The Nature of Science

I'm about halfway through watching the recent Bill Nye/Ken Hamm evolution/creation debate that was live this week.  Finding myself talking to my computer screen, I thought I would write this down instead.

Besides the obvious philosophical and theological differences between the two men, the real debate that is going on is on the nature of science.  What is science?  What can it study, and what can it not?  Ken Hamm insists that science must be observable and reproducable.  Bill Nye insists that science can define history and philosophy (there may be others, but those came up clearly).

Hamm is working with the definition of science that most of us were raised with, not matter where we were educated.  Science can make big predictions or hypotheses, but it is only authoritative on what is observable and reproducable in a laboratory setting.  In an argument I once had with my college chemistry professor I asserted this fact, at which point he scoffed and told me I was, "so 19th century."  So my question is, when did it change?  At what point did science stop being a observable and reproducable phenomenon?  Being a creationist myself I would assert that the change came with Charles Darwin; so who's being "so 19th century"?

Being thoroughly a 20th century man, Nye is comfortable with applying science to most aspects of knowledge, including history and philosophy.  Science can tell us what happened in the past, as well as any conclusions we may come to as to whether or not a god was hanging around when that event occurred.  In an atheism v. theism discussion with students one of my geology professors said that "all good scientists are agnostics," which got me thinking, why?  Why must my scientific assumptions inform my historical and philosophical opinions?  Since when did science define everything?

Science does a wonderful job at being science.  History does a wonderful job at being history.  Theology does a wonderful job at being theology.  Of course all knowledge is integrative, but we have forgotten that different fields of study have different methods of proving fact.  Science can be tested in a lab, history must be recorded by a reliable witness, theology should be based on reliable documents and human nature.  When we use scientific requirements on other fields, all knowledge fails.  Can I prove scientifically that we won World War II?  Absolutely not.  I cannot put the armies in bottles and test it in a laboratory.  However, can I prove historically that we won World War II?  I can read reliable accounts and talk to people who were there, and that is proof.

When science becomes our standard to prove all things then we end up with scientism.  This was not what drove Galilleo or Kepler or Newton.  Scientism discovers nothing, but is quite satisfied with the knowledge it already has, which was likely gained from better scientists.

Science Friday

Today in the car I happened to catch the first few minutes of NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow. I used to listen to this more often, and he would occasionally irritate me with his social and political interpretations of science, all the while pretending to report things from a truly scientific perspective. However, today I laughed out loud in the car listening to this week's line-up of stories, which you can see here.

Notice anything funny? The first story is "Defending Climate Science's Place in the Classroom," where he reports that just like the anti-science of Creationism was being pushed in public schools, now the anti-science of climate change doubters is causing problems. He had nothing nice to say about either the Creationists or the Doubters.

But here's where it gets funny--the next story was about the benefits of meditation and included an on-air meditation session. Lastly, was a look at the planet Mars and its possibilities for life.

So here's what I learned: Creationism is stupid and to doubt climate change is ignorant, but meditation and Martians are healthy and scientific.

"In these days we are accused of attacking science because we want it to be scientific."

So that is a quote from G.K. Chesterton, and I read it the same day as I watched something else that made me realize that virtually nothing has changed in the 100 years since he wrote.

I've been watching too much of a show called MonsterQuest, mostly because some of the episodes have the potential to be cool. They go searching for legendary creatures and monsters, and unfortunately, since the show is a History Channel special, you already know that they don't find the creature--otherwise it would be on the evening news, and not on MonsterQuest. Still, the quest is usually enjoyable.

I was having fun watching the episode on the possible sauropod that lives in the jungles of Camaroon and Congo. They spent the first 20 minutes showing the locals--who are completely isolated from modern media--identifying dinosaurs, describing dinosaurs, pointing to pictures of dinosaurs. Then they cut to the "scientific expert." He was a paleontologist at Big University who stated that all this was a "complete evolutionary impossibility." When faced with eyewitness testimony, he could only assert, "in their culture, they don't understand the difference between things that are real and things that aren't." Wow. I always knew evolutionism was racist...but there you go. So much for science being about exploration and discovery, that was about as close-minded as you can get. I've known my fair share of paleontologists, who have called me close-minded for my Creationism, but every theory will leave you open-minded to some things, and close-minded to others--the question really is, which hypothesis fits the evidence better?

As Chesterton might say (had he lived another 100 years)--experts are wrong, and the locals who see this thing while they're fishing every day are right. Unfortunately, those ignorant tribesman know nothing of evolutionary impossibilities; but let's not tell them, at least they understand reality better than a paleontologist.

Why the EPA Wants to Kill Us, or God Made a Good World

Well, here we go. I have wanted to blog on some science stuff at some point, so we'll try this out and see if anyone is interested. I at least hope the eye-catching title gets you to read it.

