Our society has made science God. We have made deities out of men with pocket protectors and believe it to be heresy to disagree or doubt anything they say... Unless of course what they say, report or publish happens to contradict the established materialistic worldview. But in general, science is viewed as infallible, unbiased and incontrovertible. But is it?
Plato said that "Science is nothing but perception" and this definition should be somewhat troubling for the true scientific believers out there. The problem with science is that it must be perceived, intrepreted and then communicated by limited, flawed and biased human beings and the scientific method can only mitigate, not negate, that problem. But our culture has produced a mentality about science that produces scientists that surpass kings and tyrants in their hubris. It's bad enough that the public views lab coats as priestly garments, but when a scientist starts to believe he or she to be infallible, we really have a problem. Enter exhibit A: It's been recently reported that the FBI essentially faked an entire field of forensic science. This absolute trust in science produced false convictions and death sentences in our justice system and spawned a multitude of CSI TV shows- which further compounded the problem. The problem here is twofold: The public's unwavering faith in science and scientist's uwavering faith in themselves. Scripture states this problem plainly in 1st Corinthians 8:1 where it says "knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies." Simply stated, the more we know, the more arrogant we tend to become- pride becomes our own worst enemy. Love on the other hand is defined in Corinthians, just a few chapters later, as being the opposite of arrogant. I see this truth reflected every day in the lives of professionals and "experts" (either acknowledged or self-proclaimed)- they put far too much faith in their credentials and expertise. I've even seen Christian professionals disregard biblical truth in favor of the in vogue wisdom of their trade That is not to say all science is nonsense, but simply to recognize that man's limited perception of truth should always be taken with a rather hefty grain of salt. For Christians, we should recognize that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and that all perceived truth must align with The Truth- which includes His Word (John 1:1, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21 et al). As limited, finite beings, our knowledge and understanding has to be built on a certain amount of assumptions and it is completely logical to reason that God's Word is the far better foundation to build on than man's word- that God's wisdom is perfect while man's wisdom is flawed. It's time believers started living that truth and developed truly biblical worldviews. The sad reality is that as of 2009, only 9% of American adults and 19% of Christians held a biblical worldview. As nature abhors a vacuum, it should be no surprise that science has rushed in to fill that void in Western society. But science is a great servant and an inherently flawed master. It's time we stopped practicing idolatry and allowed God to take His rightful throne.