{"id":39193,"date":"2017-01-15T17:04:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T00:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=39193"},"modified":"2017-01-15T17:04:48","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T00:04:48","slug":"science-as-oracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/science-as-oracle.html","title":{"rendered":"Science as oracle?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_39194\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39194\" style=\"width: 597px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/01\/Heavens_Above_Her.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39194\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-39194\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/01\/Heavens_Above_Her.jpg\" alt=\"Mojave Desert and Milky Way\" width=\"597\" height=\"597\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-39194\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Milky Way above California\u2019s Mojave Desert \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Some treat science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation\u2013or if not infallible, at any rate such that when it comes to fixing belief, science is the court of last appeal. But this can\u2019t be right. . . . \u00a0science doesn\u2019t address the topics where we most need enlightenment: religion, politics, and morals, for example. Many look to scientists for guidance on matters outside of science, matters on which scientists have no special expertise. They apparently think of scientists as the new priestly class; unsurprisingly, scientists don\u2019t ordinarily discourage this tendency. But of course a scientist pontificating on matters outside her field is no better than anyone else pontificating on matters outside her field.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Alvin Plantinga, <em>Where the Conflict Really Lies<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 Some treat science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation\u2013or if not infallible, at any rate such that when it comes to fixing belief, science is the court of last appeal. But this can\u2019t be right. . . . \u00a0science doesn\u2019t address the topics where we most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Science as oracle?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; Some treat science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation\u2013or if not infallible, at any rate such that when it\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/science-as-oracle.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Science as oracle?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; Some treat science as if it were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation\u2013or if not infallible, at any rate such that when it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/science-as-oracle.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-16T00:04:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2017\/01\/Heavens_Above_Her.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/science-as-oracle.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/science-as-oracle.html\",\"name\":\"Science as oracle?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-16T00:04:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-16T00:04:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"&nbsp; 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