How Darwin and Dewey Destroyed Western Civilization

John Dewey in 1902

    "That the publication of the 'Origin of Species' marked an epoch in the development of the natural sciences is well known to the layman." Thus begins John Dewey's essay "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy," which was originally published in 1910 and more recently appeared in The Philosophy of John Dewey, edited by John J. McDermott (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981). The essay is an intriguing attempt by Dewey to fathom the implications of Darwinism for Western culture generally.
    Interestingly Dewey downplayed the impact of Darwin's ideas on religion, and instead focused on Greek philosophy. He pointed out that for 2,000 years Western philosophy and science had revolved around the concept of "species" or "eidos," a fixed and immutable category that exists in nature. Observing that the individual specimens within a given species all grow and mature into the same archetypical form, the ancient Greeks concluded that each species must have its own specific purpose or aim, ("telos") to conform to the predetermined type. "The idea of eidos, species, a fixed form and final cause, was the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic of science. Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes, holding them thereby within the metes and bounds of fixed truth. Completely to know is to relate all special forms to their one single end and good: pure contemplative intelligence" (op. cit., p. 34).
    This idea of a fixed species having a definite aim and purpose "accounted for the intelligibility of nature and the possibility of science," while at the same time it "gave sanction and worth to the moral and religious endeavors of man. Science was underpinned and morals authorized by one and the same principle, and their mutual agreement was eternally guaranteed" (p. 36).
    Dewey went on to say that "the Darwinian principle of natural selection cut straight under this philosophy" (p. 37). If evolution is the result of a purely natural process of selection, "there is no call for a prior intelligent causal force . . . Hostile critics charged Darwin with materialism and with making chance the cause of the universe" (Ibid.).

Asa Gray

    Dewey went on to describe how Asa Gray attempted to find a role for divine providence in evolution, but noted that Darwin flatly rejected the idea. The process was too random to see the hand of God in it. Thus Darwin's critics, in the main, were correct. Darwin was a materialist who made chance the cause of the universe.
    Dewey pointed out that Darwin's theory had the effect of changing the focus of philosophy. Whereas previously philosophy had been preoccupied with finding the unifying principle of reality, it now focused instead on solving the concrete problems of temporal existence. Dewey, the Pragmatist, saw this as a positive step forward. But it leaves certain disturbing questions unanswered. If the older philosophy "accounted for the intelligibility of nature and the possibility of science" and "gave sanction and worth to the moral and religious endeavors of man," what happens to science, morality and religion under the new way of thinking? Dewey didn't say. But if everything is evolving and there are no fixed categories in nature, how is it possible to make generalizations about anything in either science or morality? There is only the superficial appearance of stability and permanence. Are we not driven to sheer skepticism and nihilism?
    At the conclusion of his essay Dewey made an astonishing admission. "But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume – an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them; we get over them" (p. 41). He then went on to observe: "Doubtless the greatest dissolvent in contemporary thought of old questions, the greatest precipitant of new methods, now intentions, new problems, is the one affected by the scientific revolution that found its climax in the 'Origin of Species'"(Ibid.).
    But what were "the old questions"? Wasn't it a worldview, the values and ideals, the social and artistic norms, the hopes and aspirations of traditional Western culture? In short, what was "dissolved" was civilization as we knew it. 

You may also be interested in (click on the links):
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The Case for Moral Absolutes 

