Teaching True Science

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For those who wish to pursue this issue in depth (or think that the author is just making this up) here are some web-sites. These are NOT necessarily Christian sites (some of the best critiques of “scientism” are from non-Christians) so read with discernment.

“Scientific” Creationism: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=26

Science and Pseudo-science: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/lakatos/scienceAndPseudoscience

Thomas Kuhn - Scientific “Paradigms:” http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_733.asp

^{^[1]}Scientism, in the strong sense, is the view that only scientific claims are meaningful: In the weak sense, scientism is the view that the methods of the natural sciences should be applied to any subject matter. The Sceptics Dictionary - http://skepdic.com/scientism.html

^{^[2]}Supporters of naturalistic science regularly (and understandably) point to the achievements of modern science as evidence of the fundamental validity of its assumptions. While such operational success cannot and should not be denied, neither does it answer the insurmountable intellectual problems outlined here. If the naturalist wants to claim the intellectual high-ground, he cannot be satisfied with such an irrational answer.

^{^[3]}David Hume

^{^[4]}The notion of assigning probabilities to scientific theories is meaningless unless all possibilities are known. Thus, the actual probability of any theory being correct/true is exactly ZERO.


	Teaching True Science “... keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding ... oppositions of science falsely so called.” I Timothy 6:20 Outline 1. The challenge of teaching science. 2. How Christians react to modern science. a. Accept the method. b. Accept the facts. c. Challenge the interpretation. 3. Why Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design are not Christian-science. 4. The Unified field theory a. Early Greeks. b. Newton c. Einstein d. Quantum mechanics. 5. The foundations of modern secular science. a. Metaphysical Naturalism b. Methodological naturalism c. Evolutionary theory 6. Why secular science is always false. a. Fallacy of induction. b. Uniformity of nature. c. Natural laws. d. Affirming the consequent. e. Cause and effect. 7. Worldview determines our approach to science. a. What is knowledge? b. What is real? c. What is good? 8. How should the Christian teach science? a. Begin with the creator Sustainer and governor b. The “extent” of the creation. c. The “purpose” of the creation. d. The “condition” of the creation. e. The “destiny” of the creation. 9. Miracles as an example. a. MN excludes miracles at the outset. b. Miracles as a “temporary” suspension or violation of natural laws place God at war with his creation. c. Miracles are an immediate expression of God’s governance of his creation. 10. Ecology as an illustration. a. Environmentalism – worshiping the creation. b. The creation belongs to God. c. Man exercises rule/dominion over all OTHER creatures. Adam “named” the creatures as an act of dominion. d. The earth’s resources are for the benefit of man. e. Man does not control the environment. God “makes the sun shine and the rain fall.” God sends natural disasters as a sign of judgment. f. The earth cannot be restored to perfection. g. Stewardship TO God.

	Teaching “science” is probably one of the most challenging tasks facing the Christian parent-educator. This is not simply because of the variety and complexity of the subjects, but also because there is a sense that science, at least modern science, is somehow inherently hostile to belief; that it is the domain of unbelievers. The word translated “science” in the KJV simply means knowledge. For generations, the word science represented the entire range of intellectual inquiry. However, beginning in the 19^th century, the term “science” came to be associated almost exclusively with “natural sciences,” i.e., biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Eventually, this restricted view of science and its “method” came to be understood as the exclusive means of acquiring knowledge and establishing facts. “Scientifically proven” is generally accepted as the final word in most areas of dispute. This doctrine of “scientism”^{^[1]} is virtually universal in Western culture, even among the majority of Christians (some Christian “scientists” actually claim to prove God by science). The assumption of the validity of science is so ingrained that any challenge to this notion sounds ridiculous, if not downright heretical. While many Christians challenge the “findings” of science in such areas as evolution and human origins, asserting that a proper interpretation of the data supports the biblical record (Scientific Creationism, Intelligent Design, etc.), they affirm the assumption that even unbelievers can discover truth by means of the scientific method if they apply it properly. However, this apparent authority of science is being challenged and should be rejected. Even secular scholars who deal in the Philosophy of Science recognize that science per se is incapable of producing the kind of knowledge to which it pretends, and Christians must reject such a position as clearly unbiblical and incapable of producing knowledge of any kind. The purpose of naturalistic science is NOT to discover “objective” facts and interpret them according to some neutral standards. Rather, it is to construct a completely naturalistic (anti-theistic) interpretation of every aspect of nature and experience. Intellectually, naturalistic science must be rejected because it is based on a number of indemonstrable and philosophically untenable assumptions and outright logical fallacies. Thus, while claiming exclusive title to intellectual enlightenment, this brand of knowledge is ultimately (and inescapably) irrational.^{^[2]} The Uniformity of Nature, the idea that natural phenomenon always occur in exactly the same way throughout time and space, is pure conjecture. This objection alone is fatal because the conclusions of naturalistic science are based on reading current data back onto unobserved phenomena (the speed of light, etc.). The uniformity of nature is not a “conclusion” of science, but an improvable assumption upon which all scientific theories are based. Scientific naturalism rests on the assumption that the physical world operates according to a series of Natural Laws (such as Gravity) which exist and operate independently of any divine order. However, no one has ever “experienced” gravity or any other natural law. We do experience the world operating in an orderly, predictable manner, but to claim that this state of affairs is the result of natural laws is pure prejudice. Natural laws are, at best, descriptions of the “way” things happen but they cannot explain “why” things happen.

