Is the scientific method valid?

Is the question “Is the Scientific method valid?” a silly question? It may not be as silly as it looks. I ask you to bear with me, for a moment. I do have a point to make. Most of us would answer the inside question “Of course the scientific method is valid!” Well how do we know? Well everyone accepts it. Well yes, but at one time it was widely accepted that the earth was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. Did that make it true? Well no, but that's different. Well how is it different? Today we know better! Okay so will we know better tomorrow that the scientific method is wrong?

Let's take another tact. Some would suggest that the scientific method is correct because it works. But are we saying that using the Scientific method nobody has ever made a mistake? Well no, but when mistakes are made it is because the scientific method was not used properly. But how do you know in advance if it is always the method that is used incorrectly or if the method itself is wrong. To prove this scientifically, we would need to set up a repeatable scientific experiment to see if, whenever a mistake was made, we could always find a mistake in the procedure rather than in the method. First of all good luck in designing such an experiment, but secondly how would we know that that experiment itself was not flawed? In other words how could that experiment validate itself? The point I am making is not there there is no validity in the Scientific method, but merely that the Scientific method cannot be used to validate itself. This would be a circular argument. To put it another way, if we accept that the scientific method is valid, we do so by faith.

So do I believe that the Scientific method is valid? Well yes within the limited range of questions the scientific method is equipped to answer, I believe that the scientific method is valid. Let me say more!

Firstly there are many things the scientific method is not equipped to answer. Such questions include, for example “Does the wife love me” (see I know too much Science to believe in God” June 2010), or “Does God exist”. Secondly my belief that the Scientific method is valid is of course a position of faith. I cannot prove it. It is however reasonable to me, because of other beliefs that I have. I believe that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Because God is creative and intelligent, it makes sense to systematically examine what He created. This in fact was the presupposition that lead to the existence of modern science in the first place. So modern science was born in the Christian West, not in the polytheistic east. This is precisely because an intelligent God was believe to have created an intelligible creation. Why else would it make sense to systematically investigate creation? If it all came about by chance, why would it be governed by discernible laws? Would you expect meaningful literature to come from an explosion at the print factory? Why would you even bother looking?