Why Sam Harris Is an Atheist

    As we saw in our last blog post, Sam Harris set out to demonstrate "How Science Can Determine Human Values," to quote the subtitle of his book. It was a bold attempt to find an objective moral standard based on science. And, in our opinion, he largely failed in the attempt. While he offered many opinions of his own on a wide variety of subjects, he gave few specifically scientific reasons for them. Instead he mainly went over the same ground that numerous theologians and philosophers have traversed for many centuries before, all the while not professing to see any valid objections to his own highly colored opinions. In the end Dr. Harris comes across as an atheist trying hard not to sound like Nietzsche.
    In his wandering peregrinations of the mind, however, Dr. Harris stumbled into an age-old trap, the hoary controversy over determinism v. free will. Dr. Harris says that there is no such thing as a free will, but unlike religious determinists of the past such as Augustine, Calvin and Edwards, Dr. Harris is an atheist and a thoroughgoing materialist (and a neuroscientist at that). But this creates a dilemma for him. On the one hand he wants to say that everything that occurs in the human mind has a natural cause, and therefore can be studied scientifically by neuroscientists such as himself. But if this is the case, Dr. Harris' own thought processes have been biologically determined, which raises an intriguing question: how can scientific reasoning be valid? There would be no necessary correlation between what goes on in the scientist's mind and external reality.
    Dr. Harris himself is aware of the problem and states it this way: "The problem is that no account of causality leaves room for free will. Thoughts, moods and desires of every sort simply spring into view – and move us, or fail to move us, for reasons that are, from a subjective point of view, perfectly inscrutable" (p. 104).
    This, in turn, affects our view of moral responsibility. Dr. Harris challenges traditional notions of sin and culpability. If we only understood the underling causes of bad behavior we would be more compassionate with the erring. At the same time it would open the door to a scientific solution to the problem of human evil.
    But then Dr. Harris seems to step back and modify his position somewhat. He argues that a person could be held responsible for his behavior if he had the intention to do harm. However, if our "thoughts, moods and desires" are rooted in our biology and "simply spring into view," then does not the intention also have an underlying social or biological cause? How then, can we hold a criminal responsible for his actions?
    Moreover, if our thoughts simply spring into view for reasons that are inscrutable, then what about Dr. Harris' own research? It is remarkable that he managed to earn a doctorate from UCLA with thoughts that "simply sprang into view." And how about his book? How did it come about? (It became a New York Times bestseller.) Dr. Harris is caught on the horns of a familiar dilemma: science depends on the assumption of causality in nature; but causality in the mind means that the scientist himself is non-rational. Dr. Harris, it seems, has led us to a dead end.
    Again Dr. Harris appears to back off from his earlier assertions. He tries to argue that while biology and physical circumstances provide the motives for thought and action, that does not mean that we cannot still think rationally. "The fact that reason must be rooted in biology does not negate the principles of reason" (p. 131), he says. We are motivated to think, but we still think. "There is a sense in which all cognition can be said to be motivated: one is motivated to understand the world, to be in touch with reality, to remove doubt . . .As we have begun to see, all reasoning may be inextricable from emotion" (p. 126). But then he goes on to say ". . . the inseparability of reason and emotion confirms that the validity of belief cannot merely depend on the conviction felt by its adherents; it rests on the claims of evidence and argument that link it to reality" (pp. 126-127). It is a little hard to see how the one "confirms" its seeming opposite, but apparently what Dr. Harris has in mind is that our thought processes, while being driven and directed by our emotions, are nevertheless still capable of being rational. A passion for truth should lead us to pursue the truth with all the mental acumen and intellectual rigor at our command. But the problem remains: if everything we think is the result of chemical changes in our brains, how much mental acumen do we really have? Is it not all an illusion?
    Dr. Harris is quick to point out how emotion and bias influence the thinking of religious believers and social conservatives. But the argument is a two-edged sword – it cuts both ways. Is it not possible that Dr. Harris' own thinking has been shaped and molded by his personal biases? He notes at one point that dopamine receptor genes seem to play a role in religious belief: people with the most active form of the gene seem to be more religious. Might not a prescription for the drug L-dopa take care of Dr. Harris' atheism problem? Is it not possible that he is an atheist because he wants to be an atheist? The devout Christian sees evidence of Intelligent Design everywhere; Dr. Harris sees it nowhere. Has our perception, or lack thereof, been affected by our natural inclinations?

A Scientific Basis for Morality?

Review:
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris
Free Press, 2010
307 pp; pb.

 
    The Moral Landscape, by the outspoken New Atheist Sam Harris, is an attempt to find a scientific basis for an objective system of morality. The attempt is a bold one, for conventional wisdom says that it cannot be done. Science cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is."
    Dr. Harris is well aware of the difficulty. He is a neuroscientist with a degree in philosophy. Those on the secular left say that no such objective morality exists, while those on the religious right say that no such morality is possible without reference to a Supreme Being. Dr. Harris, however, thinks that he has found a way out of the difficulty.
    We should note that when Dr. Harris speaks of "morality" he is not talking about a set of unvarying moral precepts or an abstract principle that exists outside of the human mind. He even goes so far as to say that, strictly speaking, morality is not even about an "ought" at all, but rather about how we as humans would like to structure society.
    He argues that most human beings would prefer to live in a well-ordered society that has achieved a high level of peace and prosperity. By the same token almost no sane person would want to live in a poverty stricken country terrorized by corrupt warlords. The answer, then, is to learn how to cooperate with each other in a spirit of reciprocal altruism. And science, he says, can show us how to achieve that. In a word what Dr. Harris offers us is an updated version of Utilitarianism, the idea of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
    Dr. Harris' grand vision sounds very appealing, but the devil, as they say, is in the details. Dr. Harris' book has received a great deal of attention, much of it critical, and in an afterword to the 2011 paperback edition Dr. Harris responds to some of his more thoughtful critics. In particular he addresses three major criticisms; 1) the Value Problem; 2) the Persuasion Problem; and 3) the Measurement Problem. Due to limitations of space we will confine our attention to the first two.
    Dr. Harris contends that the goal of morality should be the general well-being of conscious beings. But how do we define "well-being"? Good health? Satisfying relationships? Material success? The good feeling that comes from acts of kindness? Religion? Wine, women and song? Dr. Harris offers us plenty of opinions of his own, on everything from burqas to embryonic stem-cell research. But significantly, he rarely provides us with a specifically scientific basis for his opinions, which raises the intriguing question, what is the real source of his values? Since he does not tell us, we can only guess. But the answer, apparently, is either from his own intuitive sense of right and wrong, or else he has borrowed them from his Western (i.e. Judaeo-Christian) culture. We seem to recall Someone else a long time ago telling us about the Golden Rule! That being the case, Dr. Harris has left himself wide open to the criticism from the left: his supposed universal standard of morality rests on nothing more than his own cultural or emotional biases.
    The other problem that Dr. Harris has is what he calls "the Persuasion Problem." The problem here is that Dr. Harris is trying to find a basis for altruism in self-interest. Here is how he himself states the problem: " . . . there is often a tension between the autonomy of the individual and the common good, and many moral problems turn on just how to prioritize competing values" (p. 42). "Prioritize" indeed. Why should anyone think about the common good at all? Dr. Harris says that it is in our own self-interest to do so, and so it is. But in real life self-interest and the common good often collide with each other, and when one's own individual self-interest lies close at hand, the "common good" can seem like a hopelessly vague abstraction. Adam Smith had a surer insight into human nature: capitalism works precisely because it appeals to our selfishness and greed.
    In the final analysis we think that Dr. Harris failed because the tried to combine two opposites: human autonomy and the common good. In so doing he eliminated the element of duty or obligation from morality. In the end his "moral landscape" is neither universal, nor truly moral, nor even scientific. Dr. Harris, it seems, is a law unto himself.

Science and Religion – II

    In our last blog post we began our consideration of Stephen Jay Gould's book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. We noted that Dr. Gould attempted to reconcile science and religion through the concept of "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" or NOMA, for short. We also noted with consternation that his proposed solution would have had the effect of stripping religion of all of its supernatural elements, leaving it but a pale shadow of its former self.
    But what, then, about morality? Morality, after all, according to Dr. Gould, belongs to the magisterium of religion; science cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is." But how does religion go about finding the answers? If there is no such thing as prophecy or divine revelation, God presumably has no way to communicate with us. He could not have spoken directly to Moses, or to Isaiah, or to the Apostle Paul. What, then, forms the basis of morality? Dr. Gould offers a suggestion of his own: we ate to "seek solutions to questions of morals and meanings in the proper place – within ourselves" (p. 197).
    This, however, cuts us loose in a raging sea of moral relativism. If values are determined by culture, then there are few, if any, universal values, for cultures can differ quite markedly from one another. Who is to say that cannibalism or genocide are absolutely wrong? Both practices have been accepted in various cultures around the world. In our own culture we have arrived at the point where we are no longer certain about such basic concepts as the sanctity of life or marriage. (True to our deeply held materialistic principles, the only thing we are certain about is the sanctity of private property. You can have my wife; you can have my reputation. But don't you dare touch my bank account!) To ask an even more disturbing question, why is it, that of all the species on our planet, only one, Homo sapiens, even worries about morality? We can't we, as human beings, simply accept life as it is, just like the ichneumonid wasps Dr. Gould describes in his book? (The female wasp stings another insect, usually a caterpillar, and then lays her eggs on the other insect's paralyzed body. The hatched larvae then eat the host insect alive!). In an amoral universe, is the presence of a conscience in a human being an evolutionary anomaly? Shouldn't it rather be considered a neurosis, and treat it accordingly?
    Ironically, Dr. Gould's conception of NOMA even creates problems for science. Modern science arose in the Western world precisely because of our belief in a rationally ordered universe, ultimately rooted in the Judaeo-Christian belief in an all-powerful and intelligent Supreme Being. Once science cut itself loose from divine revelation and asserted the autonomy of human reason, an epistemological crisis ensued. How do we know that the external world has a real, objective existence? How do we know that our senses are giving us accurate perceptions? How do we know that causality is a real phenomenon? Apart from revelation we have no way to validate our sense perceptions, and modern Western philosophy has struggled with these questions ever since. Modern science is built on a set of unproven assumptions.
    Dr. Gould calls his approach a "humane, sensible and wonderfully workable solution to the great nonproblem of our time: (p. 92). On closer examination, not only is it apparent that the problem is very real and pressing, Dr. Gould has actually made it more acute. We can appreciate his interest in the issue, but his solution leaves much to be desired.

Science and Religion - I

Review:
    Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
    Stephen Jay Gould
    Ballantine, 1999
    222 pp., Clothbound

 
    The late Stephen Jay Gould was one of America's leading Darwinists, and in this engaging book he proposes a way for science and religion to coexist peacefully. He calls his approach "NOMA," which stands for "Non-Overlapping Magisteria." What he means by this is that science and religion each has its own distinct sphere, and the two "magisterial" deal with entirely different sets of problems. According to Dr. Gould, science "covers the empirical realm: what is the universe made of (fact) and why does it work that way (theory)." Religion, on the other hand, deals with "questions of ultimate meaning and moral value" (p. 6). As long as each discipline does not intrude into the other's sphere, there should be no reason for conflict between them. Gould calls his approach a "humane, sensible and wonderfully workable solution to the great nonproblem of our times" (p.92).
    Dr. Gould's approach is certainly appealing, and the whole book is manifestly written in an irenic spirit. He expresses his appreciation for religion, and acknowledges that science cannot provide answers to moral and ethical questions. He even paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of William Jennings Bryan (except, that is, when he calls the greatest orator of his age a "preeminent windbag")! And yet, on closer examination, Dr. Gould's "solution to the great nonproblem" offers little consolation to orthodox Christians.
    Let us begin by asking what kind of religion is compatible with "magisterium of science," as Dr. Gould conceives of it. He tells us, for instance, that NOMA imposes certain limitations on our concepts of God. For one think, "science holds sway over the factual character of the natural world" (p.22). If Scripture seems to contradict the findings of science, then "we had better reconsider our exegesis, for the natural world does not lie" (p. 21). Miracles, for example, simply do not happen. Divine providence is also presumably out. God may be a loving being, "but NOMA does preclude the additional claim that such a God must arrange the facts of nature in a certain set and predetermined way" (p. 94). Moreover, man does not occupy any special place of importance in the universe. "Homo sapiens also ranks as a 'thing so small' in a vast universe, and not the nub of universal purpose" (p. 206). (And the publisher says that the book displays Dr. Gould's "passionate humanism"!) As for the cosmos as a whole, it is "a universe without intrinsic meaning" (p. 203).
    It should be readily apparent that the implications for Christianity are radical and far-reaching. Because Dr. Gould conceives of nature as a closed system, and categorically rejects any form of supernaturalism, there is apparently no room in his scheme for divine revelation, prophecy, or answered prayer. It would rule out the Virgin Birth, the deity of Christ, and the Resurrection. Jesus of Nazareth had to have been a purely mortal human being just like the rest of us. What we are left with is a "God" completely outside of the world of space and time, and basically unknowable except in some vague, undefinable, mystical way.
    In short, what we are left with is what we know of today as theological liberalism, and the case can be made that liberalism is simply not Christianity. All of Christianity's distinctive features have been bled out of it. And this, in turn, is a religion that is not likely to be of much use to anyone. It offers little hope or consolation to the person faced with the real exigencies of concrete human existence. Far from reconciling Christianity, Dr. Gould has, in effect, tried to kill it.

 
Next: Dr. Gould and the problem of morality.

