For the Christian science can never be an authority on the past or past events. In their book ‘Dismantling the Big Bang’, authors Alex Williams & John Hartnett have made a very good statement:
Science works in the present, by observation and experiment; it has no direct access to the past. (pg. 14)
This is actually not a new statement or observation about science or its methods. While this book was published in 2005, 8 years earlier, another author said the same thing. Marvin L. Lubenow in his 1997 book, ‘Bones of Contention’ said the same thing in a variety of different ways.
His chapter 14 called Back to the Future has this to say in its beginning pages:
The overwhelming majority ofpeople working in science and technology deal with the present, not the past. The overwhelming majority of books and journal articles of a scientific nature also deal with the present, not the past. In truth, there is simply no conflictbetween the Bible and scientific discoveries and observationsin the present. The only conflict between science and the Bible involves the scientific community’s interpretation of the past.
While science thrives on observation and experimentation in the present frame of reference, it has no mechanism to observe the past with the same authority it has to observe the present. The scientific method (or methods) applies to the past only indirectly, if at all. In the absence of historical records, all data regarding the past inolves interpretations which may o rmay not be correct…. there is a high degree of subjectivity in all scientific reconstructions of the past.
The failure of the scientific community to recognize the high degree of subjectivity in its interpretations of past events is the major cause of the ‘warfare’ between the Bible and science. (pgs. 144-145).
We have said similar things over the years. For example, we have stated that there has been no archaeological discovery that contradicts the Bible. What contradicts the Bible is the archaeologists’ hypothesis, assumptions, leaps to conclusions, and similar mental gymnastics.
Then he quotes Eugenie Scott who once said:
The scientific method is vastly superior to revelation…as a means to discover the workings of the natural world (pg. 145)
To which Dr. Lubenow responded in the next paragraph:
She is right but she is comparing apples to oranges. The primary purpose of revelation is not to tell us about the ‘workings of the natural world’. Why should God give us a revelationof things we can discover for ourselves when we utilize the scientific method. God’s purpose in biblical revelation is to give us information on things we could not know by any other means. (pg. 145)
A prime example of that response is creation and another is the Flood. There is no way any scientific method could provide us with the information proving those two events. Not only are they out of the scope of science but science cannot see into the past.
It would not know the difference between a local or a global flood, nor can it tell the difference between a supernaturally created life form and one that was born through the supernaturally created reproduction systems that govern life on this planet.
We need revelation to let us know how we got here, why we are here, and what we are to do to live eternally. Science cannot provide the answers to any of the basic questions we answered in the previous article.
There is another problem with science. it is not as objective as scientists like to let on. On page 111, Dr. Ludenow quotes Werner Heisenberg who quoted a conversation he had with Einstein on the issue of how important observation is in the formulation of scientific theory.
The last sentence of Dr. Einstein’s response to that question was ‘It is the theory which decides what we can observe.’ This quote followed another illustration by Dr. Ludenow on the same page. He writes:
…Sir Karl Popper, demonstrated in his monumental work ‘the Logic of Scientific Discovery that scientists do not work according to the so-called scientific method, and that they could not work that way even if they wanted to. To say you can start with observations but without a theory is absurd. Scientists simply do not go around collecting observations and data indiscriminately and then try to fit them into theories. They must start with some theory or concept. This then gives them direction in the collecting of data (pg. 111).
In other words, the biblical instruction ‘seek and ye shall find’ plays an important role in scientific work. The secular scientists create their evolutionary theory and then seek out evidence, observations, etc., that prove their theory. It is no surprise that they find those observations or pieces of evidence.
Their work is not objective but biased from the beginning. As we have mentioned in other articles on science and evolution, the evolutionary scientist only credits evolution for the evidence they find. They are blind to the fact that their so-called evolutionary evidence can be the results of other alternative processes like creation.
They are only looking for evidence that supports their theory and not the truth. We have sat through lectures by evolutionists who have made the prediction ‘if evolution were true, such and such will take place.’ Of course, that is a loaded prediction because they ignore the fact other processes provide the same results.
In their minds, evolution is true because they got the results they wanted to see. The fact that evolutionary scientists ignore facts has been known for some time. In Chapter 14 Dr. Ludenow reveals other important facts they ignore because they do not fit the evolutionary ideology.
One of the key facts is the issue with Rudolf Virchow and his identification of rickets in the bones of the so-called Neanderthal skeletons. The qualifications of Dr. Virchow, who lived between 1821 and 1902, are stellar.
His credits include founding the science of cell pathology, discoveries that include embolism and leukemia, as well as redefining sarcoma and melanoma. The list goes on and you can read more if you read Dr. Ludenow’s book.
Yet, despite all of these accomplishments, Dr. Virchow’s work on rickets is ignored and it is ignored because he had doubts about Darwin’s theory of evolution. Dr. Virchow’s conclusions on those skeletons were supported by Francis Ivanhoe who published a paper in Nature stating that every Neanderthal child skull studied so far shows signs compatible with severe rickets. (pg. 151).
This is a big problem of science. They want to have their own pet theory whether it is true or not. They will discard anything that shows their theory to be false and in gross error.
For the Christian, we cannot trust science because it does not look for the truth. Nor does it look to be objective. itis at this moment a tool for evil to lead Christians astray and eventually get them to lose their faith.
As a side note, we must be honest. We do not totally agree with Dr. Ludenow on other issues. For example his seeming acceptance of Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, and Cro-Magnon man. We will wait till we finish reading the last chapter before making any final conclusions on these issues.
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