Here's an interesting article about the woman scientist who discovered soft extant dinosaur tissue in "68-million-year-old" dinosaur bones.

Here's an excerpt of the part that especially caught my eye:

"...Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”"

First, it's interesting to note her a priori philosophical bias, which is certainly "methodological naturalism" and probably steps over the boundary of "philosophical naturalism" too...  Her view is that God absolutely CANNOT work in time and space in scientifically detectable ways... in other words, God could be good, and loving, and kind, and powerful, and whatever else, but He most certainly CANNOT interact with the world He has created in ways that could be detected by humans - God absolutely CANNOT do miracles.   If He could (so reasons the phobia), then people might actually believe in God based on evidence rather than blind faith. (Oh!  Horrors!)

According to Schweitzer, "invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science."

Oh, well excuse me.  Forgive me for asking, but who makes up these "rules" again?  Shame on Newton, Kepler, Dalton, Faraday, Joule, Maxwell, Stokes, Pasteur, and Kelvin for indulging in such flagrant scientific naughtiness.

Schweitzer is not alone in her complaint, of course.  Michael Ruse writes: "Even if Scientific Creationism were totally successful in making its case as science, it would not yield a 'scientific' explanation of origins. The Creationists believe that the world started miraculously. But miracles lie outside of science, which by definition deals only with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law." (Darwinism Defended, p. 182).

Similarly Richard Lewontin writes: "Either the world of phenomena is a consequence of the regular operation of repeatable causes and their repeatable effects, operating roughly along the lines of known physical law, or else at every instant all physical regularities may be ruptured and a totally unforeseeable set of events may occur.... We can not live simultaneously in a world of natural causation and of miracles, for if one miracle can occur, there is no limit." (Scientists Confront Creationism, New York: Norton, 1983, p. 26)
...and also...
"It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

Unnerving indeed, in all honesty.  It is non-trivial and (potentially life-altering) to find (paraphrasing C.S.Lewis) "a real, live God in our midst".

Now granted, methodological naturalism can be useful, in finding out "the way things usually work" (also called "nomological" investigation - the study of how things generally proceed, based on the "laws" (Greek 'nomos') that govern the universe).   But as soon as it morphs into an 'Absolute Principle', the openminded curiosity which is the chief treasure of the scientific endeavor is discarded.  As soon as I state that "I've never observed a miracle in my laboratory, therefore God has never done (and can never do) a miracle" or even worse, "I refuse to believe in miracles because that might allow [Lewontin's proverbial] Divine foot in the door", I have unjustifiably closed and locked my mind.   In agreement with William James, and contra W.K.Clifford, "unlimited skepticism" can sometimes be a hindrance to finding the truth...

Schweitzer is almost technically correct when she disparages "invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena", in the sense of invoking the "miraculous" hand of God in suspending the laws that He has ordained that generally govern the physical world.  But she neglects to mention that the whole controversy is about exactly that point - what phenomena are natural and what are not?  ...and is it possible that some phenomena truly CANNOT be explained naturalistically?  (the origin of matter, the origin of DNA, Christ walking on water, Christ's Resurrection)?

When I throw a basketball up in the air and it falls back to the ground, there is no need to infer a "miracle" - there is not necessarily any suspension of the normal processes of gravity that God has established.   But must we assume that God is bound by these laws that He created?  That He can never suspend them if He so chooses?

In my humble opinion, we ought not to make such "metaphysically gratuitous" assumptions.  As Steven Meyer writes (with my insertion), "Of course intelligent design [and creationism] is not wholly naturalistic, but why does that make it unscientific? What noncircular reason can be given for this assertion? What independent criterion of method demonstrates the inferior scientific status of a nonnaturalistic explanation?" 

By contrast, the Kansas folks got it right:

Older 2001 Definition: "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world
around us."

Revised 2005 Definition: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses
observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument
and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural
phenomena."
"More adequate", "more accurate", "closer to the truth about the way the world works"... This is the true and noble goal of science... the aim of that worthy perennial nomological enterprise... that "glory of kings."

Ok, more philosophical/epistemological musings...      Sorry for those of you my esteemed readers who would rather read little tidbits and anecdotes...     But I'll come back to those in a few days, perhaps.