Faith and Reason: the Basis for Knowledge

In our last blog post we discussed the limitations of science and the empirical method. That raises the question, then, of how we can know reality. If science cannot give us all the answers we need, what can? We would suggest a simple, common sense solution to the problem. Our knowledge of God and the world is based upon the agreement of several independent lines of testimony.

    The first line of testimony is nature itself. It is our contention that we are surrounded on every hand by the evidence of Intelligent Design. The intricate complexity of nature, far exceeding anything that human engineering can produce, points to an intelligent Being behind it. Every mathematical equation, every Beethoven symphony bears testimony to a rational order in the cosmos. It somehow all fits together in a beautiful harmony and symmetry. Science itself is based on the premise that some kind of order exists in nature.

    The question is, where does this order come from? At this point our atheist friends will be quick to answer, from evolution. The gist of Darwin's theory is that natural selection can account for the appearance of design in nature. But this leads to a startling conclusion: there is no rational order in nature. Moreover, there are no fixed categories in nature: everything is in a constant state of flux. On this premise it is hard to see how one can speak of a "law" of nature. A "law" implies a fixed order to things. But in an evolutionary scenario, there is no fixed order. Two thousand years of Western thought have seemingly been overturned.

    Space prevents us from a detailed rebuttal here of evolution – readers are invited to see our previous blog post "Why Evolution Is False" (Oct. 5, 2011), a review of Prof. Jerry A. Coyne's book Why Evolution Is True. Suffice it to say here that there are several things about the evolutionary hypothesis that strike us as highly improbable. It would require us to believe that life evolved from non-life, that order evolved from chaos, and that intelligence evolved from non-intelligence. Somehow the normal laws of heredity and genetics are routinely overcome by a constant succession of successful gene mutations. In order for the whole process to begin there had to have been a hospitable environment already in place. The process itself would require the creation of new genetic material as evolution proceeded from lower forms of life to higher. Once we arrive at the point of sexual reproduction, there would not only have to be a viable specimen of the new species but also a compatible mate of the opposite sex at the same time and the same place. (The fact of the matter is that every time a couple engages in sex it is a testimony to the wisdom of the Creator – it is highly unlikely that the act would even be possible were it not for Intelligent Design.) No one has ever observed macroevolution take place in nature and no one has ever duplicated it in a laboratory. Which is easier to believe: that the world was created by an intelligent Being or that it somehow brought itself into existence through a completely impersonal process? The whole evolutionary scenario strains credulity. When one sees a garden one naturally assumes the existence of a gardener!

    The second line of testimony is direct revelation in the form of Scripture. The prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New claimed a special kind of inspiration that enabled them to communicate messages from God Himself. They saw visions, they dreamed dreams, they heard voices, they were seized by the Spirit of God. God, it seemed, spoke to them and through them.

    The obvious objection to this, of course, is why the Bible alone? Why not the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or the Hindu Vedas? Do they not make similar claims to divine inspiration?

    There are many ways in which the Bible is a highly unusual, if not to say unique book. It was written by many authors over long periods of time in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), yet it maintains a remarkable consistency of message. Its monotheism, lofty ethics, and unflattering view of human nature (there are very few unblemished heroes in the Bible) all point to a supra-human authorship. Its simple, straightforward style bespeaks of honesty and integrity. Where clear evidence is available archaeology confirms its historical accuracy. Unless one dismisses out of hand the accounts of the miraculous there is no real reason to doubt the Bible's integrity and trustworthiness.

    The third line of testimony is the human conscience. It is a curious fact of human nature that we universally have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. We instinctively believe that there is something wrong with killing and stealing, and that belief is reflected in the civil laws of most civilized human societies.

    The obvious objection here is that an intuitive sense of something, let's say of God or of morality, does not mean that the thing itself actually exists. By itself an intuition does not prove anything about external reality. But it does raise an intriguing question: how did we acquire such an intuition in the first place? The Darwinian explanation is that as our brains evolved we acquired a social instinct that enabled us to function in groups, and that morality is a reflection of our desire to be accepted by the fellow members of our group. But there is a problem here. Sometimes our conscience bothers us when we somehow have the feeling that what the group is doing is wrong. If the Darwinian explanation were correct, we would have become slaves of public opinion. Evolution would have produced in us a kind of herd mentality. The rugged individualists and non-conformists, our heroes and martyrs, would eventually have been bred out of the species by a kind of natural selection. But history is filled with examples of courageous men and women who did what they thought was right in spite of public opinion, and sometimes suffered fearful consequences as a result. Is this some form of mental derangement, a fluke of evolution? Do conscientious objectors and political protestors belong in mental institutions? Or is it possible that the conscience is a part of our God-given humanity, part of what separates us from the animal kingdom, the "Law of God written on the human heart"?

