OPINION: Pseudoscience

We are told to "follow the science." This is good advice. However to follow the scientist is far more problematic. Some true, and many so-called, scientists leave their science behind when they enter the worlds of policy and politics. Science deals in empirically verified facts based on testing hypotheses and attempting to prove or disprove the hypothesized outcomes. After engaging in honest efforts to prove or disprove the hypothesis, the sincere scientist publishes his findings -- opening them for others to test. The faithful scientist may convey his findings to others, and share his opinion of probable outcomes of choices based on his findings. However, when he attempts to translate his hypotheses into policy implications for others, the pusher sets aside the mantle of science and puts on the robe of advocate, or tyrant, or priest, etc.

The scientist might also distance himself from genuine science by placing into his models factors that have not been empirically verified, then advancing the "results" of his choice. A historian, a philosopher, a priest may hypothesize about the origin of the universe. But, lacking a verifiable witness and lacking repeatability these hypotheses lack testability and, therefore, are not natural science. These restrictions also apply to studies of origins of most kinds of animal, plant, geological, and cosmological forms. When the scientist trusts consensus or personal assumption and preference instead of observed and verified truth, he embraces religious faith in these suppositions -- faith in presumptions over empirical facts -- and over God, the Creator, the only witness. The resulting findings are not scientific facts; but they are pseudoscience.

Michael Crichton put it this way:

"Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

"In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of." -- (From a talk at the California Institute of Technology on January 17, 2003, printed in Three Speeches by Michael Crichton, SPPI Commentary & Essay Series, 2009.)"

The "spontaneous" origin of life, being void of human witness, void of repeatability, and, therefore, void of testability, fails as science. What global climate conditions were before satellite technology are also speculations; therefore, so are projections of future situations based upon those assumptions.

Many in our society have fallen into a snare of their own making. As their worldview rejects the rule of God -- or even of His reality -- they place religious faith in their assumptions -- their preferences -- and they call these assumptions "science." Their promoters frequently claim, "We believe in science," implying that most Christians do not. Too much of what these promoters pass as science is actually pseudoscience.

Science requires some verification, testability, and repeatability. There is no real natural science without these qualities. Without them, the advocate relies on philosophy, history, religion or some other discipline -- NOT SCIENCE.

When promoters of natural evolution as the origin of the universe or of biological kinds publicize their propaganda, they leave the field of science and enter a field of religion -- of pseudoscience.

By including unproven assumptions in their guesswork models, some honest, and many so-called, scientists have left science behind and placed their religious faith in pseudoscience.

Most knowledgeable Christians not only have confidence in true science but also believe that there is no real conflict between true science and the Bible.

-- Ted Weathers is a Siloam Springs resident and member of the Siloam Springs Writers Guild. Contact him at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.