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The "Faith" Dilemma

The splashy preachers in their thousand-dollar suits and gold-crusted TV sets want you to know that faith is the only answer. Scientists encourage us to think about the world around us analytically. Do you know which of them is right? Do you believe that neither offers the right perspective?

Since the dark times of early history, those with new or difficult ideas have caught a lot of grief from the "faith communities" that existed at that time and in particular contexts. Making a discovery has put many people on the rack, some in stocks, and many others on the outside of "acceptable" society looking in. Why? Do we really find it so difficult to use what we declare God placed between our ears?

Put on That Thinking Cap

For those in religious groups that do not generally accept new ideas-and they are many-science is scary territory. It shouldn't be, considering that many of the technologies that we enjoy would not exist had someone not admitted the validity of at least a few inventions and discoveries. But some religious believers virtually turn themselves inside out trying to disprove or push aside the least new scientific finding.

One of the favorite tactics of this crowd is to focus on the word "theory" as though it somehow were spawned by Satan. There is, for instance, the "theory" of evolution, which many take to be merely a guess, rather than the evidence-supported hypotheses that regularly appear in journal articles. If they wanted, I suppose they could take issue with the theory of gravitation or the theory of general relativity, but how would any of that advance their understanding of the universe?

Someone asks, "What has science proved," and a scientist reads it and slowly, strand by strand, begins removing what hair he has remaining. "Proof" is a very strong word, a word used more in mathematics than in physical sciences. Why?

In the physical sciences, observation leads to hypotheses. Hypotheses can be considered educated guesses, but it is more productive to use "theory," since each theory is supported by the observed body of evidence. What if some part of the evidence changes because an observation provided new data? Then the theory may be changed, the hypothesis updated, based on the new data. In the physical sciences, demonstration is what we're after, not "proof." If the theory works in the context of all the available evidence, we have demonstrated that it is valid; we have not attempted to "prove" anything.

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