    It is the concurrence of these three things, nature, Scripture and conscience, that gives us a basis for knowledge. Each one taken by itself if fatally weak; each by itself is insufficient to stand on its own. But taken together they act to confirm each other, and it is their combined testimony that is persuasive.

    St. Anselm summed it up like this: "credo ut intelligam" – I believe that I might understand. On the basis of the Christian revelation it is possible to make sense out of the world and of life. It has enabled untold multitudes of people to live happy, productive and fulfilled lives. It is not that we can answer every question – Christianity accepts the fact that there is more to reality than what the human mind can comprehend. But it gives us what we need. "For with You is the fountain of life;/In Your light we see light." (Psalm 36:9; NKJV).

Faith and Reason: the Limitations of Science

One of our fellow bloggers,Tildeb ( questionablemotives.wordpress.com) recently posted several comments on this blog challenging our belief in the existence of God. According to Tildeb, "The most sympathetic and intellectually honest mind-independent answer to the important question Does god exist? is "I don't know.' That is as good as it gets given the available evidence. . ." Tildeb then goes on to define "faith" as "belief that something is true without compelling evidence existing independent of mind . . . the motivation to believe that god exists and is real does not come from reality itself (where the evidence should be overwhelming) but from within the person who wishes to believe."

    We beg to differ. The evidence for the existence of God is overwhelming. We are surrounded by it.

    People have different reasons for embracing Christianity, some more rational than others. But down through the centuries there have been a significant number of intelligent, well-educated people who have given attention to the question, "does God exist?" and have concluded that there is a rational basis for faith -- from Justin Martyr in the Second Century to C.S. Lewis in the Twentieth. Lewis, in fact, gave up atheism to become a Christian.

    Part of the problem is Tildeb's definition of "faith": "belief that something is true without compelling evidence" – evidently a kind of "Sprung ins Dunkel," an existential leap of faith into the dark. But Christian apologetics has traditionally appealed to evidence. Faith is the trust one puts in Christ when one thinks that the evidence is convincing. You weigh the evidence, you become convinced that Jesus really was and is Who He said He is, and you trust in Him as your Savior. It is, for the thinking Christian, a completely rational decision.

    Probably most modern atheists base their skepticism on science, insisting that no evidence exists in nature to indicate the existence of God. The "God hypothesis," they say, is unnecessary. We need, however, to be aware of the limitations of science.

    First of all, science is based on the empirical method. But since science will never have all of the facts at its disposal, its conclusions will always be tentative. The possibility always exists that some new discovery tomorrow will invalidate the conclusions of today. Science can invalidate a truth claim, proving it false, but it can never entirely validate one.

    Secondly, since the empirical method is based solely on what comes through the senses, it generally cannot take cognizance of any possible spiritual or immaterial reality. This means that a philosophy based on science will naturally tend toward materialism, the view that matter and energy are the only reality. It is little wonder , then, that many scientists are skeptical about the existence of God. But that may only point to a defect in their method.

    Moreover, it is exceedingly difficult for science to deduce an "ought" from an "is." Science can give us a description of the way things are; it cannot tell us what they ought to be. Thus in a philosophy of naturalistic materialism the whole matter of morality and human rights becomes problematical. Genocide is an observable fact of life. That it is somehow morally "wrong" is a value judgment that science cannot make. If we are looking to science for answers as to what we should do, we are likely to come up empty.

    But science has an even more severe problem. As noted above, the empirical method is based on sense perceptions. But how do we know that our senses are giving us an accurate picture of reality? How do we know that we are not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses? This was the question raised by David Hume, and it has vexed philosophers ever since. Thus science itself, in the last analysis, is a prisoner of the mind, not sure if anything actually exists externally.

    As a naturalistic method, science is completely compatible with Christianity; science is simply the study of the natural phenomena created by an all-wise and all-powerful God. But when science becomes an all-encompassing worldview, an naturalistic ontology, it comes into direct conflict with religion. And it is as a worldview that science has severe limitations and drawbacks.


 
[More later]