Operational-science @ MindSay 
There is a great misconception as to what science is or means and the term is glibly thrown around without ever really defining it. The problem is that all science is automatically equated with evolution and long ages, with the average person not realizing that there is a difference between the two and not having been taught what science can and cannot do.
There are two types of science. First there is “operational” science which is defined as facts or principles gained by systematic study of the physical or material world. Also called “empirical” science, it is our attempt to observe, understand, and explain events, processes, and properties that are repeatably observable. On the basis of such theories, predictions can be made concerning related natural phenomena or future natural events. Experiments can be devised and performed to test the theory which may show it to be either right or wrong. This is the property of falsifiability and is an important element of true scientific theory. Empirical science and its theories are restricted to attempts to explain the operation of the universe and of the living things it contains. This is the science that gave us computers, MRI’s and space travel.
Theories about “origins”, whether they be creation or evolution, are very different from empirical scientific theories. There were no human witnesses to the origin of the universe and living things, and these past events are unique in that they are unrepeatable, historical events which happened in the past. With this “historical” science no one has ever seen a fish evolve into an amphibian, the big bang take place or anything else that happened “way back when”. It is also impossible to go into the laboratory and test how an ape may have evolved into a man or other such ideas.
Both creationism and evolutionism are based on circumstantial evidence - they are attempts to explain events which have taken place in the past. Evolutionism is based on the idea of uniformitarianism, developed by Hutton & Lyell, which states that the “present is the key to the past”. In other words, the way processes are occurring today is the same way they were happening in the past. Because great time spans of millions of years are required for the events to take place, no test of the theories is possible. Evolutionism therefore is an unproven hypothesis about the past which depends on the interpretation of evidence in the present. Creationism is based on the Word of God, especially the creation account as given in the first 11 chapters of Genesis and is also an interpretation of evidence in the present.
Take fossils for example: A fossil is evidence in the present. It does not come with a date of origin stamped on it, therefore no one knows for sure when it was formed. All we do know about it is that once it was living and now it is dead. Period. An evolutionist will look at that fossil and say “look what formed gradually over a long period of time” while a creationist will look at the same fossil and say “look at what rapid burial and the right conditions formed very quickly.” The same reasoning goes for other features. An evolutionist will look at the Grand Canyon and state “look at what a little bit of water and a long period of time formed” while a creationist’s reasoning is “ look at what a lot of water and a little bit of time formed.” Same evidence, two different perspectives and therefore two different scenarios.
Evolutionism cannot be tested in a lab and in the same respect no one was there when God created the universe and everything that was in it, so creationism, also, cannot be tested.
Next: What to do with the evidence in the present
