Faith Versus Science?
by Benjamin Banks
Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827), a French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, was most known for applying Newton’s theory of gravitation to the solar system. The product was a complex system of planetary movement that extended and supplemented Newton’s theory. Presented with the work, Napoleon remarked, “They tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.”[1] Laplace promptly replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.”[2]
Laplace’s response typifies an attitude that has only increased since the Enlightenment: that science is not just one source of truth, but the source of objective truth. This view is still alive and flourishing. Mainstream media outlets promote scientific solutions for subjects ranging from business strategies to romantic relationships. Pundits smugly drop scientific data as trump cards in discussions of virtually any topic. Science has come to be synonymous—at least in popular culture—with the objective, final word. This is not commonly the case with those who actually practice science, for reasons that this article will show. Yet society largely views science as a detached and impartial truth source.
This perception is most apparent whenever science is contrasted with more ‘subjective’ disciplines, like theology. This contrast portrays science as a tidy, precise process, while religion is portrayed as the messy product of personal interpretation and emotion. Yet even some scientists have begun to acknowledge the influence that the object being studied and the researcher’s methods and beliefs have on the outcome of their work. This article will examine some of those influences—not to belittle the scientific process or its many accomplishments, but to remind the reader that, like any other human endeavor, science is subjective and fallible.
The Role of the Object
One of the primary contributors to the subjectivity in scientific inquiry is the role played by the object of study. The nature of the object affects the way scientists can know it, guiding the course of study and determining the means utilized. This means that prevailing theories are constantly being reevaluated and revised as understanding of the world deepens. For example, a scientist would study a complex living organism, like a deer, differently than a non-living entity, like a rock. This is simple enough, even intuitive. The difficulty comes when the object of study is more difficult or even impossible to observe. Both science and theology are “essentially concerned with entities whose unpicturable reality is more subtle than that of naïve objectivity.”[3]
Whether quantum physics or historical cosmic events, many aspects of the natural world cannot be directly observed. If the object dictates the course of the study, as it should, then lacking the ability to observe it clearly makes the endeavor more difficult and the results more tenuous. Polkinghorne, a former particle physicist, points to quantum mechanics as a prime example. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle claims that either the location or the function of a particle may be accurately known, but not both since measuring one affects the other. Observing these particles changes them, which makes it difficult to gain an objective understanding of them. This underscores the fact that the object of study often mandates that conclusions be evaluated critically and held humbly.
The Role of the Scientist in Methodology
Perhaps the clearest argument for the subjectivity of science is the role that the knower—in this case, the scientist—plays in methodology. The view of science advocated in popular culture is one in which “theories are validated by clear-cut criteria and are tested by agreement with indisputable, theory-free data. Both the criteria and the data of science were held to be independent of the individual subject and unaffected by cultural influences.”[4] Unfortunately, this view doesn’t consider the role that the experimenter plays in the scientific process. This section will examine the scientist’s contributions in three ways: (1) the assumptions with which he begins; (2) the interpretation needed for selecting theories; and (3) the prevalence of paradigms.
Assumptions
Every scientist begins with presuppositions. They may be unknown to him, but they enable and drive his study. “Scientific reasoning depends upon the deeply held conviction – the passion of the scientist – that the world is rational and knowable and that truth is worth pursuing.”[5] While this may seem obvious, given our everyday experience, this truth cannot be explained easily, particularly in an evolutionary context.
Yet without this conviction, science could not proceed. Ted Peters thus asserts that science rests on faith as much as theology does.[6] Langdon Gilkey clarifies, “[T]his is not faith in the strictly religious and certainly not in the Christian sense, but it is a commitment in the sense that it is a personal act of acceptance and affirmation of an ultimate in one’s life.”[7] So each scientific endeavor begins with a faith commitment to the intelligibility of the natural world.
