Science is inseparable from philosophy; and philosophy is inseparable from theology. To erect a barrier anywhere among the three, say this far and no further, and then wage war against the other camp is spawn a cancer within a body and call it good.Return to Contents page...Those who choose to pit science against religion back themselves into a corner which they must vigorously defend against all and themselves. To claim that science alone begets true knowledge but then concede the origins of life ``are almost a miracle'' (to paraphrase the none to late Francis Crick from Life Itself, 1981, p 88) is stupidity nothing short of Dawkinsism.
I must confess to being a fan of Stephen Jay Gould's writing. The late Prof. Gould doesn't bother so much to defend evolution and science. To him its validity is implicit. Contrast this to the near militant writing of Dickie Dawkins and you have to wonder just who is Dickie trying to fool?
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I like the simple solutions. There was only one shooter aiming at JFK's head. Elvis is dead and buried and the tombstone engraver simply couldn't spell. UFO are simply unidentified flying objects and not the receptacles of little grey men form where ever. But I must concede that there is some element of truth to the idea that scientists can no longer be trusted.
To my jaundiced eye, most scientists are either in league with the pharmaceutical industry or trying to substantiate their own pet belief for fame or profit. Mostly, they just curious folks who have amassed fancy degrees that price them out of the job market and now suddenly find that in order to stay afloat in science their curiosities need to pay to make ends meet. Of course, in today's cut throat world of science finance, to get money you have to be right. This means you may just have to bury ideas that are contrary to your own, or fudge and/or tweak data to make your idea fit.
Modern day atheist scientists are quick to point the finger at the church for oppressing scientific research, citing poor old Galileo, Bruno or Copernicus. They choose to ignore that Bruno was burnt at the stake for herecies based on defaming the Holy Trinity at a time when the Pope was pretty much the King; Galileo was put under house arrest because he defied and insulted the king who by chance was the Pope (had it been a Roman Emperor of old Galileo may of found himself staring down the mouth of a lion rather than drawing his pension and living in relative luxury until he died by natural causes); and Copernicus' house was burnt to the ground by a roudy mob that quite liked Aristotle's idea of the earth being flat and the sun revolving around it. They choose to ignore that Keppler, a contemporary of Galileo and Lutheran Priest in the Catholic raun Holy Roman Empire, was never oppressed by the church even though his mathematical formulations of the orbits of the planets pretty much tanked Aristotle's world view. The whole flat earth idea had perished many centuries earlier and all students of the time were taught the earth was round and how the circumference was calculated.
It is in modern day science that we find the real oppression. Today, if your work presents data that may tank someone else's cash cow research project you can bet it will never published if that person has any peer-review pressure. (You think I joke! My Current Biology article was supposed to be in Nature but someone didn't like it...) We live in a world where data showing theory is wrong is buried. Controls are tweaked to show significant results and negative results are swept by the wayside lest the funding dry up. Were Galileo, Bruno, Keppler or Copernicus alive and practicing science today there funding would be cut. Lavoisier would probably still of lost his head.
This sounds harsh, and in most cases probably a bit far from the truth but in my short scientific career I have seen too much of it for science to be the only begetter of truth as Richard Lewontin would claim it to be.
In my experience science's only value is in dispelling lies and the replacing them with better lies, that are more in line with the best available data. Of course, this data is based on lies that came before it so where do the lies start and stop? What is certain in science? All of our chemistry and physics today revolves around our understanding of the atom. Who has seen an atom anyway? We look at it indirectly with tools based on theories that, however practical, may not be very close to the actual truth at all.
The field of evolutionary biology is the best example of this scientific strawman construction. Gould's ideas of punctuated equilibrium are a very nice fit to the data. But so is Darwin's ideas of evolution by gradualism. So who is correct? As Gould wisely concedes (all over the place in his writings), evolution doesn't have to conform to our ideas at all. There is a phenomenon we call evolution, and we have countless theories/lies explaining what we see, but not a single one of those theories may be factual. But on these theories people are basing their beliefs and faiths. They will not trust the weatherman with tomorrow's weather, but will base their eternal souls (for which there is good data, see S. Parnia et al, Feb 2001, Resuscitation) on the musings of a bunch of men and women with too much free time and no direct evidence for or against the GOD they deny.
It is interesting, that Voltaire (patriach of the reneisance), after a life time of trying to kill off GOD had to delcare "The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that GOD is not, discovers to me his existence." Do we claim to be wiser than Voltaire, on whose thoughts a great deal of science and philosophy is built?
As far as science dispelling lies, it is interesting that scientific investigation has confirmed that pork is bad for you, as is sexual immorality, shell fish etc... never mind what happens when we start moving around border marks or not paying people a decent wage. Science only continues to confirm the benevolent suggestions of the GOD of the Bible/Torah.
All this has lead me to be conclude one night while starring up at the ceiling:
I have tested science, and found its truths unreliable, and only to draw us away from the the only truth that my testing has not shown wanting. This truth is Christ.It is very important that the reader note that I make a distinction between scientific knowledge and science. Science is a idea, a concept, a methodology and not a belief system with rites, creeds and canticles sung to sacrificed rodents.
The mind set of science is very useful. The aim of science is to sift and test, to add some measure of reliability to the bits and pieces of information that mankind has amassed over the years. I would expound this idea further, but the late Richard Feynman says it better here. If you want my view, you can read What the hell is science, and just what good is it?
All science is founded on the simple precept: put all things to the test (ironicly quoted directly from 1 Thessalonians 5:21). What could be a more important habit to develop in a world where we are bombarded with lies, half-truths and information out of context. Watch TV. How many times will you hear ßcience has proved" this or that without ever being shown the data? Firstly, science proves nothing. The entire history of science is scientists disproving ideas. It is philosophically impossible to prove anything true because the mind of man cannot entertain all possible options. As many options as we exclude, does not preclude the possibility of another option we have not yet devised based on current ot future new and superior data. Secondly, if the data is so conclusive why don't they share it with us? The goal of a education in science should be to instill in people the knee-jerk response of "where's your evidence" in response to any claim. From sound evidence, sound conclusions can be inferred that you can bet on with predictable odds. In science, probability, not truth reign. As the wise Terry Pratchet poignantly points out: 1 in a million chances happen 9 times out of ten.
If you cannot substantiate what you believe or defend it against the evidence do you really believe something at all?
I am of the opinion that most people today are so quick to adopt the moral relativist stand point, or simply keep their opinions to themselves because when examined, their opinions deserve no merit. They are baseless and weak. They cannot stand up to scrutiny, and science is about scrutiny and being careful what you believe. But their beliefs help them sleep at night and peace of mind is better than the truth. Or is it?
As a scientist one should never believe theory (which is all that science offers). A scientist who believes his or her theories is best retired (forcibly), lest they churn out an endless series of books of no practical worth. As a non-scientist you should never believe a scientist. In fact, you shouldn't believe anything you have just read.