Science?

Science!

For most people, that word brings back bad memories of stinky high school chemistry labs, impossibly difficult physics tests, and nerd-boys with taped horn-rimmed glasses. (For some people, like me, it actually reminds me more of a 1980's Thomas Dolby tune..."she blinded me....with science!" But I digress.)

I have a lot of respect for science, scientists, and the scientific process. Scientific breakthroughs are responsible for a great deal of the modern comforts we enjoy. Science helps us understand the huge world around us, and make sense of our physical world.

However, science has its limitations. Science, like anything else, is good at what its good at, and not very useful when used outside its limits. Wikipedia describes the scientific method this way:

Scientific method refers to the body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.^[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.^[2]

The key words there are observable and measurable. Science is your tool if you are wanting to measure the temperature at which Dr. Pepper boils, for example. Or the stress-strain curve for Silly Putty. Or the chemical composition of the plastic keys on my laptop. If it is measurable and repeatable, science can help you understand it.

However, science is NOT an appropriate tool for all areas of knowledge. For example, I love my wife, Cathy. I am 100% sure of this, and there is evidence to prove it (I hope!). However, there is no scientific method for measuring how much I love her. It is a real, emotional quantity, but science measures the physical not the emotional. In the same way, science cannot measure the spiritual (faith, hope, love) or the historical (origin of mankind, the world, etc).

This last point, using science to tell us about our historical distant past, is a great problem among scientists today. I believe that a lot of the work going on today that is passed off as "science" involves scientists attempting to use science to "prove" things it can never prove.

Take the evolution-creation debate. Believers in evolution claim that science is on their side, since a majority of scientists today believe the (ever-changing) theory of evolution to be "scientific fact". In fact, all we can do today is measure and study physical clues and phenomena (rock strata, levels of chemicals in the atmosphere, etc) and then make guesses (hypotheses) about what happened in the past to cause what we see today. Evolution and creation are two hypotheses about what happened long ago to cause the evidence we see and measure today.

For example, an evolutionist and a creationist look at the same data, say rock layers in the Grand Canyon, and each comes to a different conclusion. The evolutionist would say that these layers were deposited over many millions of years, very gradually. The creationist might argue that these layers were deposited suddenly, in a massive global weather event (flood, perhaps?). Same observations, different conclusions.

The reason two people can look at the same thing and come to radically different conclusions is based on their worldview. A worldview is like a lens through which you see the world; it colors everything you see, based on the lens. The evolutionist has a secular worldview: there is no God, there is no supernatural (only the natural), and so science can be used to explain everything. The creationist has a Biblical worldview: there is a God, He operates in both the natural and supernatural realms, science can be used to measure the natural world, but only God can open our eyes to see the supernatural world.

I read a news article the other day that really floored me. It was one of the best examples of sloppy, non-scientific "science" that I've seen in a long time. As in, "I believe X, and I'd like to prove X, so I'll set out to find evidence of X, I really think I'll find some...whoah, look, here's evidence of X!" But since this post is so long, I'll give you the details another day...

Peace out.