"Facts" and Science
Science can tell us what is, but not what ought to be.
When you ask what *ought* to be science’s role in human knowledge, the statement above offers an easy answer. It explains how the Sherlock Holmes and Sheldon Coopers of this world can be so smart and still so often miss the point. It suggests that, though science is a good and reliable method of obtaining information and a necessary tool for modern life, there is more to the world than what science can explain.
Sherlock Holmes: brilliant but in need of an emotionally-aware sidekick to succeed
But in a society teeming with “fake” and “alternative” facts, depending on your accusation of choice, the role of science has become more precarious. No longer paramount is the perceived distinction between the head and the heart, between the hard-and-fast knowledge of science and the intuitive, yielding nature of faith, instinct, or emotional intelligence. Rather than letting our hearts temper our heads, our passions guide what information we choose to accept. With all our “facts” tearing us apart, the question we face today becomes one of whether we can know truth at all.
The Issue
We ended last week with an observation that people use science to both prove and disprove miracles: some see scientific explanation as validation of Biblical principles and some see it as replacement. However, both camps, whether they integrate science and religion or place science in conflict with religion, elevate the role of science to make their point. In this way, science is given the ultimate power to prove or disprove accepted truths; it may be adored or resented, but either way, it is still put on a pedestal. This placement of science results in the furious development of “facts” that can be entirely contradictory to one another. It's still an open question as to whether science belongs in this role or not, but we can trace how, over time, science came to be an arbiter of truth in our world.
History of The Issue
When Newton was working his experiments back in day (of the 17th century), science was known as natural philosophy and it was more of a hobby than profession, an amusement available to fill the leisure time of wealthy gentlemen or the clergy. The serious scholars studied the more well-established disciplines of the ancient Greeks, like philosophy, literature, or theology. It might surprise some of us today to see theology in that list since we’re used to the idea of a secular university, but in Newton’s time, theology was “the Queen of the Sciences”, the most respected application of knowledge around. So as natural philosophy built up over time and became systematized into and by the scientific method, students became more specialized in either the humanities or sciences. All the while, though, the sciences often found themselves fighting for respect in a society entrenched in the traditions of the humanities.
Enter Thomas Henry Huxley. In the 1800's, he was working at the University of Oxford to promote science in public society. He was quite successful at his job, and he did it by advocating for Charles Darwin’s new theory of evolution against all opponents, even those belonging to that Queen of the Sciences, theology. Huxley famously debated an Oxford bishop, Samuel Wilberforce, over the legitimacy of Darwin’s theory. Although Huxley’s voice was hard to hear in the forum, and those who could hear him thought Wilberforce had the stronger argument, Huxley did get off a good dig in response to an offhand joke Wilberforce made about being related to monkeys that carried the headlines the next day. The stories of Huxley’s passion landed him with the nickname “Darwin’s bulldog.” The Bulldog’s successful tactics in promoting science within a society of two cultures perpetuated a sense of debate between religion and science that has escalated in our modern, technological age through the rhetoric of New Atheists and religious conservatives alike.
Today, we add to the perceived conflict between science and religion of our twentieth-century heritage. We’re in a postmodern era and that comes with a strange tension between a resolute faith in science as fact, inherited from our modern predecessors, and an attitude that truth is elusive and we must create it for ourselves, a response the authoritarian horrors of the past century. This has led to a desire to use science when it proves our own perspective or to denounce it when it contradicts our beliefs, or to completely ignore it out of hand. This transition from modernism to postmodernism has been an awkward one and, on top of that, science continues to increase in complexity, making it difficult to sort out what science really says and what we should do with that information.
Perspectives
After last week’s look at miracles and our discussion of the role of science here, it may be helpful to remember Barbour’s four perspectives of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Each has its challenges. Each has its own take on the relative roles of religion and science. But for those of us who tend to regard science as a standard of objectivity and how we pursue truth, we’d like to offer four limitations of science for you to consider:
Direction - the discoveries of scientific investigation are largely dependent on the facts one chooses to consider and the places one chooses to search or has time to search to maintain funding. Much of the information we receive depends on the interests, resources, insights, biases, and agendas of the person doing, or indeed the funder behind, the research.
Interpretation - we may discover facts, but how those facts are interpreted to fit together into meaningful observations or theories is dependent on, again, the perspectives of the person doing the observing. As an example, we come back to the idea that science can tell us what is but not what ought to be. The idea that science can dictate morals is called the naturalistic fallacy and is built on the idea that what is natural is what is good. If we can prove what’s natural, what exists without human influence, we can assert what’s good. But whether we can prove something is natural does not actually decide whether what is natural is good or evil; hence the fallacy. At the same time, while the designations of good and evil could be an individual’s judgement call, it is not one that we face without context. We must be presented with, and accurately understand, the natural reality in the first place.
Proof - we cannot prove a fact absolutely. To say that something will always happen or that a theory will always be true would require testing that occurrence to the end of time, which of course we can’t do. In the case of limitations of science in “proving” an event like the miracle of Christ’s resurrection, Mark Corner makes the point in his book Signs of God that "human error and unreliability, shifting interpretations and the sheer difficulty of covering every eventuality and dealing with unpredictable human responses make it perfectly plausible that a claim about Christ's rising from the dead in the twenty-first century would be as much a source of controversy (with scientific evidence wielded on either side of the argument) as it was in the first century." (pg. 193). However, and we would stress this, while we can’t definitively prove any theory philosophically speaking, it is also true that some things are much more likely or dependable than others, as in the case of gravity, planetary orbits, and climate change.
Comprehension - We have to admit that we don’t yet know everything. We cannot prove that we know or understand all there is in the reality. Think of the example of dark matter, which makes up a substantial portion of our universe, but of which we have very limited knowledge. A realistic understanding of human comprehension tells us that are not capable of saying that we know everything that exists, because to do that it we would have to know a priori everything that exists.
What Helps
Science has subjective shortcomings. It is not the pinnacle of proof that we sometimes make it out to be because it is fallible people who practice science. But just as it is a mistake to claim that science has full access to absolute truth, it is equally flawed to claim that it has no access. The underdog success story of science and its application in our technological society demonstrates that. And although this week it is science’s turn, it is just as fair to point out the limitations of theology. Those of us who profess faith in a God who is infinite in wisdom and power have to admit that our knowledge of God and the world cannot match God’s knowledge. But instead of throwing in the towel and giving up on knowing anything at all, it may be best to look for the strengths and weaknesses in science and religion, avoid abusing and holding them to one another's standards, and strive to practice each with ever increasing confidence and humility.
