This is a response to a Christian that attacked intelligent design and my attempt to give groundwork for a Christian perspective on science. He wrote an article proclaiming Intelligent design is not scientific and just a “philosophical worldview.” This will be an analysis of that position, science, and intelligent design’s validity. I’ll be approaching from a reformed Christian’s perspective. Here are my goals:

1. My attempt will be to correct a naive view of science and shallow criticism of intelligent design: A) Will be my criticisms and B) my agreements.
2. My attempt will be to give a framework for those that interested in the relationship of the Christian faith and Science.

A. Criticism
First, definitions are called for clarity and precision. Intelligent design will be defined by intelligent design website as “The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
The misrepresentation comes in when one argues that looks like just question begging. The ID proponent is asking for whether the Neo-Darwinian mechanism is able to produce these anatomical changes. This is not merely a change in gene frequency of a population in an amount of time, and it isn’t just what is commonly called microevolution or speciation. We are speaking of macroevolution (or microbes to man), dealing with new anatomical features. The way they establish such is to test Neo-Darwinian paradigm and its mechanism of random chance mutations to produce such things and its probability.

In the article, he criticizes Anselm’s ontological argument. It is said that all Anselm said was “You can think of God in your head, then he can exist in reality.” That’s not what the argument is. It is that God is the most perfect being, and it is more perfect for this being to exist not only as an entity of my mind but also in the actual world. Immanuel Kant later elaborated that existence isn’t a predicate (some, like Alvin Plantinga, think that Kant was wrong). It’s simply a strawman.

Intelligent design can only advocate that a creator (whether it be aliens, God, or gods) explains the phenomena out there better than opposing theories. It isn’t attempting to prove what the designer is but rather that design explains the biological, and many other features of the world, better than random blind forces of nature. Which can conceptual scheme explain our experiences in a richer fashion?

The article continues using philosophy and science in preconceived notions of both of those and how they relate. It’s even equated to a worldview, instead of an interrelated belief. It seems kind of odd one could think a person doesn’t bring their philosophical worldview and presuppositions to the evidence. It assumes a concept of neutrality. But what is neutrality in a Christian world? What is a Christian brute fact? Aren’t all facts interpreted by the one who created it? Inconsistency is the test of a failed argument. Even later in the article, he states, “I would prefer he keep his religious life separate from his secular life as a scientist…”
Can a Christian do that, if theology cannot exist without logic and logic can’t exist without theology? Science being dependent on logic presupposes such a worldview that provides a transcendental such as logic. Which worldview does that? What worldview is the Christian suppose to come to the created order with? Clearly, the secular one is assumed as neutral ground, which is an extreme metaphysical bias on his part. Why does he arbitrarily choose science in which the Christian cannot exercise his faith? Why not approach other fields the same way? Why not approach the field of ethics on secular thought? It almost gives flashbacks to the old Twofold theory of truth (some philosophers have argued that you have truths of the faith and truths of reality. Example: It’s true by faith that Jesus rose from the dead, but it isn’t true that he physically rose from the dead in reality). The question is, now, what is science and is intelligent design a valid theory? I haven’t seen any reason to discredit it as a conceptual scheme or possible theory of the world, but I’ll even try to establish that other theories are not on any better grounding.

Is this concept of neutrality coherent? I think not. Every action we take presupposes metaphysical and epistemological commitments. To get out of bed presupposes causality, Logic, nature’s uniformity, eternal world, and various other commitments that one makes to do daily tasks. While affirming one you deny its negation. You choose a metaphysic whether it be idealism, realism, solipsism, dualism, Monism, pluralism, Panentheism, pantheism, theistic dualism, etc. (and the many forms of those). You may grant that metaphysic as a necessary bias and not take it seriously because it is necessary. The problem is it’s not only metaphysics but epistemology, as well, whether it be empiricism, Scientism, logical positivism, rationalism, classical foundationalism, coherentism, externalism, internalism, skepticism, pragmatism, etc. This belief in philosophical Methodism (the method of knowing takes precedence over metaphysics and over other areas of philosophy) simply isn’t the case. We start with worldviews. For example, say someone decides the best epistemological outlook is Empiricism. What if he is also an idealist who believes the world is a mental construct? What empirical data do we receive from mental constructs? One should simply look at the history of philosophy and see how those with empirical epistemologies had a materialistic metaphysic. It’s not a coincidence. Dr. Bahnsen uses to give an example where a man receives an Apple orchard. The man designs a machine to sort the good apples from the bad apples. The million dollar question then is “What is a good apple?”.
Finally, the nature of the Christian worldview is antithetical to any opposition. It is the lordship of Christ over all things of his creation that gives meaning. His meticulous providence and decree testify of his absolute sovereignty over his creation. For all knowledge and truth are in Christ (Colossians 2:3). God, as sovereign Lord, gives no room for neutrality. Either it is a Christian worldview or it is a sinful worldview.

The Circular nature of the scientific community:

It is a fact the scientific consensus that evolution has happened. Especially, when those who specialize in biology And schools of science that deal with evolution. We, therefore, should accept them on their testimony. But is this the case? Should we accept what they believe to be the case? Here are 3 reasons why we shouldn’t.
1. The Scientific consensus is known for its fallibility. Such as beliefs in a geocentric earth and the phlogiston theory.
2. We should be skeptical of any theory dealing with religious, political, ethical, and other important implications. For we know nobody is neutral.
3. Evolution is self-defining and self-serving. To be an evolutionary scientist you need to accept the theory of evolution. If you wouldn’t accept it then you are not a part of that consensus. Who is the evolutionary scientist trained by? Evolutionary scientist. What are they taught? Evolutionary theory. It would be like asking the consensus of professional football players is whether football is a great sport. It is replied, well it’s unanimous even by scientist that don’t specialize in evolutionary science. But these scientists do not specialize in those sciences. So, when they are asked why they believe in evolution, they defer to the evolutionary scientist.

B.Where is there agreement?

I find ID proponents to be inconsistent and compromising on the issues of the Christian worldview. They refuse to be faithful to the Bible or any revelation in attempts to appear more scientific to the secularist. As a prominent ID theory website states:

“Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence.”

Which worldview is the foundation of any knowledge other than the Christian faith? Intelligent design neither absolutely establishes the Christian faith nor does it want to. While all the ID proponents presuppose the Christian worldview, the ID proponent has to defend his position without the Christian God. This shows why his arguments will always remain inconsistent. The ID position can be defended along with Christian presuppositions as scientific and biblical. That means Intelligent Design needs to be defended on Christian grounds. We should not allow the proponents of a theory to get in the way of the theory itself. This is why I’m skeptical of ID defenders as much as he is, for biblical reasons. I’ll try to show how the neutral ID proponent is undermining the foundations of science.