Ever since I did my senior thesis work in asbestos I learned a lot about how the EPA and groups like OSHA work. Basically some good intentions gone horribly wrong. I would like to take this opportunity to throw a small water balloon over their high, impervious wall of governmental authority. Here's a few common misconceptions that will get you to enjoy the world God made hopefully just a little more:

1. Asbestos is not bad for you. Asbestos describes the way some rock crystals naturally grow. It's an amazing thing, but they grow into fuzzy balls that look like cotton. It is amazing stuff that cannot be burned and can be made into any shape imaginable. Unless you mine the stuff, it probably won't do a thing to you. You breathe nearly 4,000 asbestos fibers every day outside in the air. Since making asbestos insulation illegal there are more catastrophic fires and more people have died. You see, since it is the perfect insulator, asbestos can keep your house from burning down. The EPA itself doesn't even know what asbestos is, and it classifies certain small chunks of rocks as asbestos that are totally harmless.

2. Lead paint won't do anything to you. The EPA only measures total lead in something, and doesn't pay attention if the lead is by itself, lead sulfide, lead oxide, or some other combination. Your body can't digest lead by itself or lead sulfide (which is usually the type put into paint). You can eat it all day and it goes all the way through. Only lead oxide can be absorbed by your blood, so no gnawing on rusty pipes, but other than that there's no problem.

3. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every plant and animal breathes out carbon dioxide, and plants need it to survive. It's carbon monoxide that comes out of car exhaust and combines with oxygen in the lower atmosphere, creating smog (which is really just ozone).

4. Arsenic is good for you. There are certain elements that are poisons in large amounts, but your body needs them in trace amounts, and the only way you can get them is by drinking tap water. Water runs over rocks, and the minerals get dissolved into them. Other minerals in tap water like calcium, magnesium, sodium, or iron are entirely harmless (although they may effect taste).

5. Without global warming we would all die. Global warming really refers to the fact that our atmosphere keeps us relatively cozy. It holds in the heat from the sun and that's a great thing. If you want to end global warming, move to the planet Mercury and see how you like it there.

The Mad Scientist

I've been having fun reading some more books in geology that I haven't for a while.  Often, the good thing about being involved in something, then taking a long break, and then looking back on it, is that it gives you a better perspective of things.

The book I'm reading right now is Simon Winchester's The Crack at the Edge of the World.  It's a book about earthquakes and especially the 1906 San Francisco one.  It's fun to read again about geology and be familiar with his terms, but his attitude toward the science frustrates me.  It's kind of the same old thing; he seems so sure of himself on issues that are utterly unexperimental--such as prehistoric geology, the evolution of the earth's crust, and so on.  He has an extremely arrogant attitude towards anyone who would disagree with him, and calls the 18th century "less sophisticated" because they believed God had something to do with earthquakes.

In talking with my husband about it I realized that there are two types of scientists; essentially I would call them good scientists and bad scientists, but there's probably a better term than that.  Good scientists stay within the limits of science.  They make only simple inferences from their experiments and don't even attempt any universal theories of everything that's totally unknowable.  The bad scientists are those who take the most theoretical parts of science as obvious fact and begin to philosophize upon the nature of the universe and our very own souls as a result of it.  The good scientists may not believe in a Creator God, but at least they have the humility to understand the place of science.  The bad scientists have already gone on to replace the Creator God with themselves!

I thought of an analogy to describe this.  Looking at nature is like an audience watching a magician do a magic trick.  Flowers and food appear!  Rain appears!  The sun keeps us warm!  God, of course, is the magician.  Good scientists are those whose first thought is, "Wow!  I wonder how he does that!"  and immediately begin to investigate into the trick with their own experiments.  The bad scientists are those who sit back in their chair and arrogantly pronounce, "Oh, that's easy.  I'm sure it's done with some trap doors, or special smoke, or something like that.  It's not that amazing."

Eventually, this "bad" way of thinking about science leads us straight back to paganism.  The Greeks were very good at philosophizing about science.  They discovered many things, but ultimately lost out on the most practical areas of medicine and technology--just to name a few.  Their reason was based on what they knew, and they failed to explore any area that didn't conform to what they thought was reasonable.

And, as Chesterton noted, you'll never get anywhere in paganism, except back to Christianity!

Terrorists and Asbestos

I recently watched a documentary showing conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.  I'd heard a few of these before, but their most troubling explanation for the destruction of the World Trade Center was their insinuation that it was to save the government $1 billion in asbestos cleanup. 

I don't buy the explanation, however, the fact that something like this could even be suggested is troubling.  We once had some friends who were evicted from their home because their landlord found out that they had asbestos in their insulation.  They and their six children had to leave town with nowhere else to move to.

This is ridiculous!  Most of what is called asbestos by the EPA and NIST is not even so.  The majority of it is mineral fragments that don't do harm to anyone (and also aren't fire retardant like real asbestos--those Twin Towers sure burned)!  Even if it is asbestos it does nobody any harm to leave it in their insulation, packaged away.  Removing asbestos is now a multi-billion dollar a year industry!

This is also why I don't buy the over-arching governmental conspiracy surrounding 9/11.  There may be some small cover-ups, but nothing on the scale suggested by the documentaries.  Our government is just simply not competent enough to pull something like that off.