This article compares the nature of scientific inquiry and religious faith, and argues that while science can be a tool for uncovering truth, it has its limitations. It questions the validity of blind faith in science and the dismissal of religious belief as irrational, and emphasizes the importance of open-mindedness.
It’s a Saturday evening. As I walked through the mall at the subway station on my way to tutor, I was struck by the unfamiliarity of the environment. The shops in the mall were open and doing brisk business. Starbucks cafes, Burger King, and many other restaurants were not closed.
The above sentences may not make much sense at first glance. Why am I surprised? Because there’s no context to understand why it’s surprising that stores in a shopping center would stay open. However, if we add two premises, this sentence feels completely different.
Premise 1. I used to go to the neighborhood to tutor only on Sunday mornings.
Premise 2. All the shops in the neighborhood are closed on Sundays.
From my previous experience, I have always seen only closed shops, so I can predict that if I pass by the shopping center next Sunday morning, the shops will be closed again. And that prediction is accurate enough. Predicting future events based on observations is a basic human need for inquiry, and it has evolved over time into the discipline of science.
Throughout the history of science, there are many examples of theories being revised and changed due to new observations, the most famous of which are the theories of celestial and terrestrial motion. The idea that the ground is moving when it appears to be stationary was beyond the ability of humans to observe. There was also a time when people didn’t think the earth was round because it looked flat. Louis Pasteur overturned the existing theory of spontaneous generation with his germ theory, and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was a revolution that overturned Isaac Newton’s theory of absolutes.
In this sense, science has lost its status as absolute truth. Scientists recognize that the current paradigm may be wrong, and they admit that their theories can be broken at any time. So when new phenomena are observed that don’t fit the theory, they accept that a shift to a new paradigm is necessary.
Let’s go back to the neighborhood mall example, and suppose I made the claim that “there is no commercial activity at all in the malls around the subway stations”. Anyone who knows what a Saturday is and knows that the mall is different during that time of day can see how this statement is not valid. However, it’s a different story if you make the following premise.
Premise 3. I am unaware of the existence of any time zone other than Sunday morning.
In other words, if I have no knowledge of the existence of other time zones, including Saturday afternoon, and I only observe the mall on Sunday morning, then my claim is logically infallible from my point of view. This is the limitation of scientific induction.
Some might argue that science is superior in its predictive accuracy. Of course, science is valuable as a tool for predicting the future in the world we live in. However, a theory that predicts well is not necessarily the truth. Just because a prediction that stores won’t be open on Sunday morning is accurate doesn’t mean that the claim that stores don’t do business at all is true.
Nevertheless, we rely on science to explore natural phenomena. We cannot abandon science as a tool to predict the future. Science is the most logical, rational, and objective tool of judgment we have. And sometimes, we even think that the disciplines we have built up can reveal and explain all the phenomena in the world. This is where I question our attitude towards science as a discipline. How do we view science? Is our belief that science is the greatest tool for the search for truth really true? Can I really let go of this belief? Perhaps we are blindly trusting the tools of science. In this blind faith, we continue to explore, theorize, test, and try to explain the properties of nature. In doing so, we come to understand and know nature better.
What about religion? As a Christian, I believe in the existence of God, and I am constantly exploring the nature of God. It’s about getting to know and understand God better. When I was in high school, I took my failure in the entrance examination as a big shock because I thought God was only giving me good things. When I returned to school, I started attending a service for returning students, where I met new people. The relationships and strong bonds I built with them helped me to stabilize and successfully complete my studies.
I have fond memories of the joy I felt during my study time, meditating on the good word and realizing the truth. I was able to fully enjoy the time and spend it happily, doing my best without worrying about the outcome. When I started my second year, I was only looking at the results of the entrance exam, and a year later, I had a year filled with unimaginable things. I realized that there are times when you can only be grateful by looking back.
Eventually, I added the realization that there are times when I can only be grateful if I look back, to my perception of God as a God who gives me good things. These personal experiences are not objective like scientific inquiry. They are not inferences based on observable phenomena, nor are they a process that everyone agrees on, as science is, but Christians share their personal experiences to reveal to others what God is like, and in doing so, provide others with second-hand experiences. People explore what God is like through their own personal experiences and observations, and try to objectify it as much as possible. I don’t see this process as irrational or inferior to the process of exploring nature in science.
Therefore, I don’t believe it’s fair for people who believe in science to label people who believe in religion as illogical, irrational, and irrational. When someone claims that “I had a major illness and God healed me,” is it fair to call it a coincidence, an illusion, or irrational? If they believe that God healed them based on personal experience and observation, is that irrational? I don’t see much difference between this belief and our belief that gravity exists based on our observation that an apple falls to the ground when released from our hands.
Some might argue that science is superior in that religion is an individual belief, while science is the belief of the many. Another criticism might be that science is superior to religion because it can be agreed upon by everyone. Of course, science may be more objective because its theories are derived from phenomena that anyone can observe. However, the phrase “objective belief” sounds awkward. Also, while science may be more objective, it’s not the same thing as being true. If all humans are limited to observing only Sunday morning shopping districts, it may be more objective than I’m claiming for myself, but it’s still far from the truth.
All of these problems arise because we are limited in our ability to observe. We can’t predict what we don’t see, and we have no choice but to admit that we can’t. If we consider truth to be a fact that does not change under any conditions, including space, time, events, or observers, then we are incapable of determining which propositions are true. Even if we happen to observe all the circumstances and take into account all the necessary variables to make a truth claim, we still cannot determine if it is true or if there is a tip of the iceberg we have not seen. We only know that the theories we believe in, the propositions we assert, do a great job of predicting the world we live in.
Perhaps we are too arrogant. We accept only the facts that we can observe, think in terms of the limits of our powers of observation, and ignore the myriad of possibilities. We try to understand all phenomena in the world through the framework of science, and even believe that it can explain everything. This blind faith in science can be seen as a religion from another perspective.
Because our thinking is limited by reason, we may find novels and science fiction movies interesting and enjoy them. However, I don’t think we need to limit such worlds to novels and movies. From the ant’s point of view, our reality may seem like a lot more than a science fiction movie. Science is a wonderful discipline that enriches our lives, but I think we need to keep an open mind to different arguments and not ignore the dimensions and possibilities that may exist beyond it.