What is science? Well, that counts on who you ask. I would say it’s the study of the creation with revelation as a guide. There are other attempts to define science so we shall look into a few definitions of science. Which will lead us into the question of “What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of science?”.
Since we have turned our eyes to “What is science?”. The issue of definition arises. The myth is that there exist a scientific method in the first place. Which isn’t even asked by anyone before they proclaim something isn’t scientific. We will go through a few attempts and discuss how they can’t sufficiently demarcate science from non-scientific activities.
Dr. John Lennox wrote:

“And that brings us back to our question: What is science? Contrary to popular impression, there is no one agreed scientific method, though certain elements crop up regularly in attempts to describe what ‘scientific’ activity involves: hypothesis, experiment, data, evidence, modified hypothesis, theory, prediction, explanation, and so on. But the precise definition is very elusive.”

Dr. J. P. Moreland has written:

“There is a fairly widespread belief that there is something called the scientific method that can be characterized in a fairly clear, unequivocal manner and that separates science from other fields. For example, the following statement occurs at the beginning of a widely used high school biology text: ” Scientists use the scientific method in attempting to explain nature. The scientific method is a means of gathering information and testing ideas … The scientific method separates science from other fields of study.” This stereotype is, unfortunately, both false and widely believed to be true. … First, there is no such thing as the scientific method, but rather there is a cluster of practices and issues that are used in a variety of contexts and can be loosely called scientific methodologies. Second, various aspects of scientific methodologies arise in practice of disciplines outside science.”

Dr. Stephen Meyer wrote:

“And that is the problem. If scientists and philosophers of science do not have an agreed-upon definition of science, how can they settle questions about which theories do and do not qualify as scientific? If scientists lack such a definition, it’s difficult to argue that any particular theory is unscientific by definition.”

We’ll be looking through some attempts to define science. Let us first talk about necessary and sufficient conditions. An easy way to explain this is an example.  A necessary condition for fire is oxygen. But oxygen isn’t a sufficient condition for fire. A sufficient condition for fire is a fuel source, a heat source, and oxygen. That is to say, that you must have oxygen for there to be a fire, but merely the presence of oxygen doesn’t entail that a fire is present.
The goal here is to evaluate the features of these definitions to see how they demarcate science from non-science. We will evaluate how others have tried to do such a task.

1. Knowledge covering general truth or the operation of general laws especially obtained through and tested by the scientific method. Such knowledge pertaining to the physical world and its phenomenon.
Criticism:
A. Not all of science has to do with general laws because science also deals with singularities. This would leave one time events out of being scientific. For those who espouse the big bang theory are not doing science.
B. This definition is dependent on the scientific method. It does not tell us what the scientific method is. This definition is either circular or vacuous. Saying that science uses the scientific method is like saying science practices science.
C. This definition presupposes physicalism which leaves fields like sociology and psychology out. Yet still, the advocate for this definition begs the question against those fields.
D. It assumes scientific realism. It presupposes that we actually get to the mind-independent world. That out there exists theoretical entities that are from theories, like quarks. There are some philosophers and scientists who don’t believe these theoretical particles exist. One may deny science actually tells us about the real world.

Judge William Overton’s definition (His definition is a famous one which was used to show creationism wasn’t scientific and has been used in other courts for the same purpose) had just 5 criterion for science:
“It is guided by natural law;
It has to be explained by reference to natural law;
It is testable against the empirical(observable) world;
Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word;
It is falsifiable.”

“1. It is guided by natural law;
2. It has to be explained by reference to natural law;”

i) What are all the natural laws? How can we explain the phenomenon if we don’t know the natural laws that are needed to explain such? What is a natural law, and on what basis do we know them? How do we know that they hold? It lacks any answers to these questions. Where does one know these laws apply? Universally? Does he have universal experience?

ii) It seems to me that Laws imply lawgivers. That these laws cannot just be impersonal. These laws show the intelligibility and rationality of the world. We should also note that these laws are language like. These two simple things are properties of persons and undermine the mechanistic impersonal view of scientific laws that most people in the realm of science hold to.

iii) If they cannot know all the natural laws, then we’ll allow them the basic laws. Even those cannot be explained by further natural laws.

iv) What does it mean that science is guided by natural law?
Does it guide us by explanation? Then, it is not different than the 2nd point and we would only have 4 points. It could also mean motivation to explain the world by natural laws. But what does motivation have to do with science? If one does it for money, prestige, religious beliefs, or forceful parents, it has to affect science. It could also be denial for any appeal of the supernatural. However, then, one could just study numbers or language and, therefore, be doing science. It is hard to think that Isaac Newton’s religious motivations discredit him as a scientist. Someone studying patterns in literature. If natural means physical, then things like sociology (what material is social forces made out of?)., therefore, re seems again to be question begging.
·Some of the most important findings of history weren’t by an explanation of the phenomena but rather the discovering of it. If the only explanation was the case, then many like Galileo were actually not doing science. Einstein wasn’t viewing the facts and following this view or “the scientific method.” He did thought experiments.
·Astrology uses natural laws that govern their predictions. Are we now to give grants to those who study astrology?
·Also, big bang cosmology is not explained by examining natural laws. Singularities are therefore left out by science.

“3. It is testable against the observable world;”

· I have a theory about Christians who struggle with anger.  If they stopped reading their Bibles for a month, would they return to having anger problems? This is tested by empirical data, but it doesn’t have anything to do with science. It’s testable against the empirical world. But I strongly think no scientist would care.
·How many theorems are testable by empirical evidence? Does one go down the street to watch the big bang occur? No. The theory of evolution? No. Plate tectonics? No. These occur over millions of years and, in fact, cannot be observed. Only sub-theories can be tested.
· What about things we cannot test yet? Many things of theoretical physics cannot be tested, such as string theory. Is this not scientific? Many hypotheses are not testable. Look at the recent findings of gravitational waves.
·When theories can account for the evidence? Example: You take your car to a mechanic, and the mechanic tells you you’re out of gas. You ask for a second opinion, and the next mechanic tells you you’re out of gas and there are gremlins in your fuel system. Which theory is based on empirical evidence? Each theory has the same amount of evidence, but we would most likely accept the first. Why? The first one is more simple and therefore simplicity (like Occam’s razor) is a factor or bias that drives scientific thought. Think of the geocentric vs heliocentric debate. That isn’t answerable just on the basis of empirical observation. It was, rather, solved using the criterion of simplicity. Simplicity is decided on the basis of their presuppositions, and that’s what we all do (so the Christian should not be faulted for accepting theories that comport with his worldview). There’s more to it than empirical observation. As Occam’s razor can only tell you not to go beyond entities needed, but it does not tell you how many entities are too much or too few.
·This also excludes predictive ability. The world appears different from what it would 30 years from now. It doesn’t take into account the issue of time.
· It doesn’t even take into account the person’s presuppositions. A man from a tribe, who has been isolated from technology, may observe a TV and come to a different conclusion than someone from the United States, who’ll know that it is a TV and not just a box. It’s just the fact we interpret future experiences on the basis of past experiences.
* Another issue is how to draw causal connections between pieces of evidence. For example, shark attack incidents increase when Ice cream consumption increases. Does ice cream consumption cause shark attacks?

