Sooner or later we have to learn some new words. A worldview is a mental model of reality — a comprehensive framework of ideas and attitudes about the world, ourselves, and life, a system of beliefs, a system of personally customized theories about the world and how it works, with answers for a wide range of questions (The American Scientific Affiliation) Materialism is the philosophical position that all reality is material and consists of matter and energy. Some may include non-verifiable forms of matter that are theoretical. Anything immaterial must be explainable by natural laws. The “supernatural” describes and explains things that are not natural and are not scientifically testable, and therefor by science definition are not scientific. Naturalism studies the observable, materialism studies the observable and material.
Scientific method are techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge based on observational and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
Scientism refers to belief in the scientific method and is the view that science constitutes the most authoritative worldview, if not only worldview, to the exclusion of other viewpoints. Note: “to the exclusion”. The sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge. Those things that can be weighed, measured, and counted are more true than those that cannot be measured. If it cannot be counted, it does not count.
Most people subscribe to Materialism, Naturalism and Scientism as a worldview, even people of faith. That is until the meaning of words and the limitations of science is properly understood. Science by definition can only observe, record, and correlate observable matter and energy. It has no interpretive ability. Be it fossilized bones, biology, chemistry, or physics. Interpretation of observed data and development of a hypothesis is philosophy, a purely human endeavor, and is adulterated by worldview. For example, an evolutionist will weave a story around fossilized bones, but as is the nature of fossilized bones, they did not say anything. All the scientist should say is that bones were found, are likely of a certain species and may be so many years old. That the life form had evolved from something else falls outside of scientific method.
It is important to note here that the ‘scientific method’ is a logical fallacy. It cannot be tested as to whether or not the scientific method is the only way to achieve scientific or any other knowledge. It is purely a definition.
Science has no opinion or anything to say about the following:
Hate. Yes the effects of, for example, jihadist terrorism, are observable, but ‘hate’ cannot be located in the brain to be measured and defined. Yet ‘hate’ is real. Others like ‘love’, ‘compassion’, ‘lust’ all fall outside science. This is not an unfair observation – science has defined itself so as to exclude these things.
Logical and mathematical truths: these must be accepted as foundational presuppositions in order for us to engage in any scientific study. Maths is prior to science and we cannot use science to determine the logic and math facts that precede science.
Metaphysical truths deals with whether or not the external world is real or not. Some truths about the nature of the world cannot be determined through the use of science – by definition of science.
Moral and ethical truths: Science can never tell us what ought to be. Currently a scientist is crossing ape genes with human genes – because he can. What are the moral implications and what value does this thing have once alive? Science cannot tell us what is morally virtuous or vile.
Aesthetic truths: science cannot help us to determine or judge what is beautiful or what is ugly.
Historical truths: Science can tell us nothing about who Nelson Mandela was nor why over thirty thousand of his people died under his guard, nor anything about the historicity of Jesus or the Bible.
If we are going to reject all categories of truth that cannot be determined or verified scientifically, we are going to have to reject all truths related to logic, mathematics, morals, aesthetics, history or metaphysics. The most important claims and assertions of life would have to be ignored as untrustworthy.
Sceptics and atheists will claim that theists are biased because they believe in the existence of God, and so they assume that theists are unable to evaluate the evidence properly. It is claimed that theists have an inadequate reasoning capacity and should not be allowed to use technology or even switch on a light. This is why it is important to understand the difference between scientific method and scientism. Extraction of data is one thing, but what the data means is an opinion – usually affected by world view. Non-believers are convinced that theists start out with a presupposition that clouds judgment. However, many "rational", "science based" people are far more constrained by their presuppositions.
How does that work? Let us look at the basic outline of the scientific method
1.Pose a question about something that can be measured.
2.Research the topic to find what has already been done.
3.With what you know, build an educated guess about where that may lead. (hypothesis). This is to answer the question with a testable explanation.
4.With experiments test the hypothesis repeatedly to ensure stability of data.
5.Analyse Data and Draw a Conclusion: If the hypothesis fails, repeat the process.
