Well over a decade ago the Ohio State School Board voted eleven to four to remove language in the state’s science standards that encourages students to “investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” Board member Martha Wise (poorly named) said her reason for voting to strike the language is because, “It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about science.” What?
The heart and soul of science is to investigate everything in the physical realm, including evolution. I still do not understand how it is misleading to teach children to do this very thing; anything less is not science it is shamanism.
The conflict between science and faith surfaced again in Ohio when the Ohio House of Representatives recently passed 61-31 the Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act of 2019. Opponents of the bill say it “could require teachers to accept faith-based answers on school assignments, even if those responses are contradicted by scientific facts.”
Arguing for that view Emily Strong Sykes, the Ohio House Minority Leader, made a faith-based statement unsupported by scientific fact. She said, “The bill would technically allow students in social studies or science classes to refer to Bible stories (such as Noah and the Ark) as true historical events, or characters from scripture (such as Adam and Eve) as real, historical figures.” Where is Sykes’ scientific, factual evidence that events and people mentioned in the Bible did not happen or did not exist?
It seems some politicians and educators in Ohio, and elsewhere, are confused about the relationship between faith and science. Science is based on observable phenomena and testability in a laboratory. That which cannot be observed or tested is not a scientific fact. So, when the scientific community, without a single observable fact about the beginning of the universe, weaves a theory called the Big Bang, I do not think it is anti-scientific, or anti-intellectual to believe in a Big Creator.
I would be overjoyed if our public schools taught science because science will point to the Creator. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made,” Romans 1:20.
The modern method of scientific investigation is comprised of five steps: (1) Stating the problem, (2) formulating a hypothesis, (3) collection of data through observation and experimentation, (4) interpreting the data, and (5) drawing conclusions.
The conflicts between scientific theory and the Scriptures are not created by the discovery of scientific facts, they arise from the interpretations and conclusions formulated by an atheistic worldview which is a belief. Believers’ concerns are not with scientific facts, but supposed scientific theories.
Christian scientists’ investigations and discoveries are influenced by the following syllogism: (1) God created the universe, (2) God is a reasonable God, (3) Ergo, the universe can be understood on the basis of reason.
Science without faith is godless knowledge, and faith without science is blind faith; mankind can ill afford either.
Leave a Reply