I am not a scientist, but I love science. I am not a theologian, but I love theology and the effects of spirituality on my life. Just like I am a practitioner of pathology, I am also a practitioner of faith. I am enriched by both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Religion deals with matters of belief. Science deals with matters of knowledge. Both address the big questions of life\u2014”Why are we here?\u201d \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d\u2014but from different perspectives. One is not a backstop to the other. Beliefs are not morally inferior to knowledge, just as knowledge is not morally inferior to beliefs. Both are important, but they live in different realms. Innocently confusing science and religion leads to superstition, ignorance, or harmful conclusions. Deliberately confusing science and religion is a deception<\/a> that robs us of material and spiritual treasures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Falsification is a key distinction between belief and knowledge. A scientific claim is falsifiable, meaning it must make a prediction that can be tested by experiment. If experimental results are not what the claim predicts, then the claim is false. But if experimentation supports the claim, it\u2019s not necessarily true; it simply might<\/em> be true. The scientific process is a last man standing game. The longer a claim stands, the more likely it is to be true. At some point, when an idea becomes more likely than anything else, we call it knowledge. But knowledge is, and always has been, what is most likely<\/em> true, not what is certainly<\/em> true. We can only have scientific certainty about what is false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lack of certainty isn\u2019t the only limitation of knowledge. There are scientific horizons, and we cannot see what\u2019s on the other side. For example, the universe is most likely expanding, but expanding into what? We cannot know. If the universe is expanding, then it must have been smaller before, and even smaller before that, and so on until it\u2019s a tiny universe holding all matter and energy. But what happened before that? We cannot know. What\u2019s outside the event horizon<\/a> of light, or the gravitational horizon<\/a> of black holes? Does our physics work there? Can alternate universes coexist? We can hold beliefs about these things, but these questions are not in the realm of science. We have no applicable knowledge because we have no power to observe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Science has significant limitations. We can never be certain about what science tells us, and there are some questions that are not open for scientific investigation. Religion also has limitations, but different ones. Religious claims do not have the requirement of falsification. Omnipotence is the ultimate answer for all religious questions. When there\u2019s no experiment that can demonstrate an idea to be false, it cannot be science<\/a>, but it can be religion. Science requires falsification; religion requires faith. Faith and beliefs are good things. They give us hope, purpose, and compassion. Science cannot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite its limitations, science is a powerful tool that augments our understanding of reality. We cannot rely on science to give us quick answers, so during this pandemic, we must have faith\u2014lots of faith. But we also must speed science along by testing as many ideas as possible, all at the same time. A pandemic response that clings to ideas<\/a> which are demonstrably false and dismisses competing ideas<\/a> without experiment is not based on science. It\u2019s religion pretending to be science, and it\u2019s dangerous. There are three explanations for nonsense disguised as science: foolishness, greed, and evil. I fear<\/a> that all three are now hopelessly entangled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Religion and science have important roles in our fight against the pandemic. Understanding the difference between them is a protection against deception. When someone says, \u201cbelieve in science,\u201d beware of fraud. Your life, your liberty, and your sacred treasures are at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am not a scientist, but I love science. I am not a theologian, but I love theology and the effects of spirituality on my life. Just like I am a practitioner of pathology, I am also a practitioner of faith. I am enriched by both. Religion deals with matters of belief. Science deals with matters of knowledge. Both address […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-13","category-philosophy","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1109,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=1109","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":0},"title":"Stop Calling It Science","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"October 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Medicine is my professional life.\u00a0\u00a0Science is the language of medicine, or at least it used to be.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m not a scientist; I\u2019m a practitioner.\u00a0\u00a0But I love science, just like I love ideas.\u00a0\u00a0Ideas separate humans from other living organisms, and ideas are often played out in the arena of politics.\u00a0\u00a0I am not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2021"","block_context":{"text":"2021","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=212","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":1},"title":"The Science of COVID","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"January 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Spoiler alert: This essay contains an unpopular conclusion, and you may disagree.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s okay if you do, because you\u2019ll probably be in the company of many of my colleagues who disagree with me too.\u00a0\u00a0Today I\u2019m going to talk about when we can trust science.\u00a0\u00a0To do that, I\u2019m going to pretend to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2021"","block_context":{"text":"2021","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=4","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":2},"title":"Pathology in Pandemic","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"October 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Much attention has been given to testing this year, so much attention that the subject has become confused and misunderstood by many.\u00a0\u00a0What is testing?\u00a0\u00a0Who should be tested and when?\u00a0\u00a0What kinds of tests are there?\u00a0\u00a0What is the meaning of positive and negative results?\u00a0\u00a0These and other questions should and do have clear,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2020"","block_context":{"text":"2020","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":217,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=217","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":3},"title":"The FDA and Its EUAs","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"January 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"We have learned that science is a method, not a product.\u00a0\u00a0Science begins with an educated guess which is proven true by a series of experiments designed to show that the guess is false.\u00a0\u00a0If the hypothesis cannot be proven false, it is accepted as true by the community of scientists.\u00a0\u00a0Now that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2021"","block_context":{"text":"2021","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1375,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=1375","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":4},"title":"Novavax Uses Magician\u2019s Tricks in Vaccine Study","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"May 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"My last\u00a0blog\u00a0described a phase 3 clinical trial for Novavax vaccine published in the\u00a0New England Journal of Medicine.\u00a0\u00a0Like a\u00a0master stage magician, this study uses distraction, illusion, and manipulation to support its conclusions.\u00a0\u00a0In this blog, I will blow away some of the smoke and expose the fraud.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, the authors report\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science"","block_context":{"text":"Science","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1067,"url":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?p=1067","url_meta":{"origin":1145,"position":5},"title":"Is It Science?","author":"Kevin Homer, MD","date":"September 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"How do you carve a statue of an elephant?\u00a0\u00a0Start with a block of stone and chip away everything that is not elephant.\u00a0\u00a0Science is like that.\u00a0\u00a0The elephant is truth; science is the chipping away.\u00a0\u00a0Scientists are the carvers, chiseling different parts of the stone block at once, testing and repeating each other\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2021"","block_context":{"text":"2021","link":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1721,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betterpathology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}