Science: the word itself conjures up a plethora of images ranging from wild-eyed geniuses in lab coats scribbling esoteric ramblings in disorderly notebooks to the wild, rough world of field disciplines such as geology and biology. Science has brought incredible benefits to the world and has become firmly entrenched as the unquestioned best source of truth about the material world. At the same time, perhaps even as a result of this success, the world today has developed a particularly absurd view of science. It is held with an almost religious fervor by many to be the only method of determining truth. The vast majority of scientists, and even, I would guess, a very large percentage of the population, holds to this view, either explicitly or implicitly. While this view seems quite reasonable—science, after all, is the process of applying reason to learn about the world—it holds a fatal flaw. Science, by its very nature, can only address the physical realm. It cannot provide answers about either the existence or nature of the metaphysical realm. It cannot address any question that does not have as its answer some natural process, and those who cling to science alone for truth must simply posit, without any form of proof, that no such question can exist in the real world.
The flaw lies in the very foundations of science. It was conceived as a method for acquiring information about the material world, a task for which it is a very effective tool. For any phenomenon which can be explained purely through natural causes science is unrivaled. In the event, however, that it is faced with phenomena of supernatural origins science can produce no answer. This results from the fact that science begins by excluding the supernatural. Pure science “cannot allow a divine foot in the door,” as Richard Lewontin put it. In essence it asks “what natural causes can one find for this phenomenon?” In asking that question alone it excludes the divine and places facts and empiricism at the feet of philosophy and a priori presuppositions—the very thing it seeks to avoid. Science is thus inextricably intertwined with philosophy and cannot produce a coherent worldview on its own, however much research and effort one puts into into it.
Still, most of the time science produces a reasonable answer. It gave us, as many materialists like to point out, the electric light, the airplane, space travel, and much more. It is true that most of the time the world behaves in a predictable, completely ordinary manner (this is actually an excellent argument for the Judeo-Christian worldview, incidentally) and in these cases science is our best method of finding an answer. If something out of the ordinary has occurred science will, however, produce a nonsensical answer. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in the subject of origins, an area that cries out that something profoundly extraordinary has taken place. In this realm science cannot produce a reasonable answer. Take cosmic evolution: each step is more improbable than the last, beginning with a quantum fluctuation in nothing that produced everything. Moving further in the process, excellent work has been done analyzing faster than light expansion and subsequent localized contraction, and as of yet no reason for or driving force behind either posited occurrence has been found. Taken as a whole, the hypothesis is disturbingly close to a statistical impossibility and, in fact, is arguably completely impossible. It is a perfect example of the futile flailing of science divorced from all other forms of seeking truth.
Science is nonetheless the best method we have of learning about the physical world. Divested of this, our best recourse, will we be forced to return to a time when foolish superstition driven by fear suppressed understanding? Certainly not! Indeed, the fallacy that led many in the past to attempt to explain the world around them solely through superstition is, in many ways, the same that leads many today to attempt to explain everything through science: the search for one process that can answer any question, an ultimate panacea. Instead, we should remember that the search for truth is bigger than any one method and allow ourselves to consider every possibility. It is not only the best way to truly understand the world around us, it is integral to our unique purpose as humans to seek and find truth wherever it can be found.
