Most Christians are familiar with the term scientism, defined as an excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques. The culture at large has embraced ‘science’ as an all-encompassing umbrella term for truth as indicated by the often-repeated phrase, “Science says this,” or “Science says that,” which illustrates a naรฏve understanding of the reliability of science, which is always provisional and not absolute.
Provisional simply means that as man’s understanding of something changes, so goes scientific “truth.” Man is not omniscient and our understanding of anything is very limited, so scientific ‘truth’ is provisional as well, which changes as we know more.
So, this begs the question, why do so many people, even many Christians, elevate science and use it as a hermeneutic tool for scripture vs the reverse? On the one hand, you have ‘truth’ from non-omniscient man, which is provisional and very unreliable, and on the other hand, you have God’s word, absolute truth, which is not provisional, absolutely reliable, and based upon the wisdom of the omniscience of God? The answer. It’s simply moronic.
Let me illustrate the foolishness of elevating science over scripture using the science community’s own reliability evaluation of itself. The comments below are not exhaustive but are just a few of the widespread awareness of the integrity problem with ‘science.’
1. In 2010, The Center for Scientific Integrity, a 501c nonprofit organization, started “Retraction Watch” due to the increasing amount of counterfeit science appearing in the science literature and reported that there are 500-600 retractions per year. As of July 2022, there were more than 34,000 retractions in their database, most related to fraud, a problem which continues to escalate as indicated by the 2023 number of retractions of over 10,000, which “integrity experts say [is] only the tip of the iceberg.” Ten of these retractions are from a Nobel prize winner.
2. On May 14, 2023, Otto von Guericke, a neuroscientist from the University of Magdeburg, Germany, as well as editor-in-chief of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, made the following comments during an interview on the National Public Radio broadcast, “Fake studies in academic journals may be more common than previously thought.”
Here, he made the following statements.
“So, when we’re looking at the numbers of papers that are identified with our indicators, the percentage was in 2020 at 28% of all biomedical publications. That comes to over 300,000 in the biomedical field alone. Now, if you consider that all of science is maybe roughly double that, then you can sort of roughly estimate that there may be a half million fake papers published per year. And that is a shocking number.”
…
“Well, roughly 2 million papers are published in the scientific community. And if you use 28% of that, then you are at roughly 500,000. Maybe I’m wrong, and it’s only half of that, or maybe it’s more than that. In any case, whatever the number it is, the scope is shocking, and it is of a major concern. And in my opinion, it’s probably the biggest science scam ever.”
3. Henry Miller, MD and S. Stanley Young, PhD stated that “The Validity of Much Published Scientific Research Is Questionable.” Their analysis includes statements such as:
Much published science and the “knowledge” resulting from it is likely wrong and sends researchers chasing false leads…
An aphorism called the “Einstein Effect” holds that “People find nonsense credible if they think a scientist said it.” There is a lot of nonsense masquerading as science circulating these days…
Corruption is rife…
Science is seldom a set of immutable facts; conclusions can and should change as the instruments of interrogation get more sophisticated. Rather, science should be thought of as a method of inquiry โ a process โ that adjusts the consensus as more and more information is gathered.
Failure rates for reports in prominent journals are astonishing โ and worrisome because false claims can become canonized and affect the course of future research by other investigators.
4. PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed science journal, summarized their findings:
Our research integrity survey among academics across all disciplinary fields and ranks is one of the largest worldwide. Here, we share our findings on questionable research practices, fabrication and falsification as well as the explanatory factor scales that may be associated with the occurrence of these research misbehaviors. We find that over the last three years one in two researchers (50%) engaged frequently in at least one questionable research practice, while one in twelve (17%) reported having falsified or fabricated their research at least once.
5. John P.A. Ioannidis, professor of disease prevention at Stanford University, previously highlighted “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false… Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.
6. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also detailed the problem:
Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications. They found that 67.4 percent of retractions were attributed to misconduct and that the percentage of scientific articles retracted because of fraud has increased tenfold since 1975.
7. Richard Horton, M.D., editor in chief of The Lancet, wrote the editorial, “Science publication is hopelessly compromised.” These were his comments after attending a symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research:
A lot of what is published is incorrect. I am not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides. Why the paranoid concern for secrecy and non-attribution? Because this symposium โ on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research โ touched on one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations.
The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature,ย perhaps halfย [emphasis added], may simply be untrue. Afflicted with studies of small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analysis, and flagrant conflict of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn toward darkness. As one participant put it, ‘poor methods get results.
8. Annals of Internal Medicine published the survey, “Researcher requests for inappropriate analysis and reporting: A U.S. survey of consulting biostatisticians.”
This survey was undertaken to determine the frequency and severity of requests biotechnicians receive from researchers for inappropriate analysis and reporting of data during statistical consultation. Of the 390 consulting biostatisticians who responded to the survey, at least 20% stated the following four were the most frequent inappropriate requests by researchers:
โข Removing or altering some data records to better support the research hypothesis.
โข Interpreting the statistical findings on the basis of expectation, not actual results.
โข Not reporting the presence of key missing data that might bias the results.
โข Ignoring violations of assumptions that would change results from positive to negative.
9. The American Council on Science and Health published a piece titled “‘Trusted’ Sources Spread Nonsense, Too.“
The uncomfortable truth is that academic scientists routinely publish questionable research that attracts widespread media attention, adding to the morass of “inaccurate information” circulating online. If we want to get this problem under control, we need our trusted sources to quit releasing untrustworthy information.
10. The Former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, additionally wrote:
It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the NEJM.
Colossians 2:8-10 clearly teaches us to be wary of the supposed higher knowledge men claim to have, which would supersede God’s word. Clearly, with the significant increase in junk science, retracted “studies,” wokeness of the “science” community and journal editors, the academic science’s continued slide from rigor to fashionable agendas, as well as the suppression of any opposition to liberal academic views, shows much of “science” can be classified as a misguided philosophical position as described in Colossians.
It is clear that counterfeit or junk science plays a dominant role in the skewing of public perception of many issues and that it’s undeniable that the integrity of “science” has significantly diminished, which is a reflection of the culture at large. As our culture’s ethical and moral standards rapidly diminish, there is no reason to suspect that this erosion has not also affected the science community as well, even from what is generally believed to be some of the most prestigious and well-respected universities.
The lack of integrity and the growing chokehold progressive ideology is having on science, as well as the culture at large, should clearly indicate to any reasonable individual that it is foolish to use science as a hermeneutic tool for scripture versus using scripture as a hermeneutic tool for science.
