Subtitle: Is it possible to view science through the lens of Christian Faith?

Excerpt: The article examines the interplay between science and faith, asserting that both necessitate faith. It acknowledges science’s positive impact while emphasizing the need for a balanced perspective due to its potential for misuse.

Author: Zack Duncan

The National Academy of Sciences makes it official: science and religious faith are distinct fields of inquiry.

Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. [Science, Evolution, and Creationism, wikipedia.org]¹

But this is not the same thing as saying that faith is unrelated to science.

On the contrary, many who profess admiration for scientific disciplines also tend to have deep faith in it.

Scientists Have Faith?

Scientists report being much less religious than the rest of society.

According to a 2009 study from the Pew Research Center, only 51% of scientists believe in some form of deity or higher power. Yet it appears that scientists are still people of faith.²

Here’s what I mean.

• Scientists rely on published studies and the consensus of other studies. This requires maintaining deep trust in the consensus view, while also knowing there is a long list of superseded scientific theories that were once the consensus view.³
• Scientists believe in unproven and unprovable postulates like the Doctrine of Uniformity that says the the natural processes and laws that are observed today are the same that have always operated in the past and throughout the universe.⁴
• Scientists are committed to the Scientific Method and generally believe it is the best way to understand reality through hypothesis testing and observation. Ironically, this claim itself cannot be tested for accuracy by the Scientific Method (SM).⁵

Some people, even scientifically minded ones, have expressed skepticism about SM.

One example comes to us from the Nobel Prize winning physicist Percy Bridgman who wrote on the philosophy of science.⁶

Here’s what he had to say about the SM:

It seems to me that there is a good deal of ballyhoo about scientific method. I venture to think that the people who talk most about it are the people who do least about it. Scientific method is what working scientists do, not what other people or even they themselves may say about it. No working scientist, when he plans an experiment in the laboratory, asks himself whether he is being properly scientific, nor is he interested in whatever method he may be using as method. [Percy Bridgman, eoht.info]

Bridgman suggests that the “scientific method” is less a rigid, step-by-step formula and more of a flexible approach that changes from person to person.

Am I pressing the point overmuch?

Maybe.

But the point remains: believing in science, like believing in anything, takes faith.

But that’s not the most important question as it relates to science.

Is Science Good for Us?

You’ve probably heard conviction in science expressed in sentiments like these:

• Trust the science!
• I believe in science!
• Stand up for science!

When you hear these things, you’re not hearing someone claim I believe science is real.

What they are claiming is far bigger: I believe science is good and a net positive for humanity.

They aren’t professing their faith to support the rights of protons, electrons, and neutrons to exist in the public sphere. They are advancing a viewpoint that more scientific progress is good! They are arguing that we must stand up for science because more science equates to human flourishing.

Well, is it?

My personal opinion is, yes, science is good.

I may never have been a physics genius (far from it), but I appreciate the idea of gathering data through scientific inquiry and testing hypotheses to better understand reality.

Most of my professional life was based on interpreting data and using it to make good decisions about the present and the future. I love data!

But whether science is a net positive is not the open and shut case I once assumed it was.

Because it’s true that many incredible advancements have come through science …

… and also, many horrible things have been done in the name of science.

Things like:

• The Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies ran from the 1950’s — 1970s. Researchers infected disabled children with hepatitis from infected stool samples to learn more about the disease.⁷
• The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was live from from 1932–1972. Black men with syphilis were intentionally left untreated so researchers could study the natural progression of the disease.⁸ This was after penicillin existed as a known treatment.
• There were few political parties who loved science more than the Nazis. They showed their “love” in part through horrifying experiments on concentration camp prisoners designed to test the capacity of the human body to endure extreme suffering and deprivation.⁹
• The CIA, under the leadership of chemist Sidney Gottlieb, ran Project MKUltra through hospitals, universities, and prisons. They used LSD, hypnosis and other methods on unwitting participants for the purposes of mind control all under the guise of national security.¹⁰

We also have science to thank for CFCs and the depletion of the Ozone layer.

And stockpiles of biological and nuclear weapons that have the potential to wipe out civilization as we know it.

We have a generation addicted to social media and mobile phones that now spends more time in front of a screen each day than asleep. And we haven’t even touched on AI, which data shows is killing our brains.

What does this show?

Not that scienctific “advances” are inherently bad. But neither should we assume that they are all beneficial. Life is complicated.

Because people, when left to our own devices, all have the capacity for evil. Even to use things that seem good for evil ends.

This is true for religious faith as it is for science.

Knowing that to be true is why I may believe in the potential of science, but I will never “trust in science.” Just like I will never trust in religion.

I do trust in Jesus. I can’t prove it’s all true, but it’s not a blind faith that is divorced from evidence and reason.

Faith in God is not an intellectually insane position. Some of the most intelligent people the world has ever known, people like Blaise Pascal, have been committed believers in Jesus Christ.

So, if you’re someone who has wrestled with faith in Christ before, maybe today is the day to continue the wrestling.

You might feel like it’s almost impossible, but there is still something inside you that makes you think there needs to be a bigger explanation for life than random chance.

Pressing into those nagging questions is what has led many people to God.

I believe God invites us into the struggle. And if you’re willing to search and press in to the discomfort of not knowing, He won’t leave you hanging.

And since you’re already placing your faith in science, or wherever else you might have it, perhaps it’s not quite the crazy thought that you might have suspected it was.

Thanks for reading.

********

Sources

1: Relationship between science and religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_science_and_religion

2: Scientists and Belief: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

3: Superseded Scientific Theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories

4: Doctrine of Uniformity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism

5: Scientific method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

6: Percy Williams Bridgman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Williams_Bridgman

7: Willowbrook School: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School#Hepatitis_studies

8: About The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/about/index.html

9: Science and technology in Nazi Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Nazi_Germany

10: MKUltra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra