On science

I spent four years of my life studying for my degree and then, when most of my friends went out and got a decent job and earned a living, I decided to go back for three more years of postgrad study. Seven years in university gives you a lot of time to think. Especially during the epically long four month summer holiday that students get. What was I doing all this time? Well, 50% of the time* was spent drinking tea in the chaplaincy. The other 50% of time I used studying computer science. During this time I was trained to be a scientist and to use the scientific method.

It was only towards the end of this time that I really started to understand what a wonderful thing the scientific method actually is. It's a beautifully simple concept, yet has allowed the human race to go from primitive cave-dwelling club-wielders to a species equally at home at the ocean floor and in interplanetary space.

Science is the study of creation. For reasons known only to himself, God made the universe obey rules. The rules are amazingly complex, but they are there nonetheless. But he didn't tell us what they are - we have to figure this out for ourselves. This is what science does - it tries to understand the rules that govern the universe, and then use what we learn to extrapolate new ideas and develop technology. Without science, you would not be reading this blog. In fact, you would not be reading. In fact, most likely you would not even be.

Like I said, the scientific method is wonderfully simple. It consists of four steps:

1. Observe a phenomenon or event.
2. Theorise. In other words, come up with a possible explanation.
3. Make a prediction. Find some way to test your theory.
4. Carry out the test, and accept or reject the theory.

This method can be used to test everything from the way a pendulum swings, to the temperatures on a mountain and the way in which a ball bounces. Almost all technology that we have developed as a human race was derived from knowledge acquired through the scientific method.

However, there are two things about the scientific method that deserve caution.

1. It can only be used to examine what can be observed and test. Things that cannot be observed and independently verified cannot be studied by the scientific method. One example is the concept of beauty, since that is highly subjective and cannot be independently verified by others. Another example is God, who appears to remain deliberately beyond verifiable testing. Some scientists make the mistake of thinking that if it can't be explored by the scientific method, then it does not exist. But this is irrational.
2. The scientific method is predisposed to disproving things. It is very easy to disprove a theory, but extremely hard to prove a theory. For example, if I have a bag of coins and I take out 100 coins and every one of them turns out to be a ten pence piece, I could theorise that every coin in the bag is a ten pence piece. This is easy to disprove - even a single example of another coin would be enough. But to prove it, I would have to exhaustively remove every single coin. Science is thus biased toward disproof.

The scientific method is a wonderful thing. I devoted 7 years of my life to it. It has transformed the human race and our understanding of the created world. But it is not the answer to everything. We should not rely on science alone. There are many things, God included, to which we cannot apply the scientific method. This does not mean that they are not there. It just highlights one of the shortcomings of science.

Science can explain a lot - an awful lot - but logically it can't explain everything.

*perhaps more