The Scientific Method and Sacred Cows

By Thomas M. Parsons

Anthony Stanten was not a creationist. He made no public claim that I am aware of that he was a born-again Christian. Stanten was a scientist, a chemist to be exact. But he published a book in 1950 that alarmed his fellow scientists. The book was called Science is a Sacred Cow, and the book essentially said that science doesn't know everything.

“When a white-robed scientist, momentarily looking away from his microscope, makes some pronouncement for the general public, he may not be understood, but at least he is certain to be believed. No one ever doubts what a scientist says. Statesmen, industrialists, ministers of religion, civic leaders, and philosophers are all questioned and criticized, but scientists, never! Scientists are exalted beings who stand at the top most pinnacle of popular prestige, for they have a monopoly on the formula—’it has been scientifically proved’—which appears to rule out any possibility of disagreement.” - Anthony Stanten in Science is a Sacred Cow

Stanten was not anti-science. Not by a long shot. He held several important positions in the scientific community in the sixties and seventies. But he was an honest scientist. He knew there were limits to what science could do. And he believed that scientists and their theories should be subjected to the same scrutiny and criticism that other professionals face.

Stanten knew the limitations of the basic scientific method of determining truth. He observed that the only true science was math, because the answers never changed, never varied. Mathematics, it would seem from Stanten's arguments, is the only science that can claim to have consistently established itself as scientific law.

Most of us were taught the scientific method in high school science courses. This method involves several key steps to discovering what is true and what is not, at least in some areas of study.

The steps of the scientific method are these:

1. Observe the data

2. Make generalized conclusions based on the data (make an hypothesis).

3. Find examples of the hypothesis.

4. Make predictions based on what should happen if the hypothesis is true and what should happen if it is false.

5. Design experiments to demonstrate the hypothesis.

6. Test the results of the experiments with the stated hypothesis.

7. If the tests show the hypothesis to be false, the case is closed and the hypothesis dies a natural death.

8. If the tests show the hypothesis to be true, then further testing is required because there are always factors not taken into consideration in the experiments that might yet indicate the hypothesis is false.

9. Only after the hypothesis survives repeated and varied attempts to prove it wrong can it be elevated to a theory.

10. Only after the theory survives rigorous and repeated attempts to prove it wrong can it be elevated to a law.

It should be obvious that when the scientific method is rigidly followed, it takes years, even decades, for a hypothesis to become a scientific law. Establishng a scientific law is a deliberate, lengthy, laborious, repetitive and tedious procedure.

Here is a well-known example of the use of the scientific method to establish a scientific law.

I observe that every time I throw my grandchild's ball into the air, it comes back down to earth. Every time. No matter how high I throw it. I get my son-in-law, the child's father, who is younger than I am and probably stronger to throw the ball into the air higher than I can. It still returns back down to earth.

From observing this phenomenon, I make a generalized conclusion, a hypothesis. My hypothesis is this: What goes up will come down.

Well, maybe it is something to do with the ball I am using that makes it always come back down. So, I try a different ball, a lighter one. It comes down, too. So, I look for other examples of things being thrown into the air and returning to earth. I find that every thing I throw into the air returns back down to earth, every time, no exceptions.

Can I state a law at this point? Can I declare to all who will listen that every object thrown into the air will return to earth? I cannot make this a law at this point. It is still simply my hypothesis. I have not proved it to be true.

Perhaps I have thrown 200 objects, balls and other things, into the air, and all 200 objects have fallen back to earth. That is too small a sample to prove anything. Maybe something different will happen the 500th time, or when I reach 1,000, or some other as yet unreached number. But I can now make a prediction. My hypothesis is "what goes up will come down." Based on my observations I am now prepared to say that if my hypothesis is true, every time any object is thrown into the air, it will come down to earth again. However, I can also predict at this point that if my hypothesis is false, then at some point, some object thrown into the air will not fall back to earth.