This method can fail if the scientist sets up the hypothesis based on a bias, selects suitable tests to that end, analyses the data supporting the hypothesis and excludes those that do not.
Frantz Fanon says: "Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called ‘cognitive dissonance’. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief." What this means ultimately is that while science is based on empirical research, it does not include whether the cognitive processes are true or not. Truth and morality have become relative concepts to whoever is chewing the cud.
If science is all there is, truth is relative and outside the realm of science. Fraudulent science is commonplace and too many to list for a book this size. Here for example, I mention that with almost every anthropological skeletal find purported to be the link between man and ape is up to 100% fraudulent, but are still mentioned in text books as support for evolution. (see later) A cancer research Professor of the Ohio State University resigned in September 2017 after a university investigation found him guilty of scientific misconduct on eight papers, with falsified data on at least 14 occasions. Albert Einstein did his famous mathematical calculations and found that the gravitational and anti-gravitational forces in the cosmos were not equal. Because it was believed that the cosmos was eternal past and in equilibrium, Einstein factored in a ‘smudge factor’ to make these two forces equal, showing that the cosmos was in equilibrium. Subsequent work done by contemporaries of Einstein showed, in spite of great opposition from ‘real’ scientists, that the cosmos was indeed expanding and had a birth in the recent past. This discovery had it’s opponents thence the derogatory name of “Big Bang” given to it by a British scientist. Einstein started as an atheist, but became a theist.
The process of peer review is meant to combat this problem. This is where the scientific work is scrutinised and published in a scientific journal after passing approval of a board. True in theory only. Except that examples abound where papers are turned down because they do not fit the bias of the publishes, or supporting data is fraudulent and not repeatable. Funding is given to pro-evolution research, and those with liberalistic and ‘politically correct’ agendas. Politics now overrides what research is done. Fraudulent data has been driving the Climate Change effort where litigation and violence against the dissenters suggests political motive rather than science. And true, science has a way of policing itself – except that the original researcher or publisher intended to deceive and mislead according to their bias. Once a scientific ‘fact’ is refuted or discovered as fraudulent, little of this is made public.
We all have a point of view, but this does not necessarily mean we are unfairly biased. Bias has nothing to do with holding a viewpoint. Bias occurs when it eliminates certain forms of evidence and evidential conclusions before we even begin the investigation. And while atheists may argue that Christians have this kind of bias, a quick examination of the culture's reliance on science (scientism) reveals that just the opposite is true. You have heard a friend say: “I’ll believe it if I see it.” This is revealing something more than a point of view, and may be exposing a rigid bias that is grounded in an over-reliance on science – scientism.
Verificationism (WIKI), from which the expression “I’ll believe it if I see it” derives, also known as the verification idea or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cognitively meaningful. Everything else nonsense and meaningless - including ethics and aesthetics. This idea all but destroyed religion from 1920, but in 1950 the principle was declared self-refuting. It cannot itself be empirically verified, cannot stand up to it’s own requirements, so must be meaningless under its own terms.
There are dangers in over estimating the ability of science to determine truth. ‘Truth’ itself is under attack in a relativistic world. It is said that there is no such thing as truth – truth is relative and your truth is not the same as my truth. Firstly, the statement that “there is no such thing as truth” is self-refuting because the statement itself is a truth claim that there is no truth. There are many definitions of ‘truth’, the simplest being ‘that which accurately represents reality.’ Secondly, that a pen is in my hand is ‘true’ in relation to the reality of the objects, my hand and the pen. This is called ‘Objective Truth’ because it relates to the objects: pen and hand. Whether anybody is aware of the pen in my hand not, this reality is objectively true globally – even for the unaware farmhand in China. When liberalists talk about truth they usually mean ‘subjective truth’, which is something relating to the view of the subject, the person, or observer – this is best described as ‘an opinion’. Some will go so far as to claim that there is no such thing as ‘reality’ and therefor ‘truth’ is fantasy. The best way to deal with this idea and person is treat them as imaginary and literally walk away.