“Why Trust Science?” is a new book by Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. I’ve posted some resources by her before on this forum. In This Interview, she discusses her book with Ann Reid, the director of the National Center for Science Education.
3 Likes
She has a great TED talk on the scientific method.
2 Likes
That was great, thank you for sharing, @Christy. I couldn’t help noticing how many parallels there were between what she Naomi describes as the ‘true’ scientific method and the way theology is supposed to be done within more Reformed circles.
For example:
-
Inductive reasoning: Science begins with an observation about the universe or natural world. Reformed theology most often begins with observations about a particular text or texts or book.
-
Modelling: Scientists construct computer models to make sense of their data. Reformed theology seeks to create models (doctrines) that make sense of the biblical data they have collected.
-
Evidence: Scientists are sceptical of novelty. They place the burden of proof on the one with the new idea. New ideas which are evidenced are then weighed and scrutinised by the community before being accepted, rejected, modified or labelled intractable. Simply replace ‘scientist’ with ‘Reformed theologians’ and you get the picture.
-
Collective wisdom and shared history: Scientists value the collective wisdom of the community. No theory rests on the authority of anyone scientists but on many voices throughout history. Likewise, Reformed theology seeks to understand the revelation of scripture in the streams of tradition, community and shared history. Like science, this means that sometimes it takes a while for new ideas to catch on.
I’m saying all this really not to convince my non-Reformed brothers and sisters of how virtuous Reformed theology is or anything as pretentious as that. Clearly, whilst we have similarities in terms of methods theology and science are very different animals. I know that. And I know that some might probably disagree with what I have written above. I’m cool with that too.
I am more writing this for my Reformed brothers and sisters who are so often hostile and mistrustful of the sciences. Yet perhaps here at least there is a whopping chunk of common ground where we can help to calm that hostility and breakdown the mistrust. Maybe the Reformed have more shared heritage with science than we have been lead to believe.
My take away for them is: If you trust the methods of Calvin, Keller, Carson, Berkhof, Bavink, and Ursinus, then you have more than enough reasons to trust the methods of scientists too.
3 Likes
Personally, I find your comparison between Reformed theology and science rather iffy and forced. The heart of science is the theory, a framework of knowledge which serves as the best explanation for related natural phenomena. Theories absolutely must be tested in science. What testing is done in Reformed theology? Are the tests repeatable, and are all people allowed to weigh in with better experiments?
3 Likes
Sure @beaglelady, it is probably a teeny bit forced 
. I’m certainly not saying the comparison is 1:1. Obviously, what is central to RT is not testable theories but scripture derived doctrines. And again doctrines cannot be ‘tested’ in an empirical sense, but instead have to be compared to the broader witness of Scripture, confessions, and the history of Christian thought. However there is still a weighing, and scrutinising of data going on - a ‘testing’ of sorts, albeit in a very different form.
Similarly, RT seeks to offer a “framework of knowledge which serves as the best explanation” for scriptural data. Whether it achieves that aim is debatable, but I still believe that is the aim. At the end of the day, Christianity offers a framework of knowledge, just a different kind of knowledge.
Again, there is no 1:1 comparison going on here. I know that science and theology are not the same. 
But in terms of ways of knowing stuff I do think the circles on the ven diagram overlap more than many in the Reformed tradition have been led to believe. That scientists and Reformed theologians have similar concerns, despite their different realms of operation. That’s all I’m trying to say really.
Thanks for the gracious push back.
1 Like
It achieves it Liam within the limits of its epistemology.
I think I speak for more or us around here than just myself, Martin, when I note that the majority of your short responses are too cryptic and short to mean anything to us.
One easy thing you could do that would immensely help readers understand your thoughts is to just insert the quote you are responding to in your own post. Your responses may be wise or needed, but most people will never know if they aren’t willing to search up into the prior (often very long) posts for the thing you are responding to. If you help us out with that context, then that would go miles toward making your cryptic responses potentially meaningful. It’s easy to do - just highlight the bit in somebody else’s post that caught your eye, and click the grey quote box that pops up, and voila! Your zinger response suddenly has needed context.
And don’t be afraid of using words. None of us are graduates from mind-reading school around here. We depend on good old fashioned words to have any clue what you’re talking about.
2 Likes
My apologies @Mervin_Bitikofer
LM77: “…R[eform] T[heology] seeks to offer a “framework of knowledge which serves as the best explanation” for scriptural data. Whether it achieves that aim is debatable”
Klax: “It achieves it Liam within the limits of its epistemology.”
2 Likes
Some of the distrust people have of scientists has more to do with not liking the conclusions science reaches. This is best illustrated by people saying they distrust scientists because they got Theory A wrong, and when you ask them how they know Theory A is wrong they will cite other scientific studies. So they trust scientists when they say Theory A is wrong, but not when scientists support an idea they don’t like.
6 Likes
Maybe you could step me through an example or two.
I’m happy to try. 
Can you give me a bit more information about what you are looking for?
You could show me an example of this in Reformed Theology:
- Inductive reasoning: Science begins with an observation about the universe or natural world. Reformed theology most often begins with observations about a particular text or texts or book.
- Modelling: Scientists construct computer models to make sense of their data. Reformed theology seeks to create models (doctrines) that make sense of the biblical data they have collected.