These thoughts were prompted by some discussions from this past week, although they've been percolating for quite a while.  My views on the inspiration/inerrancy of the Scriptures have also been undergoing some modification over the last few months.  I'll have to explain that some time.

For now, enjoy, and although I didn't write it in a very clear way, please feel free to wade in and suggest any of your thoughts, critiques, and suggestions for improvement.

============================

The topic is "science and the Bible", and the question is how to proceed if they seem to contradict.  (It might be helpful to merge these thoughts with Moreland's "four views" from our readings).  Working on the following assumptions:

1. The Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God to mankind.

2. Observational/nomological science connects us to the real world that God created, so that by performing experiments and observing the results, we (have the potential ability to) view/interact-with a real physical world, not an "illusion" - i.e. our observations "correspond" with a reality that exists outside of any human observers.

3. All of our interpretations of the Bible are fallible and must pass through multiple "layers" of cultural/environmental influences.  Examples of the layers are:
- between the original autographs and the extant manuscripts and codices
- between the extant codices' symbolic semantic Hebrew/Greek message and our own individual understandings (i.e. "Do I understand the language this manuscript is written in?")
- between the Hebrew/Greek and the English, if we don't know Hebrew/Greek (i.e. the issue of "translations")
- the broad-context questions - e.g. "I know this says "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth...", but does the word "days" in context refer to literal 24-hour days, or unspecified periods of time?"

4. All of our interpretations of scientific experiments are fallible and must pass through multiple "layers" of cultural/environmental influences.  Examples of the layers are:
- if I read about an experiment (e.g. Michelson-Morley) in a textbook rather than performing it myself (with direct sensory observation), I have the same difficulties of textual interpretation as above with Scripture:
- "do I understand the language of this scientific report?"
- "am I grasping the meaning of what the author wrote in broad context?"  (e.g. the word "evolution" has many meanings)
- if I perform the experiment myself, am I 'sure' that I am not performing the experiment incorrectly, or that I am not failing to account for all possible confounding factors? (i.e. experimental error, sensor noise, other confounding factors)
- whether another or I perform the experiment, are our assumptions valid?  (e.g. uniformitarian "annual layer" assumptions for varves, ice cores, tree rings, etc)
- whether another or I perform the experiment, is my model valid to the necessary precision? (e.g. relativity and quantum mechanics drastically revised the physical models of the 19th century, allowing greater prediction precision than before)

5. Both our scientific and our Scriptural understandings can be supposed to be "asymptotically convergent", meaning that although they can be "wrong" to various precisions, increasing time and study will bring our beliefs closer to "The Truth".
- e.g. for scientific theories, Einstein's theory of gravity "refined" Newton's, rather than "contradicting" Newton's.  Yet even Einstein's may not be the "exact" way that gravity is described.
- e.g. for scriptural interpretations...

6. It is desirable to hold to a set of beliefs that is as consistent as possible.  If possible, the set of beliefs that I hold should have no contradictions at all, when all qualifiers and caveats are accounted for.

7. It is desirable to hold to a set of beliefs that is as "livable" as possible.  This should "include" my own innate sense of what is morally desirable (while recognizing that my own innate conscience may possibly need revision from time to time).
- For example, if my conscience prompts me to treat other people with love and respect, even if they hold wrong beliefs (1 Peter 3:15), then a system of beliefs (such as Christianity) which shows the propriety and rationality (with respect to "the real world", both physical and spiritual) of such love and respect would be preferred over a system of beliefs which provided no rationale for such love of others (and certainly over a system which, for example, provided a rationale for destroying others so that my own 'fitter' genes would predominate/propagate).
- Yet, my conscience is not the end-all, since it might be corrupted.  For example, if I as a white Southern slave-owner of 150 years ago was confronted with compelling evidence from a belief system (such as Biblical Christianity) which I had strong reason to believe was true, I should be able to modify my innate sense of what was right and proper (e.g. from "The negro ought to know his place" to "The negro is my brother as a human, he has just as much dignity as an imagebearer-of-God as I do, and he needs to hear about God's salvation and kingdom just as much as I also need to hear").

