I hope I have piqued your interest and you’re still reading. My last post was about where you put your faith – God or man? In this post, I’d like to discuss science.
What is science? To define it, “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” Notice I underlined two key words “observation” and “experiment.” This means in order for something to be studied SCIENTIFICALLY it needs to happen in the now. I used to make my students memorize this “In order for something to be studied scientifically it must be something that can be OBSERVED, TESTED, and REPEATED.”
Go grab yourself any science textbook and somewhere in it (typically in the beginning where they ALWAYS review the scientific method…) you’ll find these key words OBSERVED, TESTED, and REPEATED.
Simple enough, right?
EXAMPLE: Which will boil faster? Salt water or tap water?
In order to do this basic experiment, we must 1) form a hypothesis 2) Observe and Test to see which boils faster 3) Record the observations made 4) Repeat it to see if we get the same results
So, let’s discuss the beginning of time.
Was anyone here to observe its start?
Is discovering the beginning of our world a testable experiment?
Can we repeat any part of our origins to observe and re-test it?
If you’re a thinking human, you should have answered no, no and no.
Therefore, we are right back to where we put our faith. Are you going to believe God or man?
Now, I will submit we have two types of science:
OPERATIONAL SCIENCE = testing and verification based on observational events
HISTORICAL SCIENCE = interpreting evidence we find left behind
Let’s also note, that only OPERATIONAL SCIENCE can lead to solid scientific facts. We can get theories or assumptions from HISTORICAL SCIENCE but nothing solid and proven.
Therefore, when it comes to the origins of our world we can’t study it like we are able to with so many other subjects in science, so it becomes a faith/worldview issue, not a scientifically proven fact. It can never be a fact because it can’t be OBSERVED, TESTED, or REPEATED in a scientific environment.
What always bothered me as a science teacher were the many “theories” that were treated as fact in the science book especially in regards to the origins of our world. Let’s take the Big Bang Theory….here again, no one was here to observe it, test it, and it’s not something we can repeat to make sure this happened so….why are we treating it as a scientific fact? (Again, if you read a science text book, though they may use the word “theory” they refer to it as anything but a theory). Now, I realize there are many other theories presented in the science community as to our beginnings, but the “Big Bang” is still one that is talked about the most and in most science text books. All origin theories share similar qualities - the major one being they are assumptions not scientific FACT.
Let’s use the Big Bang to delve into more why any theory of origin has its basis in FAITH not FACT
The basics of the Big Bang Theory are as follows:
- DEFINITION: The theory that the universe may have been created in a huge explosion 12 billion years ago
- What do explosions require? MATTER + ENERGY
- But the basics of the Big Bang Theory is that there was NOTHING, and then BANG there was EVERYTHING!
- So, NOTHING + NOTHING = EVERYTHING (or at least enough “everything” to start the evolutionary process…)
- I always have to scratch my head on this one too because who created the matter and energy to make it go boom? Where did THAT come from?
I’d also like to point out that there is so much in our universe that is EXCEPTIONALLY organized and HIGHLY predictable. Why is that? And how did an explosion create organization? When I think of explosions the last thing that pops into my brain is organization and order…
I bring this up, because no matter where you are coming from in your belief system, all theories have “holes” in them. No one was here, no one observed, no one can test and no one can repeat, so we all have to rest on our FAITH.
So again I ask….where do you put your faith? In God or in man?
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