“4. Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word;”

i) Scientist are quite often very dogmatic, as they often call theories “indisputable facts” and that such theories cannot be doubted. For example:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen.”
Professor Richard Lewontin

ii) Are non-scientific theories dogmatic? The theory that I have milk in my fridge is not a theory I’ll die for. Are you gonna call me a scientist? This doesn’t separate science from non-science either and cannot actually demarcate the two.

“5. It is falsifiable.”

i)This final point comes from the thoughts of Sir Karl Popper (philosopher). Following Modus Tollens “If P, then Q. Not Q. Therefore, not P.” How does mere falsifiability prove something is science? I have a theory that the Football team that scores no points wins the game. I watch a football game and see that this isn’t the case. My non-scientific theory was falsified. How does falsification set science apart?

ii) Now, falsification is never conclusive for any particular statement. Example:
P1: All Gods are immortal
P2: Apollo is a God
C: Apollo is immortal
Say Apollo dies. Which premise is falsified? It relies on the philosophical commitment of the one who answers. One could’ve proven either one of those premises to be false.

iii) Is this really what scientist do? Do they make predictions of the theory of evolution that certain animals have died out? Then they find this creature has seen multiple extinction events yet remains the same. If this line of reasoning is correct, then why is evolution still here? Why is it still being forced upon our conscious? How does one know when something is falsified over just a lack of information?

3. Methodological Naturalism:

Another attempt is methodological naturalism. Its criteria are nearly the same so criticism of one will not be repeated
(1) is not testable,
(2) is not falsifiable,
(3) does not make predictions,
(4) does not describe repeatable phenomena,
(5) does not explain by reference to natural law,
(6) does not cite a mechanism,
(7) does not make tentative claims, and
(8) has no problem-solving capability.
They have also claimed that it is not science because it
(9) refers to an unobservable entity.

i) Dr. Stephen Meyer has a few thoughts about such a position:

“The demarcation question has long been a vexing one. Historically, scientists and philosophers of science have thought that science could be distinguished by its especially rigorous method of study. But attempts to define science by reference to a distinctive method have proven problematic because different branches and types of science use different methods. For example, some scientific disciplines distinguish and classify natural entities, while others attempt to formulate overarching laws that apply to all entities. Some disciplines perform laboratory experiments under controlled and replicable conditions, while others attempt to reconstruct or explain singular events in the past, often based on field studies of evidence or clues rather than laboratory experiments. Some disciplines generate mathematical descriptions of natural phenomena without posting mechanisms to explain them. Others look for mechanisms or explain law-like regularities by reference to underlying mechanisms. Some scientific disciplines make predictions to test theories,
while others test competing theories by comparing their explanatory power. Some disciplines use both these methods, while some conjectures (particularly in theoretical physics) may not be testable at all. And on it goes…..
An episode in the history of science illustrates the problem. During the seventeenth century, a group of scientists called the ‘mechanical philosophers’ insisted, based largely on advances in early chemistry, that scientific theories must provide mechanistic explanations. Such explanations had to involve one material entity pushing or pulling another. Yet in physics, Isaac Newton (1642–1727) formulated an important theory that provided no mechanistic explanation. His theory of universal gravitation described mathematically but did not explain in a mechanistic way, the gravitational attraction between planetary bodies—bodies separated from each other by miles of empty space with no means of mechanical interaction with each other whatsoever. Despite provocation from the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who defended the mechanistic ideal, Newton expressly refused to give any explanation, mechanistic or otherwise, for the mysterious “action at a distance” that his theory described. Did that make Newton’s theory unscientific? Strictly speaking, the answer depends upon which definition of science someone chooses to apply. Today one would be hard-pressed to find anybody who denies that Newton’s famous theory qualified as scientific. For example, some critics of intelligent design have argued that it fails to qualify as a scientific theory because it makes reference to an unseen or unobservable entity, namely, a designing mind in the remote past. Yet many accepted theories—theories assumed to be scientific—postulate unobservable events and entities. Physicists postulate forces, fields, and quarks; biochemists infer submicroscopic structures; psychologists discuss their patients’ mental states. Evolutionary biologists themselves infer unobserved past mutations and invoke the existence of extinct organisms and transitional forms for which no fossils remain. Such things, like the actions of an intelligent designer, are inferred from observable evidence in the present, because of the explanatory power they may offer. If the demarcation criterion of observability is applied rigidly, then both intelligent design and materialistic theories of evolution fail to qualify as scientific. If the standard is applied more liberally (or realistically)—acknowledging the way in which historical scientific theories often infer unobservable past events, causes, or entities—then both theories qualify as scientific. And so it goes with other such criteria as well. There is no specific (non-question-begging) demarcation criterion that succeeds in disqualifying the theory of intelligent design from consideration as a scientific theory without also doing the same to its materialistic rivals.”

ii) What’s even more hilarious is the criticism of “it posits unobservable entities” while they use propositions to make their universal statements. Such statements are not observable by the senses. No one couldn’t even predicate if we accept this view of science.

iii) Do not be fooled by its apparent appeal to neutrality. Alvin Plantinga gives the example of a Christian practicing altruistic behavior as a genetic defect (as a possible interpretation on methodological naturalism), but, as a Christian, this is not why Christians show altruistic behavior.

4. Simple Method:

Some think science is just a method. In its basic structure, it has only a few steps.
1. Make observations.
2. Propose a hypothesis.
3. Design and perform an experiment to test the hypothesis.
4. Analyze your data to determine whether to accept or reject the hypothesis.
5. If necessary, propose and test a new hypothesis.

