Should Christians Trust Scientific Experts? Expertise, Skill and Training

Science–all knowledge–begins with trust, and is wholly reliant on it. Augustine of Hippo noted that he believed to know. Michael Polanyi would make the same case last century. It’s a modern, perhaps Cartesian, proposition that knowledge is independent of any assumptions (belief/faith). BioLogos would be much more interesting if they would engage with the philosophical and metaphysical assumptions that underlie our modern age.

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What sorts of assumptions do you have in mind that Biologos has been “failing to engage with”? Let’s engage with them here (or in a new thread if necessary.)

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Science – all knowledge – begins with FAITH. That is not quite the same thing. The skepticism which science endorses with regards to the claims of people (and other so called “authorities”) is balanced out with a faith in the scientific methodology. This method is founded on two substantial ideals: 1) the honesty of testing hypotheses rather than seeking to prove them, 2) the objectivity of written procedures which anyone can follow to get the same results. While this is largely independent of most beliefs, it is not completely belief free. For one thing, it assumes there are no powerful beings out there arranging the evidence to deceive us.

I doubt that any of us would agree what these assumptions consist of, so if you want particular ones to be discussed then it is up to you to state them along with your argument for your position on the subject.

I agree, it is definitely very important to be aware of where bias could play a role in one’s thinking, as well as in any “salesmanship” that one might be doing. I generally think that the bias of a scientist within a corporation or a doctor providing medical advice tends to be overstated (although there are exceptions), whereas people can under estimate the bias that might influence a person who is making a name for themselves via YouTube videos and selling books and/or supplements, etc, for alternative medicines, online.

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that is a very good point! Mercola makes 9.8 million per year on untested products.

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In part I agree with you. I obviously couldn’t operate on my back in February and had to have someone do it for me. And I dont’ have the skill or knowledge to do such an operation. I had to take my chances on a back surgeon, whose skill I was unable to evaluate by myself. It wasn’t that I knew he was good that made me pick him, it was because my cancer doctor recommended him. Turns out he did a great job on me, and importantly his nurse had a very high opinion of him.

What I am against, however, is this worship of science that we must all bow to ‘what science teaches,’ or what "the consensus view is’. If humanity had never challenged the consensus view, we would all still believe in the ptolomaic system. In that Feynman article, Feynman he says:

I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television–words, books, and so on–are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.

When people say we can’t doubt this or that consensus view of science, that is utter nonsense. Doubt precedes scientific advancements

Mervin,

One of the assumptions is that science and scientific institutions operate in value-free environments. This is partly what drives our shrill and nonsensical public debate on such things as COVID-19. We really think scientific experts are uninfluenced by their values, politics or religion. And so, the debate isn’t about any particular technical point being put forward but around trustworthiness of a certain class of people and institutions. It is no longer thought that republican (small r) leaders assemble the best advice of wise counsel, deliberate and then make decisions.

BioLogos needs an engagement with great thinkers on the philosophy of science like Popper, Polyni, Descartes, Hegel, Kant, Aristotle, Augustine etc. We know scientism and materialism are incompatible with Christianity and theism in general. What about extreme forms of positivism or empiricism?

Enjoyed the article, wish more people would take note.

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These are great thinkers for us to discuss here (and their names have all surfaced in other threads at other times, but maybe no so much on a thread dedicated to this.

I ‘kinda’ know (or think I know) what all these various things mean - some more than others; but I might be at loss to actually tease apart the distinguishing features of some of them. So for my sake (and for future clarity for all of us), let me see if these quickly retrieved definitions for each are things we all agree on.

Materialism (definition brought up by Google)
philosophical definition (2): the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.

Scientism (my own words)
The conviction that empirical science is always the best (or even the only) way to know or have any reasonable confidence in anything knowable or useful to know.

Empiricism (def. brought up by Google)
the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience.

Positivism (1st def. brought up by Google)
…holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism.

Rationalism (1st def. from Google)
a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response.
Additional (1st philosophical) definition: the theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge.

Okay - now that I’ve looked up those, we could probably probably begin to attach a few names. Descartes is known as the ‘father of rationalism’ I believe. Which makes the definition above interesting already in that at least one of the definitions of rationalism goes out of its way to favorably contrast itself over emotional (and ostensibly ‘religious’ thought). I’m not aware that Descartes would have thought of it that way - perhaps he was only nominally Catholic, but I don’t remember reading that he ever renounced his Catholicism. In any case, I do think rationalism has been well laid to rest by a lot of thinkers today including non-religious authors. I’m not sure anybody really takes it seriously as some sort of independent foundation or self-supporting edifice such as Descartes dreamed of making it. Does that sound fair? I think ever since Godel sealed that coffin, rationalism has at best been demoted to a merely valuable wing-man that still needs a friend - even a leader.

I’ll stop here and come back with more later or as interest compels.

@Mervin_Bitikofer and @Doug_Bodde
Thanks for pulling out all those definitions and getting us to think about them. Is there any philosophical term for looking for truth by applying a combination of rational thought and empirical experience? That seems to be what the Bible teaches us to do.

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Thanks. Can you link me some of the criticisms of positivism, etc? One objection I would imagine to discounting these isms is whether we can be held morally responsible for not obeying, say, a deity’s commands that one person heard (or thought he heard), but another did not.

