I am always a bit taken aback when people of faith flatly reject scientific theories or the scientific method, not on any serious grounds, mind you, but simply because science in many cases is incompatible with their religious beliefs. Those are the same individuals who have no problems accepting the many other explanations and theories that science has provided regarding how the world around us works. Hardly anyone questions the ability of meteorologists to predict hurricanes, or the sincerity of chemists when they describe the properties of various elements and predict how their atoms would react with each other. You don’t hear anyone denying that it’s possible for a biologist to describe the structure of one’s DNA or tell the number of chromosomes in a plant or animal. People of faith accept and respect the laws of nature and are too happy to use science in their arguments for intelligent design. They are never suspicious about the scientific procedures which are used to validate ancient religious manuscripts and to date records of religious events which happened thousands of years ago.
Yet, the same science which has taken mankind from the dark ages to the information age of the 21st century—the same science which people of faith rely on to “prove” the authenticity of the bible and the existence of Jesus Christ—all of a sudden, that science becomes suspect when it concerns matters like evolution theory. “How can we know what happened billions of years ago when no one was around?” they ask with disbelief. Well, one of the methods used to answer such questions is a process called radiometric dating. It is a way of calculating the rate at which radioactive elements in rocks and fossils decay, bearing in mind that their decay rate is constant and specific. One of the radiometric techniques used is radiocarbon dating—the same technique used to tell the age of religious manuscripts. The weakness in this technique, however, is that it can only go as far back as about 60, 000 years. So to rectify that, uranium-lead dating—another similar technique, which allows for calculations as far back as 4 billion years, is used. Thanks to Google, there is no need for anyone to suffice themselves with my cursory explanation. Do the research.
My point here is not to prove that scientific methods and procedures are flawless, but to highlight that the methods which people of faith reject are the same methods that they rely on for knowledge and explanations of the natural world. Formulas and equations are used in practically all branches of science. They help us to form rules and generalizations, identify patterns and relationships, make predictions, and solve problems in a fraction of the time that it would take without formulas. Yet, there are those who have chosen instead to believe that science is Satan’s way of deceiving the world. They’re probably of the view that generally, scientists come together at high-level meetings as part of some massive conspiracy to fake research and present the concocted findings to the rest of the world.
Even if that were the case, how much more rational and credible is the alternative proposition? Does the version of the man in the sky who said “let there be light” make more sense to you? Is it easier, like the Mormons, to accept that there is a being on planet Kolob, who sat somewhere on a cloud with all his “technology” and carefully designed every detail of the entire universe so that he could create it all from nothing—bringing whole planets, mountains, oceans, and human beings into existence with the snap of his invisible finger? It is one thing to reject the rigorous procedures of observation, testing, measurement, research, and experimentation that go into the scientific method, but to substitute in its place as fact, “Once-upon-a-time-he-say-she-say”, or “God told me the truth in my dreams but he lied to the rest of you” is just shameful.
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