 
Holding to these principles and assumptions, we might try to come up with a statement that we all agree upon...  (though I am not too optimistic about this...   such as:
"We agree that it is possible for scripture to 'trump' science, in the sense that:
- After all available scientific and scriptural evidence has been duly considered, it is possible for me:
- to experience and hold to a belief that my particular interpretation of a Scripture passage is directly contradictory to my particular interpretation of observational-scientific experiments and historical-reconstructions-supported-by-observational-scientific-experimental-evidence, and further:
- to experience "sufficient confidence" in a belief that my Scripture-based-belief indicates that the Scientific-theory is wrong, and further:
- to be "correct", "right", "legitimate," and "epistemically-justified," in my subsequent repudiation of a scientific theory based on an interpretation of Scripture that I am sufficiently confident is the correct interpretation (to the requisite level of asymptotic accuracy)."
In shorter words:

"We agree that sometimes it is proper to disbelieve in a scientific theory because of what Scripture says."

Or:

"It is possible to be so convinced that one understands what the Scriptures are saying/implying in a certain passage, that one believes in that interpretation in spite of the fact that scientific theories and evidence contradict that interpretation... and it is possible to be epistemically justified in so doing."

The critique might then arise: how does one know, to start out with, that the scriptures are "correct"/"infallible" in this scientific sense?  If it contradicts the scientific evidence we see around us, why shouldn't we throw it out?

In reply I would ask - "how does one know that ANY repository of truth is "correct" (let's temporarily postpone discussion of "infallible") in a scientific sense?"   And, "if a piece of evidence contradicts my current scientific understanding, do I throw out the "new piece of evidence" as "spurious," or do I revise (possibly drastically) my scientific beliefs to conform to the one new piece of "evidence?"

The basic problem is that theories never make quantum/qualitative jumps to the epistemological status of "scientific fact"... they instead gradually/quantitatively increase in the estimation of the scientific community, and sometimes for reasons other than scientific reasons.   (Cf. Popper, Kuhn, Ruse)

Yet the question of empirical corroboration of scripture-texts is important.  If the Bible consistently claimed things that were demonstrably false today (such as that people rise from the dead all the time, or that the earth is flat and is supported on the back of a giant tortise), we would be wise to reconsider our belief in it.

On the other hand, if the Bible claims things that are historically reasonable (such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ca. 2000 years ago in Judea) and subsequently provides adequate ("non-circularly-reasoned") grounds for its own inerrancy, then it might conceivably be justifiable to trust its account of historical events which are accessible only in a limited way by modern scientific reconstructions...

Incredible quote... from the famous John Scopes... (80th anniversary of his trial coming up this September...)

“If you limit a teacher to only one side of anything, the whole country will eventually have only one thought. … I believe in teaching every aspect of every problem or theory.”

( from http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/240#more-240 )

And finally - yet another utterly fascinating issue / article-to-examine:

(taken from  http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005c/072905/072905h.php , with my comments below)

A recent article by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in The New York Times, asserting that “unguided, unplanned” evolution is inconsistent with Catholic faith, should be read with caution warn a number of Catholic scientists and theologians, including the head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Most of the experts interviewed said the article can offer a useful alert if taken at a theological level. Evolution, they point out, has sometimes been invoked to justify atheism, as well as immanentism (that God is a vague life force) or deism (that God set the universe in motion and has nothing more to do with it).

To the extent Schönborn’s point is that Christianity cannot accept a universe without an active, personal God, they say, there’s little to dispute.

If taken as a scientific statement, on the other hand, these observers warn that Schönborn’s insistence on seeing “purpose and design” in nature could steer the Catholic church towards creationism in the bitter cultural debate, especially prominent in the United States, between evolution and intelligent design. Doing so, they say, risks overstepping the bounds of the church’s competence, as well as reopening a divide between science and the Catholic church that had seemed largely overcome.

The first and most important facet of this question is the nature of Truth.  Notice how the article said "...if taken at a theological level"  and compared that to "...if taken as a scientific statement."

This is pure postmodern propaganda - the claim that "religious truth" is on a "separate level" from "scientific truth", and that they can contradict each other without much problem at all.  Why are such contradictions not a problem, according to postmodernists?  Well, "religious truth" is merely a cultural paradigm, and should not be "dogmatically" foisted upon others in the world who hold different paradigms anyway, so if "religious truth" ever comes into conflict with real hard science, throw it out the window.

Needless to say, this sentiment is itself "a belief", and so it defeats itself even as it tries to propagate itself throughout the minds of the whole postmodern world.