- Evidence: Scientists are sceptical of novelty. They place the burden of proof on the one with the new idea. New ideas which are evidenced are then weighed and scrutinised by the community before being accepted, rejected, modified or labelled intractable. Simply replace ‘scientist’ with ‘Reformed theologians’ and you get the picture.
- Collective wisdom and shared history: Scientists value the collective wisdom of the community. No theory rests on the authority of anyone scientists but on many voices throughout history. Likewise, Reformed theology seeks to understand the revelation of scripture in the streams of tradition, community and shared history. Like science, this means that sometimes it takes a while for new ideas to catch on.
1 Like
btw, don’t feel that you are obliged to provide an example.
No problem. Happy to have a crack. Will have a think about how to explain it and report back! 
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
I almost opened a new topic - thinking of a title like ‘Postures toward truth’, but then on being prompted by the system about its similarity to this topic, I just re-opened this one.
Given our recent (and long-running not-so-recent) exchanges with many visitors on this forum who fill out a wide spectrum from enthusiastic supporters to enthusiastic opponents, it seems worthwhile to me to ruminate (with the eyes of an educator) on our cultural attitudes toward truth and the good/bad things we inherit from our specific sub-cultures toward the same.
I was recently visiting a classroom of young children (just old enough to read - though as beginners) when, after reading a certain scriptural passage one of the young students enthusiastically noted that Jesus “had golden eyes”. When I pressed him on why he thought so, he just repeated the assertion as obviously true. The man was God, after all! Why wouldn’t he? Even when I brought up scriptures speaking of the ordinariness of Jesus’ appearance (nothing ‘kingly’ that would attract our worship because of his appearance - and even quite the opposite, actually) - none of that seemed to register. His ‘golden eyes’ were probably as firmly affixed to this young boy’s imagination as Jesus’ visible halo is to his head through so much of artistic history.
That (and the aforementioned exchanges so common here among much more mature adults) caused me to reflect on something that we learn about truth, that I think drives so much difficulty and angst when we encounter different postures. And that is this:
One approach to Truth (one that I think is typified well by most young-earthers and perhaps in the confident response of the young student) is that Truth is an All-Or-Nothing proposition. There is no mixture of truth with any falsehood whatsoever. It is a purity issue and anything which is good or righteous - or divine, must of course be 100% truth. If even the tiniest aspect of any of it falls to a challenge, then the whole edifice must collapse because - the whole thing is then revealed to be unreliable in its entirety.
Another approach to truth (deliberate use of the small ‘t’ there in contrast to the prior category) is to recognize the messy and far-from-pure forms it must necessarily take in our finite, human minds. And as such, there is a ready provisionality attached to it which allows us to navigate the waters of varied encounters with others who think differently and then also accomodate for growth in ourselves with much less deconstructive trauma. People of the first category have a ready label for this: it is dismissed as postmodernism, which to them can ever and only be a satanic bogeyman with nothing good to offer. (I’ve seen Christian-publisher high school texts which treat PoMo in exactly that way - an entirely false culture to be warned against and thrown away with all the other cults and denominations that failed to get Truth exactly right according to that particular publisher’s standards). But the ‘messy truth’ people recognize their own fallibilty and certainly incomplete grasps of all truth - including theological truth, and thereby are much less disturbed by the presence of challenge and more likely to be curious about it.
We want - and even need - some certainty to be sure. Perhaps most of all as younger people trying to find our footholds in life. Even if it turns out to have lots of faulty and wrong elements to it, - even just the illusion of certainty may turn out to be a necessary part of our development. One doesn’t easily learn to walk if they don’t have (at least the perception) of safe and solid ground on which to learn. Of course Jesus had golden eyes! He was the God-man! How could it be otherwise? The young student can hardly be faulted for probably parroting the prejudices of his household when I and so many my age do little more ourselves. And to his young mind (I’ll conjecture), to give in to the notion that Jesus was anything less than a golden-eyed, shining being would be making intolerable concessions to all the heretics out there who fail to see Him for the God-man he is! Hence … not one thread, not even a golden-eyed one, can be conceded!
But if we never grow up from our naive reveries, we become the adults who fail to take on board and learn from challenges that Jesus actually taught! And the golden-eyed Jesus is suddenly the (even more heretical in its own turn) machine gunner Jesus fulfilling the earliest and erroneous Petrine fantasies of what a messiah should be.
Our posture towards truth is important. Do we love it enough to make it a life-long pursuit? Or do we love instead the satisfaction of thinking we already have it - in pure (and as it turns out, brittle) form?
7 Likes
Well said, and my response in another post was thinking along the same lines. Strangely enough, also using the term bogeyman, though you spelled it boogeyman. I had to look it up only to find that both are acceptable spellings, Such it is with postmodern spellings.
4 Likes
- That’s two “postures”. Watched a multiple murder mystery, “Stay Close” on Netflix last night–an 8-episode series in which liars and ignorant folk abound–and this quote, in Episode 8–popped out at me: “The truth wasn’t really an option. And the further you get from it, the less sense it makes to tell anyone.” That, IMO, is “a third posture”. [Cassie/Megan Pierce, “Stay Close” Episode 8, Book by Harlan Coben.
2 Likes
Yeah - I’m sure your spelling was probably the originally more proper one. The one I used sounds / looks too much like ‘boogers’.
1 Like