Bill and Dave Debate God and Science

In “Myths of a Godless Science” (10/2) I pointed out that (1) A primary goal of the radical left is to drive God out of public places, most especially the public schools; (2) a primary polemical device of the left has been that science and religion are diametrically opposed; and I argued that (3) the belief in God the Creator is not anti-scientific; and (4) the rise of science in the West was a product of European Christian universities and, generally, religious men.

I received a vigorous rebuttal from good friend Prof. Dave Young that I will address here.

DAVE: The reason it (belief in a Creator) isn’t scientific is because it doesn’t lend itself to being disproved.

PVB: I agree, but it is nonetheless true, and it provides a rational explanation for the unexplained in evolution science (see below).

DAVE: Belief and empirical method are not the same. Science limits itself to the realm of things that can be observed and tested. There is no test with our existing technology that can test your assertion for the existence of a grand designer. He may be there, or have been there, but we can’t test for Him.

PVB: I agree with the first point. But, much of science is inferential. Take quasars and much of cosmology. We cannot do experiments with quasars but we can observe them and compare observations to theory. We call it science. In the same way we can look for evidence of “design” in nature.

DAVE: Therefore, it ain’t science and it doesn’t belong in a science classroom.

PVB: Wrong, the science of Intelligent Design studies the fundamental questions of life and the creation of species, just what evolution science should do but seems to have abandoned because 150 years of trying have been fruitless. This ID effort is analogous to the cosmology study of the birth of the universe, also best explained by Creation.

DAVE: You go on about how only the west created science, but then you criticize the west for being guilty of the very thing (rejection of God the Creator) that keeps us from being like the barbarians we are in a real fight with. I don’t see how you can have it both ways.

PVB: Wrong, belief in God does not make us like the Islamists.

DAVE: Your criticism of the Islamic world and its lack of development for the last several hundreds of years should be all the evidence you need.

PVB: I do not criticize the Islamists for their belief in Muhammad. Muslims did not create science because they followed the Greek classical model of a capricious god who does what he pleases with the universe whenever he pleases. There was no concept of a universe governed by unchangeable laws that could be derived from the study of nature. That critical concept came from Christianity.

DAVE: Affectionately, yours in Starbucks.

PVB: Thanks buddy.