Science is the Answer

Okay, that was a very short post and I've seen so much of this of late that I had to publish this as well.

Over at Moral Science Club in the comments to an article about abortion, an anonymous commenter says, "Why do we keep on trying to use religion to guide people's behavior when we have science?" This isn't a unique perspective. While you would expect this to be the position of laboratories and institutions of "higher learning", I've also seen it postulated by "pastors" and other "church officials". Somehow along the way much of our world has decided that "science" is the measuring stick by which all things are determined. Not only does science determine what is true about the physical universe, but it is also the decision maker about what is true about the supernatural (which, scientifically, is dismissed), the psychological, religion, and even the moral universe. Oddly enough, not even scientists seem to catch the nonsense of such a position.

Science is defined primarily as any kind of objective knowledge. That, of course, is the broadest definition. More accurately, science is the systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. According to Isaac Newton, it is predicated on gathering observable, empirical, measurable evidence, subject to specific principles of reasoning. Science is based in the natural world. Since the supernatural, by definition, is outside of the natural world, science can have nothing to say about it. Still, it tries. If it cannot be observed or measured, it doesn't exist. Science has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. And no one can offer a single, reasonable link between observable, empirical, measurable evidence and morality. If it is observable, empirical, measurable evidence, then it ceases to be morality and changes instead to pragmatism.

The basic requirement of science is that the information must be based on observable events that can be verified by other researchers operating under the same conditions. This, by definition, eliminates the concept of a "miracle." A miracle is defined by the dictionary as an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006). An event that "surpasses all known human or natural powers" cannot be verified by other researchers operating under the same conditions. Ergo, it doesn't exist! This, of course, is nonsense. The inability of a particular method to test for something doesn't define that something's reality. If something is defined as a singular event, a method that requires repeatability cannot have anything to say about that event's existence.

According to wikipedia, "Scientists never claim absolute knowledge of nature or the behavior of the subject of the field of study." This is because of the nature of science. The scientific method is always open to falsification. The idea of scientific study is to verify or falsify ideas. As such, science ends up quite subjective in many areas. Just listen to the news sometime to see what I mean. Eggs are bad for you. Oh, no, eggs are good for you. Drinking coffee is bad. No, it is actually good. Chocolate is bad for you. What we meant to say is that chocolate can save your life. Even the "knowns", like the Law of Gravity end up less than perfect. When approaching the speed of light, gravity approaches non-existence. Oops! So much for that Law. So how is it that a field of study that is defined as constantly in flux and readily falsifiable becomes the standard by which all truth is known?

I don't mean at all to denigrate science. Science has its great value. Science has a long history. Plato and Aristotle were early scientists. China is known in ancient times for inventing things like the compass and gunpowder. Mathematicians in India had models of our solar system centered around the Sun as early as the 6th century. The Scientific Revolution took place in the 16th century, starting with men like Copernicus and Galileo, Francis Bacon, and René Descartes. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica laid the groundwork for such givens as the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Motion. The thing to note in this revolution, however, is that most of its participants were Christians. Their idea was simple. If God is a rational being, then His creation ought also to be rational. As such, we should be able to study His creation and figure out how it works. The idea was "thinking God's thoughts after Him," a line by astronomer Johann Kepler. Newton believed that his book would lead people to believe in God. Modern science, then, has its origins in a Christian worldview. Discarding this view has not made science more stable or reliable.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who argued, much to the delight of atheists everywhere, that the existence of God cannot be proven. To the chagrin of said atheists, Kant also argued that if there is no God, there can be no grounds for morality. For morality to have any weight, there must be justice. If you look around, you must admit that justice is not always served. Therefore, for morality to have any weight, there must be ultimate justice. For there to be ultimate justice, there must be an Ultimate Judge. This Judge must possess certain characteristics. He must (quite obviously) be absolutely just. He must be above any moral failure Himself (Good). He must know all the facts perfectly (Omniscient). He cannot be able to be swayed by outside influences (Immutable). He must be able in all cases to carry out the sentence (Omnipotent). And so on. I think you begin to get the idea. If we eliminate God in favor of science, we will have a dandy sense of what goes on in our world. Well, our physical world. Well, somewhat of a dandy sense, since what we know is constantly changing. And that's how science is supposed to operate. It's an excellent way for human beings to understand their world. It is a perfectly awful way for human beings to determine whether or not something exists beyond the natural world or whether or not something is moral or ethical. These things fall outside of the realm of "science". In answer to the question at the outset -- "Why do we keep on trying to use religion to guide people's behavior when we have science?" -- it is because science has nothing to say about guiding people's behavior, and using science for that purpose eliminates morality and justice, a result we cannot survive.