This view is rather common: Scientists should only go into the world and collect the facts indiscriminately and come to unbiased views, and that we have a fact-theory distinction. This would seem to indicate that facts are rather brute and uninterrupted as if these facts organize themselves. There is good in this, in the sense we do have facts: the sun exists, there’s a rock, etc. The issue is that facts are theory-laden. When we start explaining these facts, we come to different conclusions. A naturalist interpretation almost always differs from a young earth creationist interpretation. Facts are interrupted by worldviews. They do not speak on their own; they are “mute” as Cornelius Van Til called them. Imagine if I tried to convince you that a house is haunted and that Ghosts are there. As a Christian, we couldn’t accept that evidence. Our worldview excludes the possibility. I may tell you that there are rattling chains, people getting poked, appearances, groans of terror, etc. It doesn’t matter what evidence I provide. We have presuppositions, and they are not falsifiable by experience. This also seems to indicate that scientists go out and collect facts indiscriminately. “Indiscriminately collecting facts” is rather odd. If I went around with a ruler, indiscriminately measuring the length of sticks out in the woods, a scientist would wonder why I’m doing this. Scientists go out and purposefully collect facts. Just like in history we find that the president giving the Gettysburg address is more important than what James Penrose, out in the crowd, had for breakfast. It’s just that facts are not all equal. It also returns to the notion of neutrality. I will quote Bahnsen to show it just simply couldn’t be the case. “Furthermore, the place where a man goes to secure or look for evidence indicates a certain prejudice toward the answer expected to a question on his part from the very outset. Also, what a man even considers ‘factual’ will be determined by his outlook or philosophy (e.g., the materialist and Buddhist will disagree from the start of an argument). Moreover, we note that the very formulation and styling of an argument require that a man has his final conclusion in sight even from the outset in order that the argument is structured to move to the proper end; the predetermination of conclusion significantly governs the formulation of premises. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn clearly exhibits the non-objective character of science when it comes to foundational questions. He says that the scientist views the world through a model or arranging-picture; he has a paradigm that defines the scope and methodology of the science using it. The world becomes a totally new place when the paradigm is altered; even sense data and its interpretation are governed, qualified, and determined by the model. In 1931 Kurt Gödel pulled the rug out from under the supposed neutrality of logic in the same way that Kuhn later made scientific or factual neutrality look suspicious.
Gödel developed a theorem that demonstrated the impossibility of formulating a consistency proof for any system of logical calculus (with its signs and rules of inference) within that system.Hence different systems of logic are selected for reasons other than objective logical argument. Against this background, it should come as no surprise that the Christian and unbeliever do not and cannot approach their differences with argumentative or philosophic neutrality. Even though the Christian and the non-Christian have the facts of the objective world in common, they have radically divergent interpretations of them. For the Christian, all facts are pre-interpreted by God, created by God, and revelatory of God; they must be handled in such a way that glory is brought to God. But the non-Christian views these facts as meaningfully interpreted only by his own mind, as uncreated and free from God’s control, as ambiguous and contingent; he uses them to bring glory to man. Hence the Christian and non-Christian have different interpretative schemes. Even when the believer and unbeliever share the same rules of logical inference, they nevertheless can be said to have different “logics.” For the believer and unbeliever differ as to the use, significance, ground, and authority of these rules; basically one subordinates logic to God while the other does not. One views logic as rules of thought implanted in man’s mind by the Creator; the other sees logic as the self-sufficient, self-authenticating tool of autonomous man’s reason. One founds logic in God; the other founds it in itself. The Christian places God’s authority above considerations of logical possibility or his own human use of logic; the unbeliever places abstract possibility above God. Since the fall of man was ethical in character (not metaphysical), the unregenerate and regenerate share the facts of the world and the rules of thought, but their interpretation and use of them are far from neutral.”

This very method of science is antithetical to the Christian worldview. It presupposes that God does not have an interpretation of every fact of our experience and that we are not thinking God’s thoughts after him. John Frame even shares Bahnsen’s thoughts “Though not written from a Christian perspective at all, Thomas Kuhn’s The structure of scientific revolutions is extremely helpful in destroying the myth of the alleged ‘objectivity’ of science. Non-Christian science is widely deified and worshiped, but it is more vulnerable now than it ever has been for the last four hundred years.”  Frame continues and begins to criticize the scientific method, as he tells us the “check out the facts” type of view is over-simplistic and just isn’t the case. His first criticism is that the instruments scientist use are theory dependent tools. He also points out science is not just collecting facts but also “analyzing and evaluating data.” The issue, then, also is how to categorize them. What method or criterion do we use? This is where one’s subjective thoughts may be used to organize them. Dr. Frames continues to tell us that scientific theories go beyond the data. Such as when laws of science are often claimed to be universal. Lastly, he mentions that scientists don’t just throw away the theories they have when it produces contradictory results. They often adjust the theory or they call such datum a “problem” to be solved within their own conceptual scheme. Until other theories come about that look more promises, these abnormalities continue multiplying. It also does not take into account simplicity such as the gremlin story from before.
The problem also has to do with its simplistic outlook on induction. It leaves it open to philosophical problems like the “Paradox of the raven.”
This has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poe.  The problem arises that the proposition  “All ravens are black”  is logically equivalent to  “No black thing is no raven.” This is called contraposition (conversion of and all A is B to all not-B is not-A.)
When you’re just looking at things in your room at home you are verifying that all ravens are black. Without even studying ravens. You are looking at these non-black things and they are non-raven. This view of science doesn’t go far enough.  The study of the facts of the world has to be relevant to the thing studied. We will discuss the other problem of induction later. It is important to remember that I will be going to 2 post-Kantian philosophers. That means you should look back at the influence Immanuel Kant had on philosophy of the time.

Sir Karl Popper view:
He had a prescriptive view about how science must be done: one should give a bold hypothesis to explain phenomena, and, only then, he would empirically test it. If you falsified the theory you would junk it or you would test a theory and get good results. You would continue doing this. As a result, you cannot prove a theory, but it can always be falsified. However, it can never be proven. He thought induction to be fallacious and tried to create a view of science that didn’t use induction.
·We know falsification isn’t sufficient to explain what has been falsified.
·Why doesn’t one just adjust the theory?
·Sometimes evidence or abnormalities can be explained once more data is found. (Example: Neptune was not following Newtonian mechanics in its orbit. The reason why was because of a dwarf planet named Pluto was affecting its orbit. So, Newtonian mechanics was not falsified but Karl Popper’s view of science cannot distinguish the two.)
·Theories are never tested alone but are interrelated to other theories. This principle is called the Duhem–Quine thesis. They are interdependent on one another. That leaves us, then, with the question of which theory is falsified? They are never tested in isolation, whether it be that you’re observing biological structures of the cell and believe that quantum jitters have affected them or something entirely different. So, to solve this, you get your equipment to figure it out. Well, the very equipment you’re using has certain “auxiliary assumptions” that the equipment is working properly. Those are other theories that are accepted to other theories. You may find you get data you don’t like and may suppose it was your lab equipment that was wrong. It cannot be verified whether the equipment is correctly showing us these cells because we cannot verify that it is. You can’t see cells with the naked eye. Which theory was falsified?
·There are an infinite amount of other possible explanations for any evidence. This is known as the problem of underdetermination of scientific theories.
·His view would’ve made a well tested non-falsified theory just as good as a non-tested non-falsified theory. For example, the theory of gravity and the theory that a planet which is 400 billion planets away from the earth has alien colonies are both equally valid. He would later say the well-attested theory is better because it has stood to scrutiny, which gives it more probability. That is where he tries sneaking induction into his view of science.

