Organic Molecules Found 400 Light Years From Earth

[Amarok]

"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology and archaeology. The term is often misused by creationists for any science that "interpret[s] evidence from the past and includes the models of evolution and special creation."[1] It is used to designate those sciences which creationists have complaints about, such as evolution and abiogenesis, and is the opposite of operational or experimental science.

The term "Operational science" and the creationist understanding of "Historical science" are not considered valid scientific terminology, and primarily appear in arguments presented by creationists about whether ideas such as abiogenesis, evolution and the Big Bang Theory are really scientific. As Bill Nye pointed out when debating Ken Ham, even Ken Ham admits that the distinction is entirely a creationist invention, and no scientist not on the Answers in Genesis (AiG) payroll agrees with him about it.

Many scientists believe that there is a uniform, interdisciplinary method for the practice of good science. The paradigmatic examples, however, are drawn from classical experimental science. Insofar as historical hypotheses cannot be tested in controlled laboratory settings, historical research is sometimes said to be inferior to experimental research. Using examples from diverse historical disciplines, this paper demonstrates that such claims are misguided. First, the reputed superiority of experimental research is based upon accounts of scientific methodology (Baconian inductivism or falsificationism) that are deeply flawed, both logically and as accounts of the actual practices of scientists. Second, although there are fundamental differences in methodology between experimental scientists and historical scientists, they are keyed to a pervasive feature of nature, a time asymmetry of causation. As a consequence, the claim that historical science is methodologically inferior to experimental science cannot be sustained.

Dr. Carol Cleland of the Department of Philosophy and Center for Astrobiology at the University of Colorado in Boulder writes

Philosophers of science draw a distinction between research directed towards identifying laws and research which seeks to determine how particular historical events occurred. They do not claim, however, that the line between these sorts of science can be drawn neatly, and certainly do not agree that historical claims are any less empirically verifiable than other sorts of claims.

The National Center for Science Education