Skip to content Skip to footer

Blinding Them With Science

I’m afraid I may have just triggered someone.

First, let me explain. I watched over the weekend as the March for Science took place in Washington D.C. (Earth Day – April 22, 2017). The organizers had made it clear they didn’t want their event to become a partisan political forum:

We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest. (https://www.marchforscience.com/mission/)

Unfortunately, it was nothing if not politically partisan (signs used in March for Science). And with all the music (Thomas Dolby singing “She Blinded Me With Science”, a favorite of mine) and passionate preaching that occurred, the result was something I’d rarely expected from the scientific community: a worship service.

The gathered congregation were giving praise and pledging unbending devotion to that which they worship. The object of their worship is science, and the faithful screamed with religious fervor in their outdoor revival.

A popular sign seen repeatedly at the march read, “The good news about science is it’s true, whether you believe in it or not”. They equate scientific conclusions with concrete facts.

But this conveniently ignores the fact that data must first be interpreted by humans, all of whom have certain biases and opinions, not to mention the possibility of “human error”. But the true believers are expected to believe no scientist would ever sway findings toward his own preconceived convictions.

If I trusted any pastor that blindly, I can only imagine the chorus of “yeah, right”s I’d get from my atheist friends. Yet if the object of trust is a group of scientists, we’re all expected to line up and drink the kool-aid happily.

But surely any fears regarding the scientific community would be unfounded. These unbiased scholars would surely never attempt to silence debate on the issue by quickly deeming it “settled science”, and then brand anyone a nut who dares disagree. Right?

That’s exactly what happened to Dr. Richard Sternberg.

THE POWER OF OUTRAGE

Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, holds two Ph.D.s in biology and was managing editor of a journal published at the museum. He made the huge mistake of publishing an article by Dr. Stephen Meyer, who holds a doctorate from Cambridge University. The article supported intelligent design theory: the idea that a higher being is the best explanation for the existence of life on earth.

As a result of Sternberg giving credibility to the research by publishing it, he was forced to give over the keys to his office, depriving him of access to the specimen collections his work demands. Sternberg claims he’s now treated as a pariah by his peers, and previous colleagues refuse to work with him on publication projects (the article exposing this, originally published in the Wall Street Journal, can be accessed here without a subscription: https://forums.t-nation.com/t/the-branding-of-a-heretic/43883)

The message was clear: don’t dare to step out of the accepted “group-think” parameters. If you do, your findings will be met with outrage, and you will be punished and humiliated for not conforming.

So much for science as an unbiased pursuit, following wherever the data leads…

Ironically, this brings to mind the struggle of Galileo. His belief that the sun was the center of the then-known world was indeed met with religious indignation. That’s because religious leaders jumped to a conclusion the earth was the center of the universe, a conclusion that the Bible never states. But we forget that there was also a cry of outrage from his peers, despite his evidence.

The tactics remain the same today: just scream loud and long enough, and someone will believe a crime has been committed. In this case, a “thought crime”.

SCIENCE NOW HAS A POPE

The “Church of Science” movement has chosen a dubious leader and poster child, popular television personality Bill Nye. Notice how I didn’t call him “scientist Bill Nye”. That’s because he actually isn’t a scientist at all – he only plays one on TV. Seriously.

But on TV image is everything, so if you act smart and people will presume you are smart. That’s just what Nye does on countless tv appearances I’ve viewed. He sneers, he rolls his eyes, and he ridicules anyone who’d dare question his cherished beliefs.

For his “religion”, he’s the closed-minded pope demanding the persecution of the heretics challenging his religion and refusing to bow to his god. He demands a locked-stepped orthodoxy and compliance with a zeal the original Spanish Inquisitors would have envied.

NOT A BINARY CHOICE

Back to my triggering episode…

To follow up on the March for Science, I posted what I thought was a rather innocuous statement on Facebook:

“…this ‘sure thing’ of science is not an ‘exact science’, but a growing, evolving thing. That’s why I respect science, but never let it dictate to me about things like God and faith. Science is a terrific tool for good, but an inconsistent god.”

Indeed, I believe science is at it’s best when it humbly revises previous conclusions upon discovering new data. I gave the example of how, when I was a teenager in the 1970s, we were warned of “global cooling” and a new ice age approaching. Then later, we were in turn warned about “global warming”, with the opposite of an Ice Age threatening us.

