Some Things Science Can’t Explain

No matter how inundated we have become with the idea science answers everything, it absolutely cannot. Just think for a minute about everyday life, and you should be able to come up with at least a couple of things for which science has no explanation. How about altruistic acts, acts which by definition are done at complete risk of peril to oneself in benefit of another? How about hope? How about memories, which no one today can explain by scientific means? No one today has the foggiest clue how a neuron could store a memory, never mind how it would. Certainly there are attempts to explain these phenomena by naturalistic and materialistic means, but all the attempts fail.

Now the question must be asked, how can science possibly explain morality? I have three words to say; “It Can Not!” Now I know there are evolutionists who would scoff and balk at me for being so resolute, but really, just think with me and try to see clearly past the propaganda. Morals, definitionally speaking, are things which one ought to do. Put another way, a moral action is an action which is performed in line with the way we are supposed to do things, and not in opposition to the way we are supposed to do things. A moral tells us how we should behave, and we act either in accordance or discordance with the morals.

In this light, when the old widow across the street is snowed in, I can tell my boys they did something good in shoveling her walkway because they acted according to a standard that already exists. It’s not unlike taking a tape measure to the wood before it gets cut. We have a standard for measuring, and then place the beam beside it to verify the length and mark it off. That is precisely the relationship we have with morality. We take an action, and see how it measures against the known standard.

This is the exact reason why science can never explain morality. The standard must exist before the measurement can be made, but with science that is impossible. Science learns through observation and experimentation, and then it classifies the data. It’s like taking water in a test tube and watching and writing down how it responds to cold and heat. Then we can safely say in a lab setting that this is how the water behaved. It doesn’t tell us however, how water must behave, leaving it up to the discretion of the water whether or not it will.  Scientific examination of moral actions would only be able to tell us what is observed. Scientific study describes whatever is being studied.

Simply put, science describes the world to us. Morality prescribes the world to us. Science may predict and tell us how something might behave, but it doesn’t tell us how we ought to act, regardless of the outcome. Science tells what might be. Morals tell us what ought to be. Science makes guesses, either good or bad, about outcomes. Science formulates theories and responses after the fact. Morality makes declarations independent of the facts.

Grace and peace,
Arron Bergeron.