Thomas Kuhn’s view:
He believed that scientists gather together and accept a “paradigm” or a conceptual scheme. It’s a way of viewing the world, but it’s not as all-encompassing as worldviews are. Scientists popularize a particular paradigm, and it gains ascendancy over others. It then accumulates detailed verification, and these paradigms finally get overthrown after anomalies (which are, after repeated testing, problems that can’t be explained) accumulate. At that point, another paradigm rearranges all the data of the overthrown paradigm. He says that we use these interpretive systems that are prior to the facts. He uses the Ptolemaic paradigm as an example (the Ptolemaic paradigm was built on an assumption that planets traveled in perfect circles). They found that the planets would go in retrograde motion and explained that the planets would go in this perfect spherical motion. They accommodated for this by theorizing that the planets would make little epicycles or spherical motions. They purposefully interpreted this motion within their paradigm. The only thing unacceptable for them to do was to get rid of their paradigm. The scientific paradoxes were building up as this model had difficulties explaining both planetary position and procession of equinoxes. “Thomas Kuhn talked about the history of science being a series of paradigm shifts, rather than progress toward an objectively true understanding of the world. He was interested in the way an older model, for example, the Ptolemaic earth-centered astronomy, eventually have a way to a newer model, Copernicus’ Sun-centered astronomy. It happened not primarily through observation, but through a preference for simplicity and a paradigm that honored the elegance of concentric circles.” Dr.William Edgar.   He goes on to say that the move from one paradigm is irrational because there is nothing outside paradigms to compare paradigms too. He believed no paradigm to be better than another, that they are incommensurable. The Ptolemaic and Copernican are both equivalents to one another. Modern biology is no better than Aristotelian biology. Think of his view like this picture. It can appear as a rabbit or duck but neither one is right or wrong.
·He makes science into relativistic conceptual schemes. It becomes different strokes for different folks: that we do not have a true description of reality. He, as a non-Christian, has no concept beyond a system to regulate facts. So, science results to opinions. Which I think that you can compare a theory to another and that there exist some facts all men can see and know, such as the Sun. The problem is explaining how the Sun got there. At that point we force our worldviews on the facts.
· A theory riddled with fallacies is inferior to one that is coherent.

Another school of thought is out of the results of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Logical positivism and Scientism. These schools once had their days of glory. These were reductionist movements of knowledge and purposely made all metaphysical talk meaningless.
1. Logical positivism – the belief that a proposition is only meaningful if it can be empirically verified or is an analytical truth (e.g. there are no married bachelors). The proposition is self-refuting. It is not itself empirically verified nor is it a truth of reason. Logical positivism created the verification principle, and this principle is vague and takes different forms. The principle’s early form was that a statement is cognitively meaningful if it is conclusively verifiable by scientific evidence. It’s just too difficult to verify such universal claims. We know things in our area of experience but not the entirety of our universe. We take Einstein’s E=MC^2 and apply it universally, but we don’t have universal data to prove such.
Another form of this principle is based on Karl Popper’s views on falsification: the statement is cognitively meaningful if it is subject to falsification. The problem is, some scientific claims are not open to falsification: “Black holes exist” or “Unicorns exist.” These aren’t falsifiable because, in order to do so, one would need to prove a universal negative. That’s not the only problem with falsification. Those are found in other places of the article.
Another formulation is that as long as a statement has evidence relevant to its truth or falsity it is cognitively meaningful. This is too generous because there is evidences for almost anything. There’s evidence for things they were trying to make meaningless (such as ethics, metaphysics, and God). Evidence for God is displayed in the various theistic proofs. We see metaphysical claims focus on the unity or diversity of our experience. Ethics has evidence on the grounds that societies who practice certain activities don’t thrive (e.g. North Korea). This principle is also arbitrary. It takes a bias definition of “meaning” to purposely make other positions meaningless. Another issue is that they disagreed about epistemology: how one comes to know things. Lastly, the verification principle is incoherent in that it is self-referential. It is self-refuting because the principle fails to have cognitive meaning. You don’t have evidence for it.
2. Scientism – the belief that the only propositions that can have meaning are verified by the scientific method. This, itself, cannot be verified by science. It is also dependent on empiricism, which is the idea that all knowledge comes through the senses. Empiricism is self-refuting because you didn’t come to know the truth of that proposition: all knowledge comes through the senses- on empirical experience. Lastly, one may believe all knowledge comes from the scientific method. We know there is no “The scientific method.” This, again, simply is self-refuting. It is not know by the scientific inquiry itself. The only thing empirically proven here is the thick skull of those who hold these views (it has pretty much died out and that’s for the better) .

We have seen that the secular establishment has had quite a difficulty with the goals, method, and foundation of science.

What then does science deal with? Science is always interrelated to induction. It is arguing from a particular to the general. The issue that some like Dr.Gordon Clark noticed is that Inductive logic seems to commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Which is an invalid form of argumentation and is contrary to forms like Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens.
Modus ponens:
If P, then Q
P
Therefore, Q
Modus Tollens:
If P, then Q
not Q
Therefore, not P
Affirming the consequent looks like:
If P, then Q
Q
Therefore, P

Abductive reasoning is similar to induction:
Premise 1: If A occurs, then B would be expected as a matter of course.
Premise 2: The surprising fact B is observed.
C: Hence, there is reason to suspect that A has occurred.
The reason for this fallacy is while P is a sufficient condition for Q. It is not a necessary condition. An example used usually given is:
“If it rains, then the street will be wet.
The street is wet.
Therefore, it has rained.”
You then go out to find it was actually the sprinklers, someone may have used a hose, or a pipe may have broken. There are much more possible explanations for a wet street.
The charge of science doing this is quite fair, because of the constant dogmatic stances by scientists. The issue is that scientists and many other people commit this fallacy; science doesn’t. As the reformed apologist says, “If A, then B; B therefore, A. This is, of course, fallacious. However, if A, then B; B therefore, A would appear to have more veracity…” The more we test these things the greater probability there is for the inductive inference or conclusion to be true. This is what science does. Two objections must be dealt with, here.
1. Someone may maintain that induction does commit this fallacy and reply, “Who said induction had to be deductively valid?”
To me, this seems to be special pleading, and I see no reason to start allowing fallacies to be committed, merely because it is induction.
2. J.P. Moreland says, “The deductive-nomological version of the covering-law model:
L1: All metal conducts electricity.
C1: This wire is a metal. Explanans
E: This metal wire conducts electricity. Explanandum
The deductive-statistical version of the covering-law model:
L1: 50% of radioactive substance x will decay in time t.
C1: This is z grams of substance x. Explanans
E: 50% of z will decay in time t. Explanandum
The inductive-statistical version of the covering-law model:
L1: 90% of people who get penicillin recover.
C1: Jones got penicillin. Explanans
E: Jones recovered. Explanandum
In each case, the thing to be explained (the explanandum) is explained or
“covered” by inferring it from premises (the explanans), the first of which is a
general law and the second of which is a statement of initial conditions. In the
deductive-nomological version, the explanans contains only universal generalizations and the argument is deductive. In the deductive-statistical version,
the explanation is a deductive argument that contains at least one statistical
generalization in the explanans. In the inductive-statistical version, the explanation is an inductive argument (signified by the double line below C1) that in-
includes at least one statistical generalization in the explanans. In each case, a
good scientific explanation of some explanandum E will embody one of the
three logical forms above.”
Some may maintain that since these can be formed as deductive arguments, they’re not inductive. The problem with this view is that the premises are supported by inductive arguments, which are the very thing in question. Both these objections fail to refute my point.
Now, after that, we can ask a question of the one who posits a theory. What is the probability of that theory being true? This goes especially for the one keeping his or her religious conviction from blinding him or her. Examples of such religious convictions would be the big bang theory, evolution, and abiogenesis.

