Students in the Real World, 5-2
Posted by Vincent Cheung on November 13, 2006Things are different when dealing with professors. Students have no authority over you, and they do not give exams and grades. Professors, however, are supposed to teach knowledge, and they expect you to demonstrate understanding in that which they teach. This is fine in principle, but problems occur when they teach anti-biblical ideas as if they are truth, and then expect you to accept them.
Biology courses offer some of the most explicit examples of this. At the beginning of one of the many biology courses I took, the professor stated that when it comes to evolution, "we need not see any conflict with the Genesis account as long as we do not take it literally." Well, of course! All conflicts of ideas can be neutralized as long as you do not take one side literally. But the question is why we should take science seriously rather than the Bible.
We have shown elsewhere that science is not only unreliable, but that it has no rational contact with reality at all, and that all its conclusions are false. Its method precludes discovery of any true information about anything. So here we will not repeat an analysis of science, but given these facts about science, we must consider how to deal with professors who affirm anti-Christian ideas on the basis of science.
There are at least three reasons to avoid making the actual scientific evidences and arguments the primary battleground.
First, since your professor is an expert in his field, it is less likely that you will beat him at his own game, that is, if you completely adhere to his terms and the context he constructs. This is not to say that your professor is correct given his methods – no, I am saying that he can bluff better than you can when you play his game by his rules. He knows far more about the jargons, names, dates, theories, experiments, publications, and other information related to his field. If he wishes, he could even make things up as he goes along, and you would not know when he is telling the truth and when he is not.
Second, not all scientific alternatives to anti-biblical science are correct. For example, you could attempt a scientific refutation of evolution with intelligent design, but some of the things asserted in intelligent design publications might be wrong. You must be able to tell the difference, and there is no guarantee that you will always be able to discuss intelligent design better than your professor. Worse, if you happen to endorse some details in the intelligent design arguments that turn out to be false, then your opponent can seize on this as a demonstration of your lack of information and judgment.
Third, since the scientific method itself is irrational and can never attain any knowledge, any information about reality, to defend truth based on scientific arguments is ultimately futile. If you are able to gain the upper hand at all, the best that you can do is to show that you are less wrong, and not that Christianity is necessarily correct. If the point is to refute false ideas and promote the biblical faith, then it is necessary to lay aside false methods of discovery and have a truly rational discussion on the ultimate questions concerning knowledge and reality.
Therefore, from the perspective of winning the debate, the most effective strategy is not to challenge one scientific theory with another, but to challenge science itself, and show that it is impossible to know anything by science in the first place. The arguments needed to do this are numerous and irrefutable, and have been presented elsewhere in our publications. In essence, we challenge the assumptions behind science, such as the unity and the stability of the universe, the reliability of sensation and induction, the formal logical validity of scientific reasoning, and so on. The upshot of this is the total humiliation of human speculation. Whereas the scientist can say, "From the perspective of science, which cannot find truth, here are the conclusions," he cannot claim that these conclusions have anything to do with the truth about reality.
That said, the most rational approach is not always practical or even possible in some situations. It is unlikely that a professor will allow you to hijack a class on biology to discuss the finer details of epistemology and the philosophy of science. And you must remember that a professor is still a person – he can be sinful, unfair, and wicked. If he is a non-Christian, then no matter what he says, he is not a seeker after truth. He does not care that science is false, as long as there is no one to challenge him on that. This is why you must exercise caution, or else you might find yourself suffering unnecessary persecution at his hands.