Religion and Science
Perhaps the most striking thing I have realized through this course is that science is not
fact. In The Structures of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn discusses how the process of
science and discovery works. He says science is defined by paradigms, meaning that there has to
be a widely accepted theory in order for science to work. For example, evolution is the paradigm
of biology, and all biologists assume the theory of evolution to be true when they do their
research. While I did not know what the definition of a paradigm was before taking this course, I
understood that this is how science generally works. However, what I did not understand was
that this “paradigm system” in science can cause major misconceptions about the world. Because
of paradigms, science is not cumulative. If a paradigm is proven wrong and a new paradigm
takes its place, the new paradigm might be completely different from the old one. For example,
before Copernicus discovered that the sun is the center of the solar system, most scientists
researched the universe under the assumption that everything revolved around Earth. This makes
me wonder if there are any modern paradigms that are actually not true at all. If so, it would
imply that today’s scientists are assuming things that are not even true. I was also intrigued by
the idea that you cannot prove that science is getting any closer to the truth. Just because an old
paradigm was proven false does not mean that the new one is true. It could just as easily be
proven false sometime in the future. I now recognize that there will always be uncertainty
surrounding science, and this uncertainty has made me wonder if the truth to everything in the
universe cannot be explained through science by itself.
The idea of an intelligent designer is one that I have never put a lot of thought into before
this class. I never denied the existence of a God, but I have always agreed more with the
fact. In The Structures of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn discusses how the process of
science and discovery works. He says science is defined by paradigms, meaning that there has to
be a widely accepted theory in order for science to work. For example, evolution is the paradigm
of biology, and all biologists assume the theory of evolution to be true when they do their
research. While I did not know what the definition of a paradigm was before taking this course, I
understood that this is how science generally works. However, what I did not understand was
that this “paradigm system” in science can cause major misconceptions about the world. Because
of paradigms, science is not cumulative. If a paradigm is proven wrong and a new paradigm
takes its place, the new paradigm might be completely different from the old one. For example,
before Copernicus discovered that the sun is the center of the solar system, most scientists
researched the universe under the assumption that everything revolved around Earth. This makes
me wonder if there are any modern paradigms that are actually not true at all. If so, it would
imply that today’s scientists are assuming things that are not even true. I was also intrigued by
the idea that you cannot prove that science is getting any closer to the truth. Just because an old
paradigm was proven false does not mean that the new one is true. It could just as easily be
proven false sometime in the future. I now recognize that there will always be uncertainty
surrounding science, and this uncertainty has made me wonder if the truth to everything in the
universe cannot be explained through science by itself.
The idea of an intelligent designer is one that I have never put a lot of thought into before
this class. I never denied the existence of a God, but I have always agreed more with the