·Universe
The problem of the universe is the improbability of a life-permitting universe. Consider the example of the expansion rate of the universe. This is known as the cosmological constant. “A change in its value by a mere 1 part in 10^120 parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly. In either case, the universe would, again, be life-prohibiting… The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by one in 10^60 parts, none of us would exist.”
This usually is compared with the seconds that have ticked by since time began (10^20) and with cells in your body (10^14). There are around 50 of these very improbable phenomena in the universe. They are called the constants and quantities of the
universe that are not based on the regularities in nature.

·Evolution
I call it the theory of evolution , but in reality it is like framework evolution. Which facts interpreted into . But to move past that I will continue onward. The theory of evolution isn’t just about change in allele frequency over time. If that was in debate, all Christians would be theistic evolutionists. The problem is in common descent, and of particular note is the lack of transitional fossils. We seem to just have a few questionable fossils that are left to interpretation. The evidence should be in the fossils, but we lack the fossil evidence. Either we accept the lack of evidence and continue searching or we enact a theory like punctuated equilibria. The issue with the second option is that it undermines itself as a scientific theory because it’s a theory that denies it could ever have evidence. One may Mention evolutionary models give us predictability. That doesn’t seem distinctive to them, but I’m skeptical of predictive abilities of any historical (forensic) science. In this, I mean any historical theory must explain the the variety we see in the world. A theory must be able to provide opposites: the same process that brought us altruism must also bring us greed. I think that it’s just an empty claim of his article. One can always readjust the theory to account for the observations. I may even mention the predictions that do not occur that evolutionists have predicted, such as vestigial organs. This is not to claim they can’t have predictive value (A theory that has the Sun in the center of the solar system gives different predictions than Geocentric models). That’s when a theory gives Ad hoc explanations. I just don’t find it persuading when it comes to origins. Can random mutations account for all the variety of life on Earth? What’s the probability?
“Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once in every 100,000 gene replications (though some estimate they occur far less frequently). Davis, 68; Wysong, 272. Assuming that the first single-celled organism had 10,000 genes, the same number as E. coli (Wysong, 113), one mutation would exist for every ten cells. Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful (Davis, 66), there would be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of 10,000 such cells. The odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene, however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one would need a population of 100,000,000 cells before one of them would be expected to possess a non-harmful mutation of a specific gene. The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities…. In other words, the probability is 1 in 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8 X 10^8 or 1 in 10^40. If one hundred trillion (10^14) bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (10^17 seconds), the resulting population (10^31) would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!
But even this is not the whole story. These are the odds of getting just any kind of non-harmful mutations of five related genes.
mutated genes must integrate or function in concert with one another. According to Professor Ambrose, the difficulties of obtaining non-harmful mutations of five related genes’fade into insignificance when we recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the entire organism.’
…mutated genes must integrate or function in concert with one another. According to Professor Ambrose, the difficulties of obtaining non-harmful mutations of five related genes’fade into insignificance when we recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the entire organism.’…
When one considers that a structure as “simple” as the wing on a fruit fly involves 30-40 genes (Bird, 1:88), it is mathematically absurd to think that random genetic mutations can account for the vast diversity of life on earth. Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable to the theory, computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in 10^300,000.” Ashby Camp

It seems to be related to Haldane’s Dilemma. Specifically, this is that beneficial mutation is too slow to explain the large scale biological transformation, in the available time of Earth’s history. Dr. Don Batten said, “When a beneficial mutation occurs in a population, it has to increase in the number of copies for the population to progress evolutionarily (if the mutation remained in one individual, then evolution cannot proceed; this is fairly obvious). In other words, it has to substitute for the non-mutated genes in the population. But the rate at which this can happen is limited. A major factor limiting the rate of substitution is the reproduction rate of the species. For a human-like creature with a generation time of about 20 years and low reproduction rate per individual, the rate of growth in numbers of a mutation in a population will be exceedingly slow. This is basically the ‘cost of substitution.’
Imagine a population of 100,000 apes, the putative progenitors of humans. Suppose that a male and a female both received a mutation so beneficial that they out-survived everyone else; all the rest of the population died out—all 99,998 of them. And then the surviving pair had enough offspring to replenish the population in one generation. And this repeated every generation (every 20 years) for 10 million years, more than the supposed time since the last common ancestor of humans and apes. That would mean that 500,000 beneficial mutations could be added to the population (i.e., 10,000,000/20). Even with this completely unrealistic scenario, which maximizes evolutionary progress, only about 0.02% of the human genome could be generated. Considering that the difference between the DNA of a human and a chimp, our supposed closest living relative, is greater than 5%,2 evolution has an obvious problem in explaining the origin of the genetic information in a creature such as a human.
However, with more realistic rates of fitness/selection and population replenishment, the number of beneficial mutations that can be accounted for plummets. Haldane calculated that no more than 1,667 beneficial substitutions could have occurred in the supposed 10 million years since the last common ancestor of apes and humans. This is a mere one substitution per 300 generations, on average. The origin of all that makes us uniquely human has to be explained within this limit.
A substitution is a single mutational event; it can be a gene duplication or a chromosomal inversion, or a single nucleotide substitution. Biologists have found that the vast majority of substitutions are indeed single nucleotides, so Haldane’s limit puts a severe constraint on what is possible with evolution, because 1,667 single nucleotide substitutions amounts to less than one average-sized gene.”

Lastly, Dr.Stephen Meyer also asked similar questions. “Would such an exercise have a realistic chance of succeeding, even granting it billions of years? Eden thought not. The amino-acid chains are also subject to such inflation. A chain of two amino acids could display 20^2 , or 20 × 20, or 400 possible combinations, since each of the twenty protein-forming amino acids could combine with any one of that same group of twenty in the second position of a short peptide chain. With a three-amino-acid sequence, we’re looking at 20^3 , or 8,000, possible sequences. With four amino acids, the number of combinations rises exponentially to 20^4 , or 160,000, total combinations, and so on.
Now, the number of combinatorial possibilities corresponding to a chain with four amino acids only marginally outstrips the combinatorial possibilities associated with the five-dial lock in my first illustration (160,000 vs. 100,000). It turns out, however, that many necessary, functional proteins in cells require far, far more than just four amino acids linked in sequence, and necessary genes require far, far more than just a few bases. Most genes—sections of DNA that code for a specific protein— consist of at least one thousand nucleotide bases. That corresponds to 4^1000—an unimaginably large
number—possible base sequences of that length.
Moreover, it takes three bases in a group called a codon to designate one of the twenty protein- forming amino acids in a growing chain during protein synthesis. If an average gene has about 1000 bases, then an average protein would have over 300 amino acids, each of which are called ‘residues’ by protein chemists. And indeed proteins typically require hundreds of amino acids in order to perform their functions. This means that an average-length protein represents just one possible sequence among an astronomically large number—20^300, or over 10^390—of possible amino-acid sequences of that length. Putting these numbers in perspective, there are only 10^65 atoms in our Milky Way galaxy and 10^80 elementary particles in the known universe.
That is what bothered Eden and other mathematically inclined scientists at Wistar.

