You don't scoff at all supernatural revelations, just the Christian one.
10 Things Science cannot do
 “I don’t believe in anything that is not physical–I only believe what science tells me is true,” is what a student of mine told me as he came into my office in the Spring of 2013. For this post, I will address ten things we cannot learn from science alone.
The view called naturalism, (also called scientism or materialism) holds that nothing but the physical world exists. This view is false on many accounts. See my article on on the issue here where I address the problems of this atheistic worldview (you can also listen to the talk I gave on itunes here.) But for now, are there 10 things we cannot learn or glen from science alone.
Science (derived from Latin scientia, meaning ‘knowledge’) is a way of looking at and researching the world. I am not nocking science or scientific research! It is a wonderful gift of God to make sense of creation and that we have used and are using use to make our world a better place.
But science alone does not tell us everything. For now, I will list ten things we cannot do with science alone.
- Logical truths: These must be accepted as foundational presuppositions in order for us to engage in any scientific study, so we clearly can’t use science to prove logic. In fact it is the other way around. We need logic to make sense of science. My wife cannot be pregnant and not pregnant at the same time and same sense. A truth cannot be false at the same time as it is true. If all mothers are women, than every mother we meet must of necessity be a woman. There is no escape from this. These are logical truths that science relies upon.
- Metaphysical truths: Some truths about the nature of the world (such as whether or not the external world is what we think it is, our free will and our personhood) cannot be determined through the use of the hard sciences. Your personal identity, your sense of self and personhood is not found in your DNA alone.
- Moral and ethical truths: Science cannot tell us what is morally virtuous or vile. It tells us what “is.” But it does not tell us what “ought to be” (related to moral judgments). Science can tell you who died, how he died and what way he was killed. But it cannot tell you if he was murdered–it cannot tell you if it was wrong to kill him. Sam Harris and many others tried but failed to do this.
- Aesthetic truths: Science cannot help us to determine or judge what is beautiful or what is ugly. Although the Golden Ratio comes close.
- Mathematical truths: We cannot why we know with 100% certainty that the next time we multiply 100 X 100 the answer will always be 10,000 . The Pythagorean theorem and other principles help us to understand science . These are mathematical laws that we cannot know will work using science alone. In fact we need math to make sense of science, not the other way around
- Conscious truths: Scientific analysis can never tell us what “what it is like” to experience love or hate or betrayal. MRI or CAT scans of our brains will not produce data on this. This is private and personal knowledge that cannot be gained by a scientist. Look up Qualia. It is the nature of experience itself that does not lend itself to a scientific third person analysis. By the way, the idea “I cannot believe anything that is non-physical,” is itself a non-physical thing! This is what we call a contradictory statement.
- Literary truths. We cannot know by science alone that Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Fin was a more interesting character than Homer’s Agamemnon. Literary truths require analysis, but not the same kind that rocks or comets do.
- Scientific physical Laws: There are laws and equations built in the very foundation of the universe, such as, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force and gravity—which most cosmologists tell us were present in the singularity over 13 billion years ago. These are what make science work, but science alone cannot explain them.
- Forgiveness and peace. Study all you want, and you will not be one step closer to finding forgiveness or peace for your sins and the people you hurt with biology or chemistry alone.
- Purpose and hope. You cannot find the purpose of all of life, and your life in particular with scientific analysis. Scientific research can confirm that lives with purpose are more lasting, but it does not tell us what that purpose is.
What do you think? Are there other areas where science cannot go?
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, Act 1 scene 5G |
