Science as Divine Revelation

The last few nights I have been re-watching the Jeffrey L. Kasser lectures on the Philosophy of Science.  These lectures could be the foundation of a new type of learning if people recognize its importance.  The conclusion of this series of lectures is that we have no good way of defining science; neither do we have any good way of defining anything as un-scientific, or even pseudo-science.  Point by point Kasser dissects every attempt through the ages to define science, and we come up empty.  The biggest bogey is Astrology.  Can we reject Astrology as pseudo-science?  It is not clear how to do this.   Can we say that it cannot make accurate predictions?  No, because medical science often cannot make accurate predictions, and neither can climate models.  Some times the predictions are inaccurate.  In fact, often, in some cases, the predictions are wrong, as in Psychology.  Can we deny the scientific status of medical science, climatologists, and Psychologists?  No, but using this methodology, neither can we deny Astrology.  Another proposal is that science always makes progress, and we can call Astrology pseudo-science because it has not made any progress in centuries.  On the contrary, chemistry has not made any significant progress in over 100 years, but it is a solid, indisputable science - without question.  Another argument is that science always has repeatable results.  Many hard core experimenters fall into this trap.  However, this is false.  Again, medical science is not always repeatable, and neither is climate science, or Psychology.  Our cures for cancer in many cases have no clear repeatable results.  Nobody can predict hurricanes.

We can go on and on forever, finding criteria for defining science versus pseudo-science, but in all cases, the criteria are failures.  The criteria become too strong for some cases, and too weak for other cases.  

Another interesting subject within the sciences is the establishment of Causation.  Typically, we collect data in numerical form about one thing, and compare it to the data for another thing.  How do we say one thing causes another thing?  The strange answer: there is no method to establish causation.  We all establish cause by saying, “I know it when I see it.”  When I was in college studying circuits and signals, one method used to establish practical causation was superposition.  When I changed the input and had a proportional change in the output, I can infer that the input causes that particular output.  However, this is a pragmatic rule of thumb in engineering, and not a scientific principle that establishes that something caused another thing.  

So, if we have a few rules of thumb in both science and engineering used to establish things as true, can we claim Scientific Privilege?  Science is supposed to be special.  We have solid rules of thumb in construction, and within the trades to establish methods to accomplish things and determine facts.  Is science just another trade like plumbing and welding?  Well, the more we look into what goes on within science, the more it appears that it is no different in principle from welding and building construction.  

There is a lot of support for the idea that pragmatic men working on problems in business or in the trades discover principles that are later integrated into science.  Issac Newton, the greatest genius of the ages, took the practical work of Kepler and others and integrated this into a whole in the most magnificent scientific theory of the ages: Newton's Laws of Motion.  Einstein did the same thing when he investigated the data from previous decades, and made the magnificent observation that everyone misinterpreted the data because they assumed that physical objects and time were constant instead of assuming that light was constant and everything else changed.

Many advances in science appear to be accidents that a genius recognized, synthesized, and then introduced to the world.  

True advances in science have nothing to do with methods.  They use the same methods plumbers and construction workers use.  What makes science magic is the geniuses that have vision, and receive a revelation from God, and then it all comes together in an instant at one point in time - as all revelations do.  Teasing out a revelation is what takes time and effort - writing the book, etc.  But, science, at root, is Divine Revelation.