I hold great interest in the scientific method, and think it is essential to the development of knowledge for humankind. One of the best treatments of this debate I have read is Carl Sagan's THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD. His argument, which I find compelling, is that critics of the scientific method like to construe it as an arbitrary approach to gathering knowledge that we settled upon randomly. They say that there are many other equally valid replacements possible (i.e. Eastern philosophy). This is simply not the case. The scientific method is not some specific, arbitrary approach to conducting Western scientific experiments. It is instead a very BASIC and internally logical supposition that works as follows:

IF you recognize that humans are flawed (which is to say that we don't have the capacity to understand everything in our world 100% correct with no biases, mistakes, or misjudments), THEN the best way to approach any gathering of knowledge is to invite many experts to verify any truth wewish to establish. Having other people verify your idea is a human error-correcting mechanism. It makes it harder for us to make mistakes when trying to determine truths. That is the scientific method. It is not, as commonly beleived, a set of specific procedures for conducting natural science experiements, these specific sciences may operate with the scientific method in mind, but the scientific method by it self has no direct connection to any specific field of Western science. It is so much more basic and pure than that, to beleive in the scientific method is to say: "Hey, if I say X is true, I may have made a mistake in my thinking, so I will invite other people to come verify, the more who come to the same conclusion, the more sure we can be that we did not screw something up in our thinking." There is nothing wrong with this approach. How else would you want to verify that any particular piece of reasoning is true?

Faith is different. Sagan seperates the two. Religious faith makes no attempt to be verified by outside experts. And religions are up front about this. Having a world with faith-based truths and scientific-method backed truths is perfectly harmonious. The danger is pseudo-science, which includes UFOs, the Lost City of Atlantis, groupthink theories where the world thinks as one, ESP, crystal healing, etc. These are fields were the practioners carefully make it seem like they are basing their conclusion on facts. They cite experiments, and research reports at their discretion, but they are not actually inviting others to come verify their conclusions. You could give me any random idea in the world (i.e. earth tunneling unicorns exist under Utah) and I can in retrospect go find some research studies that have conclusions that could help verify that idea. To hear a pseudo-scientist cite reports means little for exactly this reason. The only way to be more sure about knowledge is to have a falsifiable proposition and invite others to show it to be true, and analyze your method. My findings on Unicorns may look good in a book I sell to an average reader, but if I instead invited experts on Utah, and animals, and the reports I cited, to verify my thinking they would quickly find the holes. They would point out the research I missed which contradicts me. They would interpet the results in more logical ways. This is the scientific method. Never allow any one person to tell you that they know the truth, but do not open up their reasoning to scrutiny from other experts. We are not perfect. The best we can do is constantly have other thinking checked by as many people as possible. It is the only logical way for non-perfect beings to approach the gathering of knowledge.

Hey Cal,

Very interesting post! I learned a lot from reading it. I have questions/thoughts that I have are:

1. It seems like the scientific method is always going to be determined by the measurement tools. You can't prove what you can't measure even if it does exist. So it seems like the evolution of measurement tools is crucial to the scientific method. How do measurement tools evolve?

2. I'm still having trouble seeing how science and faith could co-exist. So would you look at faith as an hypothesis where the people don't want it to be solved. If people are saying that they don't want their faith to be challenged, are they then saying that the scientific method is invalid or at least really slow in proving that there is a God.

3. What do you see as the limitations of the scientific method?

4. You mentioned religions using faith with God. What other areas do you think faith is good to use on a daily basis?

5. How do the experts choose what they are going to verify? Let's say a maverick scientist comes up with this new theory that is true, but so crazy, that no other scientists want to even spend their time on it. Then what?

6. How many experts are there in a given field? Also, how much diversity is there among them? It seems like the number and diversity of experts in a particular field would greatly determine what parts of "truth" are uncovered and how quickly.

John Horgan has a great book, The End of Science that touches on a lot of these issues (while also providing an excellent crash course on cutting-edge thinking and thinkers across a number of scientific fields). The thesis of the book, essentially, is that all the important discoveries have already been discovered, on which John and I disagree. More interestingly, however, he puts forward the idea of 'ironic science', essentially philosophy under scientific guise.

Already, most of the really interesting stuff going on in physics, for example (such as string theory, or the first moments after the big bang), falls into this category, as there's simply now way to experimentally test the hypotheses being bandied about by researchers. Instead, theories are judged based on criteria like elegance and completeness - the same ones used in philosophical inquest.

While I'm being so bold as to recommend reading, I'd also suggest Ian Barbour's When Science Meets Religion. Barbour, a professor of both physics and religion (and a preeminent figure in both fields), provides a lot of insight on how faith and science interplay, and speaks well to your last question.

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Hi MIchael!

The scientific method can measure only those things that are repeatable anywhere, anytime, by anyone. History is not repeatable anywhere, anytime, by anyone, so science cannot report on history. Additionally, spiritual power is not repeatable anytime, anywhere, by anyone, so its effects are also ignored by science - both past effects and possible future affects.

Science is good for measuring the effects of physical causes when no external factors come into play.

So in response to the question, "How should we react to hypotheses about the world and life that haven't been proven by science?" I would reply, we should only discount them if they are phenomena that can be fully measured by science.

~ Rebecca Gorman

p.s. Although it is not scientific to a priori assume that all real happenings are repeatable anywhere by anyone anytime, it is that a priori assumption that makes the scientific method possible.

Michael, I know that with your searching questions you will struggle if you do not find the true source of truth and that is Jesus Christ. I cannot make you believe in Jesus but I do want to meet you face to face in San Antonio if you can make it to the 22nd annual Entrepreneurship Education Forum. It will be a great event and check it out in detail at www.entre-ed.org. Take care, Jim Cooke