	The principal of Causation (that every effect has a cause), though generally accepted as part of everyday experience is likewise factually unsupportable since no one has ever experienced (seen, heard, touched, etc.) a “causal” relationship. To be sure, we may observe a “sequence” of events, but it is only “custom or habit”^{^[3]} by which we say that one event was caused by another. Causation is not and cannot be proven by science but is absolutely necessary to a naturalistic explanation of experience. Induction is the form of logic which attempt to derive universal principles from particular events and to predict the future based on observation. The obvious problem lies in the fact that nobody has experienced the future to know if it will be like the past. Defenders of induction fall into a hopelessly circular argument; i.e., “in the past, the future has always been like the past, so the future will probably^{^[4]} be like the past.” Induction also fails because no one has observed all cases of a particular phenomenon and cannot say that any number of observations is normative. This may seem like a small matter, but it is critical to the authority with which science claims to “discover” truth. The fallacy of Affirming the Consequent occurs when the observation of an “effect” is used to prove the existence of a “cause.” In Logical form, this is written “If A, then B: B, therefore, A.:” “If it rains, the streets will be wet: the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained.” While the streets will certainly be wet if it rains, there are any number of reasons for the streets to be wet besides the rain - a water line could have ruptured, a careless neighbor might have left his sprinklers on too long, or an alien might have sprayed the streets with a water-like substance in preparation for their take-over of the planet. Announcement like “Scientists have discovered a new planet” are always based on this fallacious type of reasoning. Rather than “discovering” anything, astronomers have observed some phenomenon which has been associated with the presence of a planet in other systems. This phenomenon may be the fluctuation of a nearby star or the presence of certain “radiometric” data. No planet has been seen and the discoverers cannot exclude the possibility that there is another cause for the observed data. There are many other problems, equally as destructive of naturalistic science (the fallibility of sense perception and the finitude of reason) but these must suffice for our purpose. So as Christians committed to “taking every thought captive to ..Christ,” it is not sufficient for us to simply give a “biblical” interpretation to the data discovered by naturalistic science. We must challenge the very assumptions upon which naturalistic science operates as being destructive of knowledge while, at the same time, presenting an authentic, self-consciously biblical interpretation of the created order based on the authoritative word of God as being uniquely consistent with experience and establishing knowledge.

	........................................................................................................................................................... For those who wish to pursue this issue in depth (or think that the author is just making this up) here are some web-sites. These are NOT necessarily Christian sites (some of the best critiques of “scientism” are from non-Christians) so read with discernment. Intro to Philosophy of Science: http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=18 Carl Sagan: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=90 “Scientific” Creationism: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=26 True Biblical Science: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=35 Science and Pseudo-science: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/lakatos/scienceAndPseudoscience Definition of “Scientism:” http://skepdic.com/scientism.html Karl Popper: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#Dema Thomas Kuhn - Scientific “Paradigms:” http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_733.asp ^{^[1]}Scientism, in the strong sense, is the view that only scientific claims are meaningful: In the weak sense, scientism is the view that the methods of the natural sciences should be applied to any subject matter. The Sceptics Dictionary - http://skepdic.com/scientism.html ^{^[2]}Supporters of naturalistic science regularly (and understandably) point to the achievements of modern science as evidence of the fundamental validity of its assumptions. While such operational success cannot and should not be denied, neither does it answer the insurmountable intellectual problems outlined here. If the naturalist wants to claim the intellectual high-ground, he cannot be satisfied with such an irrational answer. ^{^[3]}David Hume ^{^[4]}The notion of assigning probabilities to scientific theories is meaningless unless all possibilities are known. Thus, the actual probability of any theory being correct/true is exactly ZERO.