They understood the immensity of the combinatorial spaces associated with even single genes or proteins of average length.They realized that if the mutations themselves were truly random—that is, if they were neither directed by an intelligence nor influenced by the functional needs of the organism (as neo-Darwinism stipulates)—then the probability of the mutation and selection mechanism ever producing a new gene or protein could well be vanishingly small. Why? The mutations would have to generate, or ‘search’ by trial and error, an enormous number of possibilities—far more than were realistic in the time available to the evolutionary process. Eden pointed out in his Wistar presentation that the combinatorial space corresponding to an average-length protein (which he assumed to be about 250 amino acids long) is 20^250—or about 10 ^325—possible amino-acid arrangements. Did the mutation and selection mechanism have enough time—since the beginning of the universe itself—to generate even a small fraction of the total number of possible amino-acid sequences corresponding to a single functional protein of that length? For Eden, the answer was clearly no. For this reason, Eden thought mutations had virtually no chance of producing new genetic information. He likened the probability of producing the human genome by relying on random mutations to that of generating a library of a thousand volumes by making random changes or additions to a single phrase in accord with the following instructions: ‘Begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it with a few mistakes, make it longer by adding letters [at random], and rearrange subsequences in the string of letters; then examine the result to see if the new phrase is meaningful. Repeat this process until the library is complete.'”

It should also be mentioned while beneficial mutations do not occur enough, harmful mutations build up every generation, around a 100 nucleotides substitutions (genetic copying mistakes of single letter typos) in every person in every generation. That cannot be eliminated by natural selection.
Dr. John Stanford (helped invent the gene gun) puts it like this, “Additionally, very rarely a beneficial mutation arises that has enough effect to be selected for—resulting in some adaptive variation, or some degree of fine-tuning. This also helps slow degeneration. But selection only eliminates a very small fraction of the bad mutations. The overwhelming majority of bad mutations accumulate relentlessly, being much too subtle—of too small an effect—to significantly affect their persistence. On the flip side, almost all beneficials (to the extent they occur) are immune to the selective process—because they invariably cause only tiny increases in biological functionality.
‘So most beneficials drift out of the population and are lost—even in the presence of intense selection. This raises the question—since most information-bearing nucleotides [DNA ‘letters’] make an infinitesimally small contribution to the genome—how did they get there, and how do they stay there through ‘deep time’?
‘Selection slows mutational degeneration but does not even begin to actually stop it. So even with intense selection, evolution is going the wrong way—toward extinction!’
My recent book resulted from many years of intense study. This involved a complete re-evaluation of everything I thought I knew about evolutionary genetic theory. It systematically examines the problems underlying classic neo-Darwinian theory. The bottom line is that Darwinian theory fails on every level. It fails because 1) mutations arise faster than selection can eliminate them; 2) mutations are overwhelmingly too subtle to be ‘selectable’; 3) ‘biological noise’ and ‘survival of the luckiest’ overwhelm selection; 4) bad mutations are physically linked to good mutations, so that they cannot be separated in inheritance (to get rid of the bad and keep the good). The result is that all higher genomes must clearly degenerate.”

Doesn’t the fossil record prove Darwinism? Well, no. Nor could it.

I find that the liberal views on science come from a strange view of how we look at religion and, subtlety, of it being derogatory, compared to a worldview based on reason. You can have a religion based on faith.  That leaves us another question what is the relationship of Faith and Reason. Philosophers and theologians have disagreed about such. This will be a simple glossing over their ideas
1.Thomistic view:

We have truths that come from reason and truths that come by faith (this is not the doctrine of Twofold truth). We can know principles of logic by reason. Transubstantiation we know by faith. We can know that God exists by reason, but, to get you to the Christian God, you’ll need faith. This view is what natural theology is tied to.

2. Separation view:

This is the belief that faith and reason aren’t related. This view holds that religion and philosophy, as separate sources of knowledge, might arrive at contradictory truths, without detriment to either (Twofold Truth).  Tertullian is the best to quote on his own view: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” You have your faith in its own sphere and reason in the other. “Credo quia absurdum” is  Latin for  “I believe because it is absurd,” and it is a paraphrase of a statement from Tertullian’s work De Carne Christi (ca. 203-206).  “Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est”, which can be translated: “it is, by all means, to be believed because it is absurd.” (Philosophers and Theologians that held to this view are Karl Barth, Soren Kierkegaard, Averroes, The traditional reading of Immanuel Kant, etc.)

3.Rationalist view:

John Locke had the view that he could make faith reasonable. Which means reason underlies faith. This, unfortunately, has those caught up in their own autonomous reason, over what’s revealed in scripture.

4. Augustinian view:

Augustine brought in his view on epistemology that can be summed up by this Latin saying “Credo ut intelligam” or “I believe so that I may understand.” He believed we must have faith in order to have knowledge or that we have to believe certain things.

The Thomistic view has the issues with reason (Which will be explained in the John Locke position). We do know things through reason and not directly through the Bible, but, ultimately, knowledge comes from the Bible.  We know Christ, “in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge” Colossians 2:3.

The second view isn’t very interesting. For example, on this view, one could affirm that Jesus rose from the dead in the sphere of faith but not in the sphere of reason. It would mean he rose from the dead but not in a real historical event, while still rising from the dead in another historical sense. It makes a subjective realm of truth that is apart from reason (it in no way is consistent with the apostolic proclamation). Faith would make no objective claim on reality and, therefore, has no basis for accepting it.

The third view is if you say the reason is fundamental and you build off of that faith. To those holding to this, I’m going to ask you which system of reason? There are many different systems of logic. If you pick one, I’ll ask why that one or how do you know that it is true? If you use that system to answer that, you beg the question, and if you appeal to another system, you’ll have to justify that system. However, by doing so, you contradict yourself, by choosing one system and using another to justify it. You see, we have this problem with principles of logic. Remember what Bahnsen said earlier about the bias of reason? It turns out this view really reduces to faith underlying faith. “Strictly speaking, the law of non-contradiction cannot be proved. The reason is simple. Any argument offered as proof for the law of non-contradiction would of necessity have to assume the law as part of the proof. Hence, any direct proof of the law would end up being circular. It would beg the question.” Dr.Ronald Nash
Do not forget all these beliefs have metaphysical commitments, as I mentioned earlier.

