| Frontiers of Science and Christianity | |
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INTRODUCTION
1.1. Science is a human activity, whose goal is to "explain" the observed universe.I am using the word science both for the procedures of science, and that substantive body of knowledge that is the outcome of its endeavours. Science is organized knowledge, based on observations of nature and experiments to see how the things we observe behave. It is an ongoing progress report, and embodies many principles, laws and general statements, which are the fruit of many people's observations over a long period of time - and about which there is a general consensus in the scientific community.
The general aim of the scientists work is not merely to observe nature, but to explain it in terms of these commonly accepted principles. Science is a complex human activity - its knowledge is the product of a collective human enterprise in which observers, experimenters and explainers each make individual contributions. When communicated (i.e published) the scientist's efforts are refined and extended by mutual criticism, intellectual cooperation and discussion at meetings, until generally agreed upon by the scientific community. The broad goal of science is to reach a consensus in its explanation of the widest possible range of physical phenomena, using the fewest agreed principles!Since science is a human endeavour, which forms its truth by the communication of ideas, there is built into it all the usual problems of prejudice, ambition, and mixed motive, which characterize all human enterprises. Don't think there is no 'peer pressure' amongst scientists! All of us, as human beings, pursue knowledge in a certain framework and are victim's of certain presuppositions. In the long process of becoming technically expert in any branch of science we find that the professional scientist may no longer be the unbiased independent open-minded observer who began her or his training in science.
The fact is that no scientist is a disembodied observing and conceptualizing instrument. The scientist is a conscious human being born and reared so that he or she imbibes the presuppositions of their age, and thus comes to science with a certain view of the world. This view of the world 'colours' all our conclusions when we try to explain things. Many well known scientists are "naturalists" - i.e they assume that the physical universe is all there is, and that everything happens because of what they label "natural causes." Because such things are presupposed, people begin to unconsciously accept them - they become part of our thinking.
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