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I recently listened to a lecture by J. P. Moreland on Christianity and the Nature of Science. Here’s a summary of certain portions of that lecture.

There is a an often unspoken assumption which is held by certain scientists today. It is often assumed that the only true, reliable knowledge which can be had will be a result of scientific inquiry. Truth claims which are not scientific in nature are considered to be merely opinions or beliefs which produce insecure knowledge, while those claims which science makes about the world are held to be true facts, vastly superior to claims made outside of science. This position is badly mistaken. I will present several reasons why this is so.

First, the claim that something can be known if and only if that thing is scientifically testable (that only scientific knowledge is possible), is self-refuting. That claim itself is not scientifically verifiable, therefore, it is not a claim that we can know anything about. It fails to meet its own criterion of knowledge. A weaker version, that is, that there may be a few examples of non-scientific knowledge, but that that knowledge is not very secure compared to science fails as well for many of the following reasons.

Neither version of this view, often called scientism, allows for the asserting and defending of the presuppositions of science. Scientific inquiry is made possible only by the acceptance of certain presuppositions which themselves cannot be asserted and defended scientifically. For example, science presupposes that there is an external, orderly world that exists independent of our theories about it, that we can have knowledge of that world, and that our language is capable of referring to objects in that world. Many intellectuals of our day would deny each of those claims. Science is unable to defend those claims by its own criterion of knowledge, that is, knowledge which comes by the scientific enterprise. In order to even get started, science needs help from other fields, such as theology and philosophy.

Additionally, science assumes that our cognitive and sensory faculties are reliable. One has no reason to accept this assumption on the basis of scientific knowledge. In fact, Darwinian evolution undercuts this presupposition since evolution does not care if our beliefs are true or accurate, but only if they confer reproductive advantage enabling organisms to survive. If our cognitive and sensory faculties are unreliable, science cannot make claims of truth and rationality. So, scientism does not allow for the justification of its own principles. If science is to succeed, it must grant that true, reliable knowledge can be gained from other disciplines.

It seems not only the case that science cannot justify its own inherent assumptions, but also that some things outside of science can in fact be known, even with more certainty than scientific knowledge. One example of this is mathematical knowledge, which cannot be known by scientific methods. The proposition, 2 + 2 = 4, is necessarily true and is a priori knowledge (not needing experience to justify it). Scientific knowledge is a posteriori (justified by sense experience) and only contingently true.

Logical propositions also seem knowable without science’s aid. In fact, science presupposes basic propositions of logic in order to proceed. I can’t imagine that science could function without presupposing the law of non-contradiction (a thing cannot be both a and non-a at the same time in the same way). That law itself is not a product of science.

One kind of non-scientific knowledge which seems very obvious to us all is the knowledge of the contents of one’s own consciousness. One simply knows his own beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. One also knows which body is his without the aid of scientific methodology. We seem to have first-person direct knowledge of these things by introspective awareness. It is rational to state that one has more certainty which body is his than that electrons exist.

Finally, ethical propositions are the kinds of claims that we seem to know. The proposition that torturing babies for fun is wrong has not been a product of scientific research. It is sure, reliable knowledge that we know in non-scientific ways. That mercy and kindness are virtues seem obviously true, and science has not nor cannot provide that knowledge.

In conclusion, I feel there are convincing reasons to reject the notion that only science can give us knowledge or that scientific knowledge is superior to other kinds of knowledge. There are many real things which science simply cannot address. Not only that, but science depends upon this knowledge which is gained by non-scientific methods.