It was argued by Francis Bacon (and all modern scientists) that the dogmas of ancient religious groups and the assumptions of ancient philosophers could not be admitted in the pursuit of the knowledge of the truth of the natural world. The world of sense, they argued, was the only world that can be known with any certainty.
Bacon proposed the “scientific method” to examine the natural world with the assistance of instruments that would augment the powers of the senses. This pursuit of bigger, stronger instruments continues in the present day.
However, when we enter into any field of modern science, we find something very different.
We find very little presentation of demonstrative evidence when we study any of the modern sciences. We find theories and plausible explanations for those theories–and great self-contradictions.
Consider this passage from the Cambridge Ancient History, speaking of the work of modern Archaeology:
Here, we read that ancient sources once considered authoritative are now being put to “every conceivable test”. The idea is that we’re not accepting anything without proof these days.
However, on the next page, we read the following:
So, which is it?
Are we moving from the uncertainty of ancient philosophy and religion to a certainty of modern science? Or, are we moving from one kind of uncertainty to another?
The wisdom of the ancients is commonly scoffed at by modern “scientists”, who pretend to have something more sure to offer. However, if we press the modern scientists for the same kind of hard evidence that they use to criticize the ancients, we find them crying foul. The scientists is given endless freedom to theorize, pick and choose interpretation of evidence, publish his findings as certain, then revise them at another time, with no consequences.
It seems that only the ancient sources, especially the religious authorities, are accountable to the standards of criticism that modern science claims to be interested in. Most importantly, in my opinion, science has simply been given the freedom to overthrow the ancient system of philosophy and theology and replace with another, without being accountable to scientific demonstration as it does so.
The difference is that the uncertainty of ancient learning was reasonable, as we confess there to be mysteries known only to God and expect them to be revealed in “at sundry times and in divers manners: (Hebrews 1:1). Modern science, on the other hand, claims to be capable of leading us to exact knowledge–and fails to do so.