So now I must design some experiments, and these experiments must be controled so that no random incident can interfere with the experiment. I decide to recruit 1000 people from all over the earth, and with 1000 different objects. I time the experiment so that every one will throw his or her object into the air at precisely the same time no matter where in the world they are. At the appointed time and on the given signal, each of the 1000 people throw the object assigned into the air. And all 1000 objects come crashing down to earth, no matter where the person was standing who threw the object and no matter what the object was.

Can I now elevate my hypothesis to the level of a law? No way. All I have demonstrated so far is that at one particular moment in time every object thrown into the air fell back to earth. Clearly I need further experiments.

So, I devise another experiment. I spend several years interviewing people from all walks of life and from all over the world. I ask them all the same set of questions. The main question I ask them is this: Have you ever had an experience where you threw an object into the air and it did not return to earth?" I ask everybody in the experiment that exact question with no variation.

I ask the question to a million people, and they all answer in the negative. They have never had an experience where something they threw into the air did not return to earth. But then subject number 1,000,001 answers the question. He says, "Yes, I have had that experience. Something I threw into the air did not return to earth."

Oh, oh. I had not expected that answer. I realize that if even one incident occurs where something thrown into the air does not return to the earth, my hypothesis is not true.

I question subject number 1,000,001 further and he explains that once he was feeding a flock of pigeons in a public park. He threw a piece of bread into the air, and it did not return to the ground. I ask him to explain further, and he says, "One of the pigeons flew toward the piece of bread while it was still moving upward and grabbed it and ate it."

Now I must revise my hypothesis to fit this new fact. My new revised hypothesis is that every object thrown into the air will return to earth unless something hinders it from doing so.

I continue my experiments and interviews and after 5 million interviews I decide I have tested my hypothesis thoroughly enough that I can now declare it to be theory

I am tired of this project by now, and I decide to move on to other matters, reasonably assured that as others continue to test my theory, they will be able to prove it to the point of declaring it to be a law. Over many decades others repeat my experiments and invent new ones. The theory holds, passing every test devised to prove it wrong. Some one else, probably after I am gone, gets to declare my theory is now a law.

This scientific method works well if a person is trying to prove the law of gravity. It works well in seeking to understand the physical universe. It does not work so well, however, in other situations.

I observe that sometimes I am happy and sometimes I am sad. Is there a law that governs my moods? I could make a hypothesis about this, but how could I conduct experiments to prove it? I can speculate that I am happy on payday, and I am sad the day before payday. But that is not always true. And the things that I think sometimes make me happy may at other times make me sad, or at least I am sad sometimes when the things that made me happy before are present. And even if I could figure out consistently what always made me happy and what always made me sad, could I apply this to every one else in the universe? Of course not. My observations on my happiness or sadness could never become a universally true, absolute law of science.

Can the scientific method establish a law of evolution? How could it? Evolution speculates about what might have happened eons before the speculators existed. Evolution cannot be observed as taking place.

A scientist can postulate, or make a hypothesis, that evolution occurred over billions of years and changed creatures over time from, say, a monkey to a man. But he can neither observe this happening, nor can he make it happen in an experiment. The best he can do is establish his hypothesis as a theory. Evolution must always remain at the hypothesis level in the scientific method because it can neither be observed or demonstrated in laboratory experiments.

Of course, neither can creation be thus established by the scientific method. We cannot observe creation taking place. Nor can we demonstrate creation in laboratory experiments. The best I can do is say that I see much evidence that creation is the way things came into existence. But I cannot establish creation as a law of science.

The scientist cannot prove evolution, the Christian cannot prove creation. Whichever position a person takes, it is always going to be a matter of faith.

Some have faith in the theory of evolution. Some have faith in the theory of creation.

Some people have faith in sacred cows. They will not kill these animals or eat them because they believe they contain the spirits of their dead ancestors, and who wants to eat Uncle Charlie! Anthony Stanten said some people believe science is like the sacred cow. One must not interfere with it. It always has the right of way. It should not be challenged or disturbed.

But it is, after all, just a cow.