Interestingly enough, I never stated a position on global warming, and never said it was false. The reason being…I truly don’t know that it’s false. Unlike Bill Nye, I don’t pretend to be a scientist. So I leave debate on that topic to the scientists. And politicians.

But the mere fact I had brought up the inconsistency was blasphemous to my Facebook friends. I was then sent to stand in the corner figuratively, as one friend proceeded to explain the scientific method to me as if I were a toddler.

Religious people are all uneducated rubes, right? I guess he missed the fact I have an accredited Masters degree, and might just have taken a couple of science classes somewhere in that process.

The saddest part of this is that science worshippers have set up a false dichotomy. With them, you can either trust science or religion, but never both. But I believe the two are not at odds in the least, since God is the Creator of all that is truly scientific.

The issue is non binary. The solution is not either/or, it is both/and. But my science friends cannot allow anything else to be revered but their own god. Because they are the sole possessors of “the facts”. Which means before you ever make your argument, they win. End of story.

I’m sadly used to the condescending response I received from my friend. Part of the attraction to this movement is getting to play “the smartest kid in the class”. They believe if you don’t agree with them, you’re either uneducated or perhaps have had some form of brain trauma.

In my case, neither is true…though the jury’s still out on whether I actually possess a brain. I’m pleading the fifth.

JUST THE FACTS, BILL

Here’s the dirty little secret people try to yell over when I verbalize it: science is not just about “the facts”.

It is a much more nuanced issue than that. What we commonly call “science” is most often the interpretation of collected data by a human being. Sure, “peer review” is put in place in hopes of assuring a valid consensus is agreed upon by people who’d blow a whistle if something didn’t make sense.

But in the scenario of Drs Sternberg and Meyers above, the status quo was angered that an article promoting intelligent design was even allowed to be considered. Their peers had completely closed their minds to any possibility of the existence of God as our Creator. When anyone suggested otherwise, they were professionally tarred and feathered.

I wonder how many scientists and researchers will ever make the same mistake again Dr. Sternberg made, of simply allowing discussion of the issue? How dare he be so open-minded!

You may protest, “Well, that’s just one instance of bias by a scientist. That’s just one out of a thousand, so you haven’t proven anything. The majority of scientists are unbiased and only make conclusions when all the data is in. ”

You might want to brace yourself for the tidal wave I’m about to send you. And no, it’s not caused by climate change…

*In the 1970s we were told that the world was overpopulated, running out of energy, food, water, minerals, getting more polluted, and that the end result would be massive poverty famine and global collapse. Every aspect of this collective scientific wisdom was spectacularly wrong.

*In 1980, a “collaboration” of hundreds of the top scientists in the United States government issued a report called The Global 2000 Report to the President, saying that in every way life on earth would be worse by 2000 because the world would run out of oil, gas, food, farmland, and so on.

  • as a result, hundreds of millions of Chinese girls are demographically missing due to sterilization and abortion

*In the early 2000s, we now learned the earth was getting hotter (“global warming”)

*Climate Statistics Prof. Caleb Rossiter, for example, found his fellowship ‘terminated’ after his Wall Street Journal op-ed declaring “the left wants to stop industrialization — even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false.”

*In 2010, Climate Depot identified more than 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, who voiced skepticism about the climate change consensus. 

*California State University, Northridge scientist Mark Armitage was terminated from his job after discovering soft tissue on a triceratops fossil. He voiced skepticism about the age of the dinosaur being millions of years old when the soft tissue seemed to indicate it was only several thousands of years old.

Now, are those enough examples of bias, or would you like me to keep going?

The thing I find most irritating about all this is that I believe science is wonderful…when it is not worshipped as a god. I’m truly thankful for how it has cured disease and increased our comforts through technology. But if divorced from people of faith, science is in danger of reminding us of the premise for Mary Shelley’s most famous novel.

SCIENCE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH

Without ethics and morals, science can lead us into areas that bring great destruction. All the recent warnings by Stephen Hawking regarding Artificial Intelligence’s potential to obliterate humanity sound like the Frankenstein story come to life. And technology’s ability to intrude into our privacy proves our heads have run far ahead of our ethical hearts.

And how unscientific are we to sneer at the possibility of anything which cannot be yet proven? Before Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) invented the first real microscope for scientific usage, how fanciful did the idea of germs causing disease appear to his contemporary scientific peers?