I would say that combination is still best captured by empiricism. Its relation to the practice of science has been furiously debated for many hundreds of years. BioLogos seems to assume the Karl Popper mindset of science via emperor always evidence, self-contained from philosophical, moral and religious influence. In the realm of theism, it seems natural theology covers that space. Popper doesn’t seem to describe the actual world of science though where deduction and values are critical for progress (as Einstein would emphasize).

Well … how about “science”? That might be one proposal. Are there any fundamentals of what is generally now recognized as science that aren’t rooted in those two categories taken together? The only third fundamental that might be necessary for science is that it also needs a foundational set of presuppositions that themselves aren’t born purely of rational thought nor of empirical experience. So now on further reflection, I think the proposed label falls short of cleanly answering your challenge. I think it aspires in those directions though, and may be the closest practical approach we can make.

Regarding criticisms, the Wikipedia entry on Positivism could probably get you started in that direction, if you scroll down to its section “Anti-positivism”. (Should that be called “negativism”? :smiley:) I think positivism began to collapse in on itself - without necessarily needing any help from metaphysics or religious thought to help push it over. Even just from the scientific side and the advent of QM and chaos theory I think it was already in trouble.

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I’m not sure what the phrase I bracketed off in your quote above means, but regarding any alleged homogeneity of “Biologos”, I would be surprised if any small organization that involves more than several people could live up to such uniform consistency around any philosophy or person that wasn’t explicitly part of their intentional mission. Perhaps I should read up on Popper more to try to guess what you might mean. But at the moment, I’m merely happy to wait for more clarification from you regarding your conjecture.

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Oh sorry, that’s a typo. I meant to say science as advanced by empirical evidence subject to objective interpretation.

My greater point is that BioLogos tends toward a certain philosophical view of science as a self-contained enterprise independent of deduction, values, religion, and cultural. That’s fine, but please be self-aware of the stance. And I don’t think that stance is required to combat Evangelical ignorance (there is no other name for it). Showing the empirical data supporting evolution, vaccines etc is a different enterprise than presenting the scientific world as advancing independent of non-empirical, objective influence.

I thought Christians should trust in the Lord and keep their powder dry?

I trust science, what else is there? I trust human nature, as elaborated by science, including the delusions of morality and choice. Rational enquiry in general. And if there’s a God I trust that He’s nothing like the nasty stories we make up about Him.

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Well - I’m glad you think that stance isn’t necessary to “combat evangelical ignorance”, because I’m not persuaded that Biologos endorses any such stance, at least if I understand it all correctly. Certainly, many of us are likely guilty of being science enthusiasts around here, but most (who consider themselves believers - but probably others too) would probably not think of science as a ‘self-contained’ or independent enterprise. There is considerable effort to sort out what is a religious or philosophical assertion vs. what can qualify as a scientific one (the demarcation problem), but that isn’t the same as denying any rightful exchanges of influence between science and all other aspects of human life.

So I’m curious what you’ve heard or read around here that triggers this particular impression of Biologos? If I understand you correctly, “we” stand accused of supporting a somewhat imperialistic attitude on the part of science? (… and I’m only pretending to answer on behalf of Biologos here, but have no official capacity to do so - this is for the sake of conversation only.)

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I would simply advocate for a more interesting, wider exploration of the philosophy of science, especially around the connections not differences between faith and science. I’ve given the folks and ideas I’d like discussed. Why did Max Planck say:

“It is said that science has no preconceived ideas: there is no saying that has been more thoroughly or more disastrously misunderstood. It is true that every branch of science must have an empirical foundation: but it is equally true that the essence of science does not consist in this raw material but in the manner in which it is used. The material always is incomplete . . . [and] must therefore be completed, and this must be done by filling the gaps; and this in turn is done by means of associations of ideas. And associations of ideas are not the work of the understanding but the offspring of the investigator’s imagination—an activity which may be described as faith, or more cautiously, as a working hypothesis. The essential point is that its content in one way or another goes beyond the data of experience. The chaos of individual masses cannot be wrought into a cosmos without some harmonizing force and, similarly, the disjointed data of experience can never furnish a veritable science without the intelligent interference of a spirit actuated by faith.”

This shows a failure to distinguish between the opinions of scientists on non-scientific topics and the results of scientific inquiry. To be sure when scientists are stating their opinions then this is not value-free. But unless you include the values of honesty and objectivity built right into the methodology of science then it is pretty clear that values are irrelevant to the results of scientific inquiry. Without written procedures giving the same results no matter what you believe, scientists will not back up the claims of another scientist. But once you have such written procedures then the only difference of values which are relevant are ones like those which put religion ahead of honesty such as found in creationist groups.

scientism? according to what definition?

According to Wikipedia

Scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values.

I see no conflict with Christianity here… unless your idea of “Christianity” comes from the theocratic practices of the middle ages or the 16th century New England colony of puritans. But for those who believe in religious freedom and tolerance rather than burning any who disagree at the stake, the above definition of scientism is completely compatible with Christianity. The key word is “objective,” meaning that which is the same for everyone because it is demonstrable and thus provides a reasonable expectation that others should agree, quite unlike the things of religion.

Perhaps the word you are looking for is “naturalism” which equates science with the limits of reality and knowledge itself. I certainly agree that this is incompatible with Christianity. As for positivism and empiricism the flaws of these have been well understood in academia for quite some time.