“The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17).
Is there such a thing as “science”? There isn’t. Science is not a thing like a shovel used for digging, a microscope for viewing what can’t be seen with the naked eye, or a gun to send a projectile through the air. To “follow the science” means to follow the opinions, theories, and conclusions of people who collect and organize knowledge (the meaning of the Latin scientia) in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.
The process of scientific discovery requires many first principles that exist before science can be done. A scientist must presuppose the reasonableness of reason, the logic of logic, that what is done experimentally today will work in the way under the same circumstances tomorrow:
Every scientific outcome will be determined a priori by the presuppositions that the scientist, who is engaged in the scientific endeavor, holds by faith. Nobody is presupposition-free, but we all need presuppositions, by way of worldview, in order to make sense of reality. In other words, before a person — Christian or non-Christian — begins any scientific endeavor, he or she already holds basic presuppositions concerning metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. A person holds these presuppositions or assumptions by faith since he or she cannot gain any knowledge or understanding without having a concept about reality (metaphysics), knowledge (epistemology), and morality (ethics) first.
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The scientist who thinks that he is neutral, or “facts-only,” as is often claimed, has already fallen into the trap of his own biases without even knowing it.[1]
Science, the process of gaining knowledge, comes in different forms. When Galileo saw craters on the moon by use of a telescope, that observation changed the way people understood extra-terrestrial bodies. There was an increase in knowledge. The is true with Galileo’s experiment with different weighted spheres and by Italian experimenters a few decades earlier. For centuries, scientists, following Aristotelian physics and cosmology, believed that different weighted objects fell at different rates of speed. A simple experiment proved Aristotle wrong. The same was true of Copernicus’ heliocentric (sun-centered) solar system that proved Aristotle’s geocentric model incorrect where the earth was said to be the center of the cosmos, and the planets, the sun, and the moon, and the stars circle it. The new knowledge replaced the old knowledge but not before a great deal of debate took place. For example, Andreas Osiander (1498–1552) wrote the anonymous preface to Copernicus’s Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543) which was published after the death of Copernicus stating that “the theory was only meant to be a hypothesis and was not presented as fact.” This was not the opinion of Copernicus. “Osiander had penned his preface because he found the idea of the earth rushing through space at high speed while simultaneously spinning on its axis ridiculous, and he knew Europe’s intellectual elite would agree.”[2]
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths
Christianity's failure to show itself practical in the past 150 years has guaranteed the success of secularism and militant Islam, both of which are doing incalculable harm at home and abroad. The rejection of any type of ‘this-worldly’ application of the Bible has resulted in the proliferation of man-centered worldviews that have steadily drained the life out of our world and left behind a spiritual vacuum.
Buy NowEven though there was nearly universal opposition to the Copernican hypothesis at the time, the work was published, and point and counterpoints commenced.
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) faced similar opposition and debate. Interestingly, Darwin was not a university-trained scientist and yet his theory, along with the independent work of Alfred Russel Wallace, have won the day to such an extent that debate is no longer permitted in most academic circles. It cannot be challenged in government schools. For example, the Victoria Institute was formed in 1865 to challenge the new evolutionary theory. It was rebranded in 1932 as the Evolution Protest Movement which issued the following statement of purpose:
We feel the public are being deceived. Evolution propaganda does not present the facts impartially; it dwells upon those which favour the theory, while suppressing those which oppose it. Such are not the methods of true, but of false, science. Few people realise that the tactics which Evolution employs would be regarded as ‘special pleading’[3] in a Court of Law; and that many scientists have declared that Evolution is both unproved and unprovable.
Little has changed. It’s important to note “that a good deal of the opposition came not from wounded religious sensibilities but from common-sense objections arising from people’s instinctive trust in everyday forms of logic…. The whole descent-with-modification theory of animal metamorphosis was widely rejected for being ‘imaginary,’ especially since readers had noted that Darwin himself admitted that the fossil evidence was simply not there (yet) to support his claims.”[4] It’s still not there. That’s why “punk-eek” theory was created to account for the astounding numbers of gaps in the fossil record. From The Scientific American:
The fossil record is notoriously stingy in doling out clues about the history of life. Biologists agonize over whether they are inferring a distorted view of the past from the bits of bone that they pluck from the vast expanse of the earth’s accumulated sediments. But because evolution proceeds so slowly, scientists cannot test their ideas by watching it unfold in real time.[5]
The irrationality, illogic, and undying push to accept the absurd is part of the demand to “follow the science” no matter where it takes us because of who says it. Consider the following from the high priest of evolutionary dogmatism Richard Dawkins:
Natural selection happens naturally, all by itself, as the automatic consequences of which individuals survive long enough to reproduce, and which don’t…. Given enough generations, ancestors that look like newts can change into descendants that look like frogs. Given even more generations, ancestors that look like fish can change into descendants that look like monkeys. Given yet more generations, ancestors that look like bacteria can change into descendants that look like humans.
The above is from page 20 of his book The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. There is no way that Dawkins can confirm any of what he wrote as being true. He is describing magic and not scientific reality. His claim of “what’s really true” does not compare to Galileo’s discovery of mountains and craters on the moon or his experiments with the speed at which different weighted objects fall. Dawkins is spewing speculation and calling it science!
All of this has a bearing on where we are today on the push to “follow the science.”
Try to question abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, multiple genders, climate change. The science is settled so there’s nothing to debate. There is no debate over the COVID vaccines. Anyone who questions anything about what’s going on with the vaccine is banished, censored, or canceled. Those who claim to follow the science are not being scientific. To offer alternatives and question the science behind the science is what science is all about.
Many highly educated and responsible doctors and politicians claim with good reason that vaccine mandates at the state and federal levels are all about maintaining power and control to push a political agenda. Why is it anti-science to treat COVID-19 with Ivermectin, a safe and effective treatment that’s being used around the world? Pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions from doctors who are prescribing it. Read about it here. But medical marijuana and addictive opioids are legal and prescribed every waking hour.
A claim has been made that more than 500,000 adverse events have been reported after COVID vaccines, from temps to neuropathy. Shouldn’t this be reported and investigated as part of following the science?
There is a great deal of science regarding abortion. Pro-abortions claim that their unborn baby is their body. It isn’t. “Keep Your Hands Off My Uterus” is a popular slogan used by pro-abortionists at rallies. The slogan is anti-science. An unborn baby is not a woman’s uterus. Consider that actress Jennifer Lawrence — who is expecting her first child with husband Cooke Maroney — joined a march to support a woman’s right to kill her unborn baby. It would be great if Lawrence considers that her “baby bump” is a baby rather than some thing akin to an appendix. It’s called following the science!
Restoring the Foundation of Civilization
There are many Christians who will not participate in civilization-building efforts that include economics, journalism, politics, education, and science because they believe (or have been taught to believe) these areas of thought are outside the realm of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Buy Now[1]Ben Hayes and Sacha Walicord, “Science vs. Faith: The Great False Dichotomy,” Pro Rege, Vol. 47:44, Art. 8 (June 2019):
[2]James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing Co., 2011), 273.
[3]An argument where an advocate for a position deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to his or her point of view.
[4]Neil Thomas, Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discoveres the Case for Design (Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press, 2021), 35.
[5]John Horgan, “Score One For Punk Eek,” Scientific American (July 21, 1996): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/score-onefor-punk-eek/