Saturday, September 08, 2001
The Soul of Science
by Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton
I was interested in science as a kid as well as science fiction as an adult, so I read a lot about the scientific method and all that, as well as many scientists' disdain of religion, at least when it came to the field of science. Those who tried to bring religion into the laboratory, I heard, were a bunch of kooks. Well, I bought that theory and continued to believe it when my interest turned to other fields. I still believed that God created the world and all that, but I figured He must have used evolution, since all the scientists said that's what happened. I never gave it serious thought. Well, that changed a few years back as my wife started reading up on Creationism and started passing along books to read. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that of course scientists are no more infallible than theologians and that every scientist takes some philosophical baggage with him or her into the laboratory. I started questioning some of my assumptions and found out that I prefer to side with the "kooks." Anyway, I'm straying off topic. The Soul of Science is not a book of creationism. Though the authors seem to be favorable to that point of view, their real purpose is to show that the separation of church and lab is pretty much a 20th Century phenomenon. They detail the history of Western science and show how it and its proponents were influenced by Christianity. Having been raised to think that modern science was merely the discovery of what's always been there, I was a bit surprised to see the debates and rationalizations that have formed it. Like any other work of man, I guess if you look close at science you start to see the flaws. I recommend that you check it out, though the book may not be near as impressive to someone who has already bothered to think this through.
LibraryThing link
I was interested in science as a kid as well as science fiction as an adult, so I read a lot about the scientific method and all that, as well as many scientists' disdain of religion, at least when it came to the field of science. Those who tried to bring religion into the laboratory, I heard, were a bunch of kooks. Well, I bought that theory and continued to believe it when my interest turned to other fields. I still believed that God created the world and all that, but I figured He must have used evolution, since all the scientists said that's what happened. I never gave it serious thought. Well, that changed a few years back as my wife started reading up on Creationism and started passing along books to read. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that of course scientists are no more infallible than theologians and that every scientist takes some philosophical baggage with him or her into the laboratory. I started questioning some of my assumptions and found out that I prefer to side with the "kooks." Anyway, I'm straying off topic. The Soul of Science is not a book of creationism. Though the authors seem to be favorable to that point of view, their real purpose is to show that the separation of church and lab is pretty much a 20th Century phenomenon. They detail the history of Western science and show how it and its proponents were influenced by Christianity. Having been raised to think that modern science was merely the discovery of what's always been there, I was a bit surprised to see the debates and rationalizations that have formed it. Like any other work of man, I guess if you look close at science you start to see the flaws. I recommend that you check it out, though the book may not be near as impressive to someone who has already bothered to think this through.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut
// posted by John @ 5:42 PM 
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