I’ve recently blogged a couple of times about Real Science vs. Religious Science, as part of the debate about the GOP’s embracing of the theocratic anti-science movement.

In religion, if the real facts do not correspond to some articles of faith, the articles of faith are unaffected. In “creation science” when the facts contradict the faith, the religious scientists reinterpret the facts, or keep digging for more facts, but they DO NOT abandon or modify the articles of faith. The articles of faith in creation science are that the earth is about 6,000 years old and that evolution through natural selection does not occur.

Below is an excerpt from a news item, showing a very fresh quick and dirty example of how “Real Science” works.

In astronomy, scientists had developed a theory to explain how some kinds of old stars can re-ignite in a superhuge flash. The theory predicted a timeline for the re-ignition. According to theory, the re-ignition should take several hundred years.

Well, a recent observation of a star showed that the timeline was wrong. A star re-ignited in a huge flash in a very short period of time (a few years), about 100 times sooner than the theory predicted.

In other words, the theory failed to predict an event accurately - the theory failed, it was inadequate - Facts proved that the theory was not able to explain as observed event.

Notice the quote from a scientist in the article: ” ‘Sakurai’s object went through the first phases of this sequence in just a few years — 100 times faster than we expected,’ Zijlstra said. So we had to revise our models.“.

“So we had to revise our models.” —- In other words, when the theory is wrong then “real scientists” revise the theory. This is exactly the opposite of what “religious scientists” do.

I understand the emotional need of the religiously faithful to see their beliefs confirmed with real facts, hence the need to have religious science accepted (and even mandated by law). It’s the old problem of faith, and how to maintain it - Philosophers have written about it for thousands of years. It’s hard to maintain strong faith. And so the faithful want real factual confirmation of their faith, hence “creation science”. Creation science is not science - but it makes the faithful feel good.

CNN.com - Reborn star surprises astronomers - Apr 8, 2005: “Computer simulations indicated that heat-spurred convection would bring hydrogen from the star’s outer envelope down into the helium shell, driving a brief flash of new nuclear fusion. This would cause a sudden increase in brightness. The original computer models suggested a sequence of observable events that would occur over a few hundred years.

‘Sakurai’s object went through the first phases of this sequence in just a few years — 100 times faster than we expected,’ Zijlstra said. ‘So we had to revise our models.’

The new scheme predicted the star should rapidly reheat and begin to ionize gases in its surrounding region. ‘This is what we now see in our latest VLA observations,’ Zijlstra said.”