Interpretation
According to a simplistic view of the scientific process, “theory plus experimental verification equals established truth.”[8] This popular view always has the data verifying a black and white conclusion, from which accessible and inviolable laws are formed. Yet reality is more complicated. “The trouble with a simplistic view of scientific method,” writes Polkinghorn, “is that it does not take into account the sophisticated web of interpretation and judgment involved in any experimental result of interest.”[9]
The simple view also doesn’t take into account that the process is not typically just prediction and result. Scientific method is not a gumball machine, where a scientist puts in a coin, pulls the lever of experimentation and receives an incorrigibly true conclusion in return. The process is more “mutually interactive” between observation and understanding, because all data is “theory-laden.”[10] Science must approach its investigation from a certain perspective, which ensures that some expectation goes into the experiment. The selection of the phenomena to study, the variables measured, the tools used, and the questions asked all have an impact on the kind of data gathered.
In other words, scientific inquiry is often more like translating a text into another language, than solving an equation. The interpreter plays an important role in understanding the text’s meaning and translating it into another language, which may not have corresponding words or figures of speech. Likewise, scientists make interpretive judgments about the meaning of observed data, and its application and relationship to our larger body of knowledge. Polkinghorne adopts the phrase, “the spectacles behind the eyes,”[11] highlighting the fact that even observations and perceptions have to pass through the scientist’s presuppositions.
Paradigms
According to Thomas Kuhn, a paradigm is a “cluster of conceptual, metaphysical, and methodological presuppositions embodied in a tradition of scientific work.”[12] This definition includes the historical examples used to exemplify the paradigm. They exist to provide a framework for what ‘normal science’ looks like in a given tradition and to explain the kinds of explanations and data needed. Paradigms provide the box inside, or outside of which the scientists think.
Kuhn wrote extensively on the paradigm shift, which he equated with a “scientific revolution.” Decreased results combined with a growing list of modifications to a theory cause scientists to search for another paradigm. They then question their fundamental assumptions, search out new kinds of data, and reinterpret previous data in light of the new paradigm. Kuhn highlights three basic characteristics of paradigms:
(1) All data is paradigm-dependent. The data collected is viewed through the lens of the prevailing paradigm.
(2) Paradigms are resistant to falsification. They have built in methods for dealing with change. The auxiliary hypotheses may be changed, ad hoc hypothesis may be added to account for the problem, or the problem could just be ignored as an unexplained anomaly. Kuhn notes that because of these built in features, “[p]aradigms are not rejected because there is contradictory evidence; they are replaced when there is a more promising alternative.”[13]
(3) There is no criterion for determining which paradigm to adopt. The decision is not made according to normal scientific processes. Kuhn says it depends more on rhetoric than actual science.[14]
The point: a measure of arbitrary choice animates the selection of paradigms that influence the scientific process.
Conclusion
The purpose of these considerations is not to disparage the scientific process. It is still an effective means of discovery, as evidenced by the advances throughout the centuries. Yet it is also not the only or perfect route to truth. Returning to the opening example, let’s remember that the work Laplace so proudly defended has now been superseded and augmented by other discoveries. An honest consideration of science must be honest about its limitations and the areas in which it is vulnerable to subjectivity.
Believers should not be intimidated by the culture’s contrasts of science’s supposed objectivity and religion’s supposed subjectivity. As these observations show, science remains a very human endeavor. Like religion, it contains subjective elements, interpretation, and faith commitments. Everyone must place their faith somewhere. Believers have simply chosen to place it in the Creator, rather than their sole understanding of the world.
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[1] W. W. Rouse Ball. A Short Account of the History of Mathematics. 4th ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1908).
[2] Ibid., “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.”
3 John Polkinghorne, One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 64.
[4] Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997), 93.
[5] Ted Peters, “Science and Theology” in Science and Theology: The New Consonance, ed. Ted Peters (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), 22.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Langdon Gilkey, Religion and the Scientific Future (San Francisco: Harper, 1970), 50.
[8] Polkinghorne, One World, 6.
[9] Ibid, 8.
[10] Barbour, 108.
[11] Polkinghorne, One World, 8.
[12] Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962) xvii.
[13] Kuhn, Structure, 126.
[14] Ibid.
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Benjamin Banks is a Ph.D. student in the Systematic Theology program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a graduate of SEBTS (M.Div.) and Tennessee Temple University (B.A.). He lives in Wake Forest, NC, with his wife, Laura, and daughter, Elizabeth, where they attend North Wake Church. His academic interests include theological method, apologetics, and culture.
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