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There is one way in which a scientist can allow the Bible and science to actively interact, without any concern about damaging science. The Bible makes many statements about how and when things happened, whether it be dealing with the history of Jerusalem, or of life on earth. These are ultimately testable statements, which often can suggest specific hypotheses. For example a hypothesis about the archeology of an ancient city can be tested by research. As Popper and others have pointed out, it doesn’t matter where a hypothesis came from – the important thing is what we do with the hypothesis. After the hypothesis is developed, it must now be tested using rigorous scientific procedures of data collection, analysis of samples, and sound reasoning from data to interpretation. If this is done well, and with a mind open to follow where the evidence leads, the result should be able to stand the test of peer review by presenting papers at scientific meetings and by publication.
It will be generally assumed that in this process the Bible-based hypothesis will always lose. That is not the issue that I am addressing. I am simply pointing out that there is a way that interaction between the Bible and science can occur, that does not attempt to explain the supernatural, and does not do violence to science. I assume we all want to know what really happened in history, whether or not it matches our own philosophical preferences. If so, then the process I have described is perfectly valid science. In the end there may be some surprises for all of us.
Leonard Brand Professor of Biology and Paleontology Loma Linda University Loma Linda, CA 92350
-----Original Message-----
Prof. Smolka must have had a great deal of fun reconciling 21st century secular culture with that of Christian fundamentalists and frankly I agreed with nearly every word of it. Except about the Bible being liberal; read Leviticus again, please.
As I understanding Prof. Smolka's reasoning, he feels that if Christian fundamentalists would simply embrace the philosophical perspective of the late Sir Karl Popper, then we could all live quite happily together. Well, we always have hope, I guess.
Last night I happened to read a Richard Bradford Trust lecture (delivered Mar 4, 1977) by Peter Medawar. I quote:
Since religious fundamentalists cannot conceive of some information as hypothetical, let alone something that could be rejected on some grounds, there is essentially no conversation to be had between strict Popperians and the rigidly religious. Unless it proceeds from the following.
Medawar again:
In other words you can identify a scientific statement by the fact that it is falsifiable, but you can not use falsifiability to place it above a metaphysical statement. In an aside, which I omitted, Medawar notes that it is the logical positivists that insist that metaphysics is a blind alley, not Popper.
It is my understanding that religious fundamentalists (of all stripes) are essentially logical positivists in the obverse. That is, they place metaphysical statements above those of science on their own merits. Of course, their merits are judged by their source (the Bible) rather than their falsifiability.
I found Prof. Smolka's missive to be filled with a great deal of good will in sense that he seemed to be saying that Biblical statements are so open-ended from a logical standpoint that if they were subjected to Popperian-type tests in an easy-going manner, they would most assuredly pass most of the time.
Well, I still find most of Leviticus to be pretty upsetting. But then most of that is about property and domestic relations (which it doesn't really distinguish between) and not about Nature per se, so ... never mind.
Bill
*"The Philosophy of Karl Popper", in Art, Science & Human Progress, ed. R.B. McConnell (Universe Books, 1983)
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