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The Danger of Living Scientifically

by James Barringer  
4/14/2010 / Christian Living

We live in a very scientific world. This is sometimes very good and sometimes very bad, and the same thing that makes it good can make it bad. What I mean is this: the essence of science is that something has to be measured, observed, in order to be proven. If it can't be observed or measured, then it can't be proven. This is fine, until science takes the illogical and unprovable step of equating proof with truth - saying that if something can't be proven, then it isn't true.

I am very glad, for instance, that pharmaceutical companies are required to prove the effectiveness of their drug through scientific studies before the drug can be sold. I'm glad that people are doing research into the healthy kinds of food and exercise that help the body live longer. I'm glad that car companies do crash tests to prove how sturdy their cars are. In a great many ways, science - and its insistence on proving things through experiment - has made our lives better and safer.

However, there are boundaries to this kind of empirical science, which is reliant on what the senses can take in. It assumes - again, illogically - that everything which is important can be measured and given a quantity. Yet many of the most important things in life cannot, in fact, be measured at all. How can you measure the quantity or quality of a mother's love for her son? How can I quantify the awe that grips me when I see the Rocky Mountains, or account for the fact that not everyone feels the same awe? How can I explain my preference for beauty over ugliness, if beauty is a completely arbitrary cultural standard that cannot be measured scientifically at all?

This is also why we should not be dismayed that science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. Such an inability is only a problem if you believe - as scientists do, and as they want the rest of us to do - that something is only true if it can be proven. Thus, they doubt the existence of God because their methodology cannot demonstrate him. Perhaps they have it backward. Perhaps God exists just fine, and science is only unable to verify him because of a fundamental flaw in the nature of empirical science, namely the faulty assumption that something is only true if it can be observed with our five senses.

But my point here is not mainly to talk apologetics or debate the existence of God. I intend to show that living "scientifically" is dangerous. I want to examine how we assign priorities for our lives, how we make decisions, and whether or not we, possibly without even knowing it, fall under the faulty assumption that I talked about a minute ago.

For example, consider the hypothetical (but actually very common) example of a father who spends an irresponsible amount of time at work rather than with his family. It's not that he wants to short-change his family; if you asked him, he would probably admit that he wished he could be a better father. The problem is that work gives him empirical - scientifically observable - goals rewards in terms of a paycheck, evaluation by bosses, whether or not he lands the account, and so on. Those things are measurable and he will know beyond any shadow of a doubt how he performs.

His family, however, offers him nothing like that. How can he ever analyze whether he is being a "good dad"? What test could a scientist possibly come up with to measure the quantity of love and respect that his kids have for him? If such a thing was possible, only a truly reprehensible human would prefer good scores at work to good scores at home. The sole reason people choose work over home is that work can be scored and home cannot. We can give the father a checklist of duties, possibly, such as spending a certain amount of time with his children and wife, and grade him on whether he is fulfilling his duties - yet that would still not give us any indication whether he actually loved his family, merely that he was executing the checklist. Until it's possible to measure and score love, the father is stuck in a situation where his work performance can be scored, his home performance cannot; work is therefore assumed to be more important, and that assumption affects his work/family priorities. I believe that assumption is false, which is to say that I disagree with the absolute foundation of modern science.

If you look at your life, you will probably be able to easily pick out times when you have failed to do things you want to do or should do because other things - measurable things - demand your attention. We have, without realizing it, fallen under the delusion that only the things which can be measured truly have value. For example, there is no way at all to measure the results of my writing this essay. Even if I impact a person's thinking, change the way they view life, what kind of measurement can be put to that? If it can't be quantified, then either it isn't important, or it is important despite the fact that it cannot be quantified, measured, or proven in any way. I believe the second of those is true, not just of this essay but of many of the most important things in life, and of God as well.

In fact, I believe that every Christian must disagree with the idea that proof equals truth. I cannot prove why it is better for you to love other people than to look out for your own self-interest. Many times, in fact, it is not better for you at all; you stand to be greatly inconvenienced if you put other people above yourself. Yet we believe Jesus when he said that "Love your neighbor" was one of the most important commandments, and Paul when he said that loving your neighbor was the commandment that summed up the entire Old Testament law. We believe it is better to love, yet we cannot prove it, and in fact if we tried to prove it we would conclude the exact opposite, that it more often benefits us to be selfish instead of love. If proof equals truth then "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a false commandment. If it's true, then proof doesn't always equal truth, and science is not infallible.

A mere essay is certainly not sufficient to unpack this topic, but my goal is simply to get us questioning the idea that proof equals truth. Many of the most important things in life - resting, reading the Bible, love, worship - cannot be measured. That's why we need to be careful not to give priority to measurables such as work while neglecting intangibles such as family and personal renewal. We have to know that those things are important even though we cannot place a value on doing them. Science has, as I have said, done great good for our society and our lives, and it will continue to do so provided that it remains in its place and does not try to extend itself to metaphysics or morality, two areas to which it has absolutely nothing to say.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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