Considering what a large fraction of US population (as much as 50% by some surveys, see "Reading the Polls on Evolution and Creationism" at the Pew Research Center) support some variant of Young-Earth Creationism, the EU community's attitude might be alienating a large fraction of those who buy their books. Perhaps the atheist EU advocates are uncomfortable about Big Bang cosmology because it does have theological implications for them? Perhaps they are uncomfortable in their atheism?

Regardless of their complaints, EU will never be able to escape an association with various flavors of creationism. Here's a few reasons why.

The Cosmology Statement
EU advocates like to promote the 'Cosmology Statement' (http://cosmologystatement.org/). This list started as an complaint by advocates of various non-Big Bang cosmologies, predominantly steady-state and plasma cosmologies. If you examine the list of signees, you will notice that a number are creationists of various stripes, or have their own cosmology to promote.

Spin, Spin, Spin
Creationists often 'spin' the science to match their interpretation. Any science news story saying some cosmological phenomena is 'younger' than previously believed, can become much younger in creationist reporting. EU advocates spin any mention of a current or electric field in magnetospheric physics or astrophysics gets labeled a success for their theory. (I'm preparing a list of the many references to electric currents and fields in historic mainstream astrophysics papers is in preparation, evidence of just how much electromagnetism influenced astronomy.)

Like creationists, the EU advocates rarely reference the actual scientific paper, but instead reference a press release. Many science press releases are 'dumbed down' for a more general audience. The guideline in the US is that scientific press releases should be readable by a person with an 8th grade education. This means a lot of details of the real science are lost in the press release. Examination of the actual research paper often reveals the weakness of the paper's support for an EU or YEC interpretation.

Anomaly Mining
EU advocates tap many of the same astronomical 'anomalies' as creationists. Here's a few that I've encountered: General solar neutrino shortage. Solar neutrinos vs. helioseismology (the 160 minute oscillation), Halton Arp's 'discordant' redshifts. William Tifft's 'quantized' redshifts. Related to anomaly mining, they often tap very old experiments that have long since been superceded by better experimental and observational technologies.

No Objectively Testable Models
Like creationism, EU advocates like to use the terminology of science, but not the methodology of science. Many of their explanations lack even the ability to be subjected to rigorous objective testing. Scientific explanations, often called 'models' are presented in a mathematical form where others can examine and actually use to predict other characteristics which can then be tested by more experiments or observations. Scientific models spell out the processes included in a form where the known laws of physics and mathematics can be applied to explore predictions.

Attempts to get details on such models from EU advocates are met with stonewalling and excuses. Attempts to apply even basic known physical principles, such as conservation of energy and Maxwell's equations, to the Electric Sun model, quickly generate predictions which have HUGE disagreements with observations (see many of my Electric Sun posts).

In this area, there are a number of creationists who actually 'get it' when it comes to the need to produce mathematical models that can generate testable predictions that can be compared to observation (John Hartnett, Russ Humphreys, etc.). While their models have other problems, they exhibit a better understanding of scientific methodology.

The Standards of Science
EU and creationists try to distinguish science used in engineering or for developing products from the science used in astrophysics, when they are in fact the same. Don Scott tries to emphasise experimentalism over theory (except for when the experimental results conflict with his ideas). Creationist Ken Ham tried to make a distinction between 'Operational' or 'Real' science' from 'Origins' science. See "Technology from Cosmology, or 'Can Creation Science Do That?'"

Like ID advocates, EU wants to lower the standards of science sufficient for their claims to qualify. And like ID, such a lower standard admits a whole realm of other pseudoscience such as astrology (link).

Reliance on Invisible Agents
While creationists invoke an unseen diety, EU advocates invoke unnamed 'nonlinearities' or 'dark currents' as solutions to problems in their own astrophysical claims, as if these processes are a mystical power like a diety. EU advocates apparently use these claims of non-linearities as excuses for not developing mathematical models, despite the fact that science regularly develops good predictions from non-linear models.

Psychological Tactics
When confronted with problems in their own models or other implications that they have no rote answer memorized, they like to change topics, claiming the NEW topic is the really important issue. Alternatively, they will try to produce a huge 'laundry list' of topics or problems to which no one could respond without an extensive amount of time & effort. For an example of this, take a look at the comments in posts of March 2009. In creationists circles, this type of overloading is commonly known as the Gish Gallop.

EU advocates & creationists like to complain about being ignored by the scientific community. Then they complain when we pay attention and poke holes in their claims, crying they are being attacked! (Reference: just read some of the comments in the March 2009 posts.) I wish they could make up their minds! But I suspect their real concern is the possible negative impact widely distributed refutations of their claims might have on their book sales or speaking honoraria.

Adoption of Religous Symbolism
You just have to look at the websites connected to EU advocacy to see the heavy symbolism from Greco-Roman mythology (see "Thunderbolts of the Gods"). Some EU advocates posting on other forums even adopt variants of these mythological characters as their pseudonyms.

To keep this post short, I refrained from including a lot of references in the examples above. Instead, I will start pointing out the connections and comparisons when addressing specific topics.

Update: January 28, 2014: Fixed broken links