You’re telling me that there are tiny little creatures in the air we can’t see causing us to get sick? What an imagination! Only what can be proven (at this time) is real. Anything else is just a fairy tale!

I remember in college a professor who liked to point out all the Biblical events and places which had no archaeological proof of their existence. He would repeatedly bring them up in our class, daring us to be foolish enough to say we believed in them nonetheless.

What has been interesting through the years is the number of those places and events which have now been proven correct. Oftentimes, it was merely a matter of archaeologists digging in a slightly different area, and a city they’d said absolutely didn’t exist was now uncovered. An inscription is discovered giving testimony to a Biblical event that up to this point was looked upon skeptically. Now those places and events are considered not just Biblical stories, but also secular history.

I’ve often wondered, what if I had listened to my professor? What if I had taken the word of the scientific findings of that day and abandoned my faith completely as unreliable?

God forbid, what if I died before I ever found out they were wrong, and went out into eternity forever separated from God? All based on incomplete information, taken as “settled science”.

I believe eventually science may catch up to God’s Truth, just as those archaeologists eventually caught up to the truth of those Biblical places and events. But I’m certainly not betting my eternity on the ephemeral wisdom of humans, who often cloud the facts with their own personal and political agendas.

Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth century philosopher, mathmatician, and physicist. When debating faith in God, he made an interesting observation now known as Pascal’s Wager. He proposed, “If I bet on the idea God is real, but it turns out I am wrong, I’ve lost nothing. If I’m right, I’ve gained everything and Heaven too. But if you bet He’s not real and you’re wrong, you’ve lost everything and eternity too!”

I’m afraid it’s often their own agendas, and not science, that blinds some scientists to the evidence. You can’t come to a sound conclusion when your specimen is contaminated. And the specimen most tainted of all when dealing with God is the human heart.

And if you’re incredibly offended by this article, ask yourself why? Could it be that you have made a religion of science, and constructed a god of your own intellect?

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO FAITH

In the end, even those who follow science have to use faith. They choose to believe that peer review is never, ever tainted by group-think. That scientists are never influence by their political beliefs, or ever choose to ignore conflicting data…even though it’s occurrences are undeniable.

Just as I trust the right books were chosen to go in the Bible, they believe the “right science” is chosen as “settled science”. They can’t prove God doesn’t exist, just as I can’t prove He does.

It all comes down to what we choose to put our trust in. But that is a reality most scientists can’t seem to face.

Finally, if you’re offended by what I’ve written here, if you feel your blood pressure rising, ask yourself why. Could it be that I have indeed offended your true religion, your god? A lot of what I’m seeing looks more like religious fanaticism than scientific realism.

But I am sorry if this article has offended you. Everyone gets a little ticked when what they worship is attacked. I can sympathize with you…believe me, every Christian knows what it feels like to have their cherished beliefs attacked.

At least Christians and science worshippers now have one thing in common ;0)

Watch my message on this same topic:

 

 

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.

Our dream house was a 120-year old 3-story Victorian home. It was just a few blocks away from one of the loveliest parks in the city and the same distance from the church I pastored. I could literally walk to work, and did so on many mornings. How convenient!

Unlike the other brick houses that lined the streets nearby, this one was painted light yellow and stood apart from the rest. Plaster reliefs of baby angels wrapped around the base of the house. They represented the children of the original owners, making the structure even more unique. It also had a three-car garage at the back of it. Few houses in this older section of town had one as large, and many people resorted to parking on the street. But not us! On just an average salary, we had bought one of the nicest places to live in the area. 

I had always dreamed of owning a Victorian home. I had performed the role of Prof. Henry Higgins from the musical My Fair Lady right before we moved to our new city. So I was primed to live the life of the English gentleman, sipping tea in my beautiful old house. I loved the old wood, the stained glass windows, and our “penthouse suite” for my wife and me on the top floor. We’d be sequestered away from the noise of our little girls playing below us. It all seemed so ideal.

But it turned out to be anything but ideal. Our “Golden House”, as our little girls came to call it, was not so golden. In fact, our dream house almost killed us, quite literally. 

One afternoon I got a call at the church. It was Dawn, my wife, and she was sobbing hysterically. Finally I was able to make out enough of her words to understand what was happening.

“I fell…come home!”

Almost 20 years ago, my wife had been in a bad car accident that crushed her right leg. That ankle couldn’t turn at all. So as I ran the 5 blocks to my home, I knew what had happened.

