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| Conspiracy Theorists are mad scientists |
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, a number of people have sent me messages promoting conspiracy theories.
Bill Gates, Jews, Tasuku Honjo...
All fact checked by reputable news agencies and discredited. Yet some tenaciously cling to them.
The rise of fake news hasn't helped.
The truth is what’s at stake.
Science is the best method by which we can arrive at the truth.
Science and Scientism are not the same.
Science is just a method of discovering information and evaluating whether it is truthful.
Scientism is the religion that believes science can answer every question even though it can’t.
I’ve been reading John Lennox lately and it struck me that just because there is a commitment to science, it doesn’t mean the truth has been attained.
Everything is a hypothesis and the straw man hypothesis we classify as “fact,” is just the best there is until it’s credibly disproven.
But we should be cautious about when to classify a hypothesis as fact.
Some hypotheses can be re-classified as fact because it’s well evidenced, over a long period of time, and is therefore considered reliable.
But others are not and should remain mere hypotheses.
Even then, something credibly classified as fact, should be open to re-evaluation if new credible evidence comes to light.
Most conspiracy theories are just hypotheses with little supporting evidence.
Sometimes they are just supported by other hypotheses masquerading as facts but are actually hypotheses unproven.
Conspiracy theorists jump to conclusions too quickly.
And in so doing, they cause great harm, to others as well as themselves.
The recent and tragic death of the flat earth “researcher” in his home-made rocket is a salient example.
Christians should be committed to the truth, and so
if the scientific method is the best way we can investigate a matter to find the truth,
then we need to be good scientists, curious, open-minded, detached, cautious, methodical and not quick to jump to conclusions, guarding against confirmation bias, confident to call it either way:
i.e. if there is insufficient evidence then we say its unproven;
if there is sufficient evidence then we say its either proven or disproved.
According to John 14:6, when we seek the truth, we seek Jesus, and through Him, God.
A commitment to truth, is a commitment to God.
I’ve been reading John Lennox lately and it struck me that just because there is a commitment to science, it doesn’t mean the truth has been attained.
Everything is a hypothesis and the straw man hypothesis we classify as “fact,” is just the best there is until it’s credibly disproven.
But we should be cautious about when to classify a hypothesis as fact.
Some hypotheses can be re-classified as fact because it’s well evidenced, over a long period of time, and is therefore considered reliable.
But others are not and should remain mere hypotheses.
Even then, something credibly classified as fact, should be open to re-evaluation if new credible evidence comes to light.
Most conspiracy theories are just hypotheses with little supporting evidence.
Sometimes they are just supported by other hypotheses masquerading as facts but are actually hypotheses unproven.
Conspiracy theorists jump to conclusions too quickly.
And in so doing, they cause great harm, to others as well as themselves.
The recent and tragic death of the flat earth “researcher” in his home-made rocket is a salient example.
Christians should be committed to the truth, and so
if the scientific method is the best way we can investigate a matter to find the truth,
then we need to be good scientists, curious, open-minded, detached, cautious, methodical and not quick to jump to conclusions, guarding against confirmation bias, confident to call it either way:
i.e. if there is insufficient evidence then we say its unproven;
if there is sufficient evidence then we say its either proven or disproved.
According to John 14:6, when we seek the truth, we seek Jesus, and through Him, God.
A commitment to truth, is a commitment to God.
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