In ancient times, when civilization was just getting started on the plains of Mesopotamia, rulers recorgnized and hired certain men who dressed up in priestly robes. Then they would provide them with a platform so that they could speak to the people and declare that what the rulers said and did was right according to "the gods".
Of course, those were primative times and we have come a long way since then. Nowadays rulers recognize and hire certain men who dress up in lab coat. They then provide them with a platform so that they can speak to the people and declare that what the rulers are saying and doing is right according to "science".
"Science" has become in essense the new authority figure for a generation that has lost faith in God. The norm for most humans is to long for an authority figure that they can trust. That is decent, natural and good. There is nothing wrong with the desire. It is a part of the God-shaped hole in the human soul. The problem comes when exploitative entities use this feature of human nature to enshrine themselves. The state will always attempt to fill this longing with itself directly and indirectly.
In the same way, "science" is good. Science is a procedure by which one attempts to gain knowledge of the natural world, called the Scientific Method, or the body of knowledge produced by this method. So it isn't bad. it is good. It has helped mankind. I taught science in public schools for twelve years and I celebrate it for what it is- but not what it is now being sold as.
"Science" is being funded by the state now more than ever, and there are those who are trying to corrupt it from a tool used to validate truth into a narrative that supports various agendas.
There is a misconception that many hold today, because it answers their heart's natural and good longing for an authority figure that they can trust. This is the idea that "science is the only objective means we have for truth discovery". There is an old saying, I believe it was from the late great Yogi Bera. He said "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practive there is."
In theory, when done objectively, science can find truth that is objective. But the same thing could be said of other methods of truth-discovery such as mathematical proofs, or in some cases historical-legal evidence, or even Divine Revelation. All of these in theory can find truth objectively. Just like government can in theory protect people's rights instead of violate them. In practice, the state muddles through, sometimes protecting people's rights and other times mistreating them. Because states are not governed by angels, just men. In the same way, getting a degree and wearing a lab coat does not turn scientists into angels. They are still just men with their own interests, blind spots, and bias.
Scienctific experiments are designed, executed, and given meaning by human beings who are anything but objective. In particular when their funding comes from sources inextricably connected to a political state. Again IN THEORY peer-review and replication of findings should minimize this. In practice more than half of published high-impact cancer studies could not be replicated and in some fields the percentage was higher.
The fact is that science professionals are a sub-culture, and it is classically true that sub-cultures often become ultra-conformist in their thinking within the sub-culture. So that if you have only a handful of journals and research institutions run by people with a narrow set of views about the world, the blind-spots will be self-reinforcing. If your peer has the same narrow views that you do, having them review your work is still not going to help correct your work better if the root cause of the problem is a shared blind-spot regarding the bigger picture of things. You might as well ask a group of Calvinists what is wrong with papers whose flaw is that the findings assume that Calvinism is correct where it isn't (this is just an example, chill out Calvinists).
In theory, science has a corrective process and those who put a lot of trust in "science" as a system often point this out and claim that science is self-correcting while religion is not. The reality is that a large segment of the population, including scientists themselves, are turning Karma into Dogma. They can correct the minor details but going back and taking a look at something that has been widely deemed true for twenty years is considered shocking and the reaction against it is visceral. I've tried to show this with my video debunking the idea that Neanderthals made art and that they were so much like us. The negative reaction from some of the same people who say that science is self-correcting and so we can trust it eye-opening. If it can be wrong and self-corrects, what's wrong with challenging an idea from only 20 years ago based on scientific procedures we are still trying to figure out how to use and understand?
It really violates some people's comfort zone to point out that in practice there is no completely objective method of discovering the truth. We cannot count on a system to work, no matter how flawed the people in that system may be. The same thing with goverment. We will never invent a system of government that is so perfect that citizens no longer have to be virtuous in order to sustain the blessings of freedom. We just have to understand that trusting in systems is a loser tactic. So get more skeptical of systems and put a premium on people who most honestly try to look at things from mulitple perspectives. If God exists, He's the on;y source of objective truth. But even if He gives you the honest truth, it is still on you to look at it honestly. And there'n lies the rub. The issue goes right back to the condition of our heart, which is where I believe God wants us to consider anyway.
Science also has limits in the truth it can discover. Science operates by Methodological Naturalism. That is, it assumes that only natural causes exist in an effort to find natural cause. It can't test for supernatural causes. It couldn't see God if God were standing right in front of it. So it is useless for detecting God's action and moreover it is irrational to expect it to do so. Demanding scientific proof of God's action is about as crazy as demanding supernatural proof that nature is all that there is.
The best science can do is say "we have no natural explantion for that which makes sense, but we will keep looking." If we know enough about a subject to where we ought to have an idea what the natural explanation is, but are still perplexed, it becomes reasonble for men to rise above their tools and consider a supernatural explanation. Not that it can be proven by science, but it can be reasonable based on the weakness of any and all natural explanations. See my God of the Gaps video for more.
The Historical-legal method is actually better than the scientific method when it comes to discovering truth about one-time histrorical events that left little physical trace (even if great human trace) in the natural world. For example, we widely believe it to be true that George Washington crossed the Delaware River and Fought the Hessians. We can't prove that scientifically, but we believe it based on historical-legal evidence. It isn't just a claim, or an anecdote. It is historical fact because the reverbarations of that event left its mark on history if not the natural world. Compare that to the claim that Washington chopped down the cherry tree. That's a mere anecdote and we don't know if it is true or not because we haven't the legal-historical evidence to support it. So there is truth from non-scientific methods.
I say all this because I am claiming that the Christ-centered model for early Genesis reconciles science and scripture. And it does, but it can't reconcile them in places where I think modern science has it wrong. And that is mostly regarding man himself. But I am being fair- I think Christianity has had early Genesis wrong too. I am not saying that people who look to science as their authority for objective truth need to change and Bible-believing Christians can continue to think that objective truth starts with their view of scripture. It is one thing to believe the text is true, but another to believe that how you see it is correct. I said a while ago that if there is a God then His view is objective truth but it is still up to us to view it objectively. Christ said that Moses wrote about Him. If that's not what you see when you read early Genesis, then you are not seeing it the way that the One who is objective truth said to look at it. Don't just look at His word, but look at His Word how He said to look at it....that is as pointing to Him. And that is as close to objective truth as men are every going to get this side of the veil.
How about this for evidence for God through events in the natural world, my book on early Genesis shows how when we look at the text through the lens of Chrsit, as He said to, the supposed conflicts between scripture and what science and history tell us about the natural universe resolve beautifully. How could this be unless He is who scripture says and that scripture is inspired by God?
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