Lastly, the Augustinian view is the one that captures our epistemic status. We cannot prove our principles of reason by using reason nor can we prove our senses are reliable by empirical data. Each method would beg the question, and we must, therefore, believe these things in order to know. “1. The true wisdom of man consists in the Knowledge of God The creator and Redeemer. 2. This knowledge dwells in us naturally, and the end of it ought to be the worship of God rightly preformed, or reverence for the deity accompanied by fear and love.” John Calvin

I find it strange that people would allow faith to justify themselves in the presence of God but not in the presence of their scientific colleagues. Worldviews, to me, are always faith-based systems. Religions are just theistic ones. That does not mean each worldview is the same but in the structure they are.

What is the biblical view of providence? Is it natural law? Is it indeterministic? We must have a biblical view of God’s providence, in order to dictate what Christian science would be. What’s the biblical evidence? The Bible pictures him acting with the creation directly and indirectly. We should speak of God acting in time, like when he creates light on the first day or when he confronts Adam and Eve right after the fall. These actions are consistent with God’s eternal nature.
God is always in control of events in this world. This doctrine is the common doctrine of God’s comprehensive providential control over his creation (sometimes called “meticulous divine providence”). Everything that takes place in the creation does so according to God’s sovereign plan, and nothing takes place apart from God’s will. This is common in the reformed tradition.
·Ephesians 1:11 “…having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will”

-Hebrews 1:3 ” And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of Sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

·Isaiah 46:8-11 “Remember this, and be assured;
Recall it to mind, you transgressors.
“Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man of My purpose from a far country.
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it.”
·Isaiah 45:7″ , I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
·2 Chronicles 7:13-14 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
·Lam. 3:37-38 “Who has spoken and it came to pa unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?”
·Amos 3:6 “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”
·Psalm 148:8 ” Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;”
·Psalm 135:6 “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps”
·Psalm 103:19″ The Lord hath prepared His Throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all.”

Even over sinful events God providentially controls the world. (Gen. 50:20; Judg. 14:1-4; 1 Sam. 2:25; Isa. 10:5-19; Acts 4:27-28; Rom. 9:14-21)
·Colossians 1:17″ He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.”
The Bible teaches that God controls the events in this world and doesn’t set up these mechanistic “Natural laws” to govern the world, but, rather, he does it as the Sovereign Lord of creation. The regularities of nature are the regular way God controls the world.
“Learn then this basic truth,that the Creator is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure,and considering nought but His own glory. “The Lord hath made all things for himself”(Prov.16:4)” A.W. Pink

Now, what does the Christian worldview give science? Well, it gives it the proper foundation. How does it do that? For starters, it gives a basis for thinking that your mental activities correspond to that which is in the world. God has created us for this world. It gives us a basis for causality, a basis for reliability, and a correspondence of the mind and the world. We have God’s providence to provide regularities in which to do induction. The presuppositions (or preconditions) of science need to be accounted for. We need an ordered external world because it doesn’t help science if the world is just the contents of your mind. You need to be studying something other than yourself. We need order because chaos isn’t intelligible. When you study a specific creature, you expect that the creature’s species would have the same features going from one to the next. If you look at the insides of pigs, you would find organs and other content. However, you don’t think the next pig will, instead, have rocks instead of organs and veins. We look at particulars so we can understand more about them in general.  A random chance contingent world has no reason to be ordered. There also needs to be contingency. Plato, for example, believed in an ordered perfect world called the realm of the forms. He didn’t go out to look at particulars. He had the universals (Forms) that tell you everything about particulars. He would look to the abstract ideals. This view undermines any purpose of science because it has no contingency. The materialist can’t explain the rational element, and the rationalist can’t explain the contingency. We must have a mind that produces propositions that correspond to it. Induction is a precondition of science.

3. The return of Karl Popper
Popper actually concedes Hume’s position on the problem, and the solution he offers is to a different problem (one that asks whether past experience can ever justify attributing a truth value {i.e., either ‘true’ or ‘false’} to a scientific theory). Popper argues that a scientific theory, involving predictions about future instances, can indeed be shown to be false, by present or past observations (about this, he was correct). His argument, here, provides no reason for thinking that scientific theories can be shown to be true (or even probably true), by present or past observations. Popper actually believes that no such reason can be given and leaves neither an answer to Hume nor an answer to whether empirically based theories are likely to be true.

4. Pragmatic defense of Reichenbach and Salmon
Reichenbach and Salmon rejected inductive and deductive attempts and chose a different route. Reichenbach argues that it is more intelligent to ‘bet’ on inductive reasoning than on other alternative methods of reasoning from experience. If we use induction, then we have at least some chance of being right (that is, if it turns out that the inductive principle is true), and, on the other hand, if we choose to use some alternative method, then we have no chance of success (regardless of whether the inductive principle is true). That’s why we are justified in choosing induction.

The problem with this is that it is a pragmatic justification and not an epistemic justification. It may motivate us to reason inductively, but it gives us no indication of the actual likelihood of its success (that being whether or not the inductive principle is true). In this respect, it suffers from the same problem as Pascal’s Wager. It may offer motivation for believing in God, but it leaves us still not knowing if He actually exists. A solution to the problem of induction requires an epistemic justification for believing that induction is reliable.

5. P.F. Strawson (language response)
In the last century, many looked into the philosophy of language to answer the philosophical questions (logical atomist). Logical positivism was one of these schools of thought. Strawson thinks of the inductive skeptic as doubting whether relying on inductive procedures is “reasonable” (i.e. epistemically justified). Strawson argues that our very understanding and use of the word “reasonable” includes the idea of conformance with inductive standards, in the present context. For example, when we say that a scientific theory about a natural law is “reasonable,” we are saying, at least, that it draws general conclusions based on an appropriate number of observed instances. Therefore, his statement “induction is reasonable” is an analytic truth, and the inductive skeptic is confused in the same way as the one who asks, “Is the law legal?”

There is something wrong with Strawson’s explanation. He, in the same passage, concedes that the statement “induction will continue to be successful” is contingently true, if true at all. This is why the “inductive skeptic” is worried. This shows that the skeptic can always rephrase his doubts and, in so doing, avoid Strawson’s “immune” terms, like “reasonable” and “justified.”
Even if Strawson is right that our everyday usage of the word “reasonable” includes the idea of conformance to inductive standards, it is still inadequate. For example, suppose there was a community where wishful thinking was considered a respectable and reasonable way of coming to conclusions about the future. For that community, its own linguistic usage of the statement “wishful thinking is reasonable” would be analytically true, but we would be within our rights to question their usage of such epistemic methods. In the same way, Strawson’s claim that “‘induction is reasonable’ cannot be meaningfully denied” is compatible with Hume’s conclusions.

6. A priori explanation by BonJour
Laurence BonJour thinks that only an a priori justification for induction offers any possibility of a solution.