Almost every word in the above excerpt deserves a multipage analysis, but let me try to focus on the key phrases.  Notice that the core concern is that of "overstepping the bounds of the church’s competence".

Let me be perfectly frank here.  All this verbiage is dancing around the real issue - whether the Bible is true or not.  When the Bible claims (using high-quality hermeneutics with ancient-cultural/authorial-intent understanding) that the world was created in six days directly by God (with no mention or contradictory scientific details to the "abiogenesis"/"common-ancestor"/"mutation-with-natural-selection" evolutionary hypothesis), the competency called into question is NOT that of "the Church," but that of the Bible, and the Author of the Bible.

(If anyone wants to argue with me over the thesis that "scientific" truth is actually on the exact same plane as so-called "religious" truth, go right ahead... I wish you luck in trying to do so without stultifying your own sentences.)

Finally, notice the complaints about "Schönborn’s insistence... the bitter cultural debate... [and] reopening a divide... that had seemed largely overcome."   Thousands, perhaps millions of loyal Roman Catholics have a problem with Schönborn’s insistence... his stubborn, unyielding insistence that the Bible does in fact contradict the majority conclusions of modern uniformitarian science.  What's the problem?  The problem is the strife... the "bitter debate"... the acrimony... the PAIN that comes along with disagreeing with people.  The PAIN of being a member of a minority community that the majority of scientists (who are the elite - the glorified as priests of secularism) will scoff at and mock.  "You believe in the Bible's account of man's origins?  You must be like the flat-earthers and believers in UFOs... You are pathetic... you are stupid."

And let's be honest, friends... this pain is quite real.  The debate now raging in the RCC since the new pope's ascension is very important, because millions of people are now reevaluating their priorities - whether to believe in the account given by men, or the account given by God.

here's a fascinating commentary link about a Nature article... and about the eminent scientists who are outraged by it...

And my thoughts:

The Nature magazine seems to be one of the premiere/avantgarde science magazines, as evidenced by the fascinating phenomena that they seem to be somewhat influenced by postmodernism, while still trying to retain their modernist materialist scientific outlook.  They are trying desperately to remain "mainstream scientific" in the naturalistic sense, without offending their increasingly postmodern constituency which believes that science does not have all the answers and that in fact nobody has ANY absolute answers.  Thus Nature recommends "reconciling" science and belief, by relegating belief to "myth" status.  Or perhaps "pleasant myth" or "traditional myth" or "cultural myth" status, if that floats your boat better.

But there are still some die-hard modernists (read the above article), who will not tolerate this mushiness.  I admire them, in a way.  Even though they come to the wrong conclusions, they are seeking the perfect goal - Truth.  They don't tolerate this "religious truth and scientific truth don't have to mesh" platitude.  "They have zeal, but not according to knowledge."

Incredible.  Here's an amazing quote from the link, quoted from the Nature article.

"Indeed, it is not the job of a science teacher to meddle with the way their students are brought up or to attack their core personal beliefs. Rather, the goal should be to point to options other than intelligent design for reconciling science and belief."

!!!!!!

As Dilbert would say, "That was just wrong on so many levels."

I hate falsehood (such as, but not limited to, that statement) so much that I can't even think of any word to describe how terrible it is.  Note that I do not hate the people who say such, but the substance of their lies.

It seems these folks are either willfully ignorant (unlikely) or else knowingly and deceitfully trying to hide the fact that "pointing to options other than intelligent design" IS in fact "meddling with the way students are brought up."

Paraphrasing what these folks are saying in a slightly clearer fashion, "We science teachers shouldn't present evolution in a 'dogmatic' and 'confrontational' way... instead we should 'gently', 'gradually', 'subtly' try to brainwash the students toward our naturalistic beliefs."

Note the distinction attempted in the quote between "core personal beliefs" and other beliefs which are presumed to be 'public' or perhaps 'peripheral' - beliefs such as... the origin of life, the meaning of life (or not), the factuality and historicity of those "personal" beliefs...  ! !

HOW DARE a "personal" belief come out of the closet and present itself as actually, historically, scientifically, unilaterally, "TRUE"!  That would constitute narrowminded fundamentalist intolerance in the extreme. . .

(and this too, by Jay Richards, on a lighter note...  There's nothing quite like a good hard dose of satire once in a while...