When I got to the house, I found Dawn in the basement. She was headed to the washer and drier there, and had misjudged a step going down. She hit the concrete floor hard.

After getting her to the hospital, thankfully we learned nothing had been broken. However, that would be just the first of several falls for Dawn down those steps. We eventually moved the washer and drier up to the second floor, which helped a little. But the bottom line was a three-story house with narrow stairways were not meant for a woman who had challenges with mobility.

I also learned having your bedroom on the third-floor is not a good idea for a chubby guy in his mid-50s. There were a few days I wondered if I’d still be alive by the time I reached the top floor. Though I began on the stairway to the bedroom, I might end up on the stairway to heaven…

Then there was the city. Dawn and I always loved culture, restaurants, theater and all the things a great city has to offer. So living there, we felt like kids in a candy store. There was always some new restaurant to explore, always a show playing somewhere, and interesting people living all around us. It seemed ideal.

Except for crime. And taxes. Many cities are big on those, and ours was no exception. We had both in abundance.

One of our regular nightly diversions was watching the notifications on our community’s “Next Door App” alert us to all the recent shootings and hold-ups around us. One of us would hear gunshots, and I’d watch for the posts to pop up. I’d then calculate how close it was to our home. Many were within just a few blocks, some just down the street. 

We would occasionally get notices of some tax we hadn’t paid. Usually, we neglected to pay because the city had neglected to ever send a bill. Then one day, you get a notice you’re being sent to a collections agency, even though you still hadn’t received a bill yourself. 

Once we got a bill for trash pick-up. We were confused because we paid a refuse bill on time every month. But a lady on the phone informed us what we had paid was in fact only the garbage bill. There was completely different bill that was a tax for just having trash pick up available to us in the city. This bill was paying for the “possibility” our trash might be picked up. No kidding.

I’m sure they’re still probably working on a way to collect a tax on our taxes. 

All of this added together was a painful lesson on the difference between perception and reality. After we first moved to that city and were still living in an apartment, I walked down those very streets and fantasized about how wonderful living there would be. When we found the Golden House, we rejoiced and basically cried out, “Here, take our money” to the realtor. 

But the view from the outside of a situation is always much different from the inside. Nothing is ever quite what you expect…with houses, or with life.

The problem with so many of the things we want is it’s too often based on an illusion. We think a thing, a person, or a situation will bring happiness. But happiness is never found in those things outside of us.

Real happiness only happens from the inside out.

There’s an old fashioned Bible word for this foolishness: covetousness. The prohibition against coveting is actually the 10th and final commandment. It’s easily skimmed over in favor of the more R-rated commandments against murder or adultery. Simply wanting your neighbors stuff as opposed to stealing it or killing for it seems like no big deal in comparison.

But coveting is like a powerful drug. The addict never gets enough. Once he gets that one thing he’s obsessed over, he’s disappointed to realize it doesn’t fulfill his needs and he moves on to something more. The new car he’d wanted all his life now sits in the garage most days. She can’t even remember why she bought that purse now. That’s how coveting works: whatever you get, it’s never enough. You’re always left wanting something else, and even more addicted to your desires.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. - Luke 12:15

There was nothing wrong with us wanting a house. But it was very wrong of me to think that it would bring us so much happiness on its own. The ideal life and fulfillment I was expecting from a house was unreasonable. 

That kind of happiness only comes from God’s address, not mine.

Inevitably, we become like kids on the day after Christmas. We’ve opened every package, played with every toy, and we’re already bored with them. The newness wore off in a day, all because we were expecting too much from them to begin with.

Most homes stop being dream houses the minute we walk into them. Reality inevitably sets in, and the “house porn” on the realtor’s website is now just a bunch of plaster and dry wall. 

We finally made it out of our dream house before it killed us. No, we didn't run screaming from it in the middle of the night like in the Shining or the Amityville Horror. When we left, it did take quite a bite out of our finances, and we had to sell for quite a bit less than we'd paid. But the wound was worth it for the lesson we learned.

We’re in a new place now, in a much smaller city. We’re renting a little one-story house we’re hoping to buy soon. We're in a little neighborhood where we hardly ever lock our front door. It's pretty boring compared to city life, but that’s just fine with me.

I’ve discovered what really makes a “dream house”. The dream is not the house, it’s the people you put in it. Regardless of the size or location, those people are what makes life worthwhile. 

Everything else is just a dream. And all that glitters is not a golden house.