I regularly encounter Christians who struggle with their faith because of some aspect of what they call “settled science” disturbed by such things as Darwinian evolution, transgenderism, materialism, naturalism, neuroscience, secularism, etc. Robert J. Marks II figuratively pulls the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz here in his blistering commentary entitled “The Myth of “Settled Science.” He is well qualified to speak on this subject as a Ph.D. Senior Fellow and Director of the Bradley Center and is Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Marks is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America). He was the former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and is the current Editor-in-Chief of BIO-Complexity. For those doubting Thomas’s, Marks full biography is here.

As a degreed engineer myself, I empathize with his statement,

“That’s one of the reasons I like being an engineer. Scientists embrace a theory, place it on a throne and worship her like a queen. Engineers make the queen step down from the throne and scrub the floor. And if she doesn’t work, we fire her.“

Amen.

Marks lay waste to the Church of Scientism with his list of discredited scientific theories dating from the 20th century including the cause of ulcers, quantum mechanics and relativety. As he notes, “Each was once widely accepted as established science at some point during that period. And some who bucked the scientific consensus have made world-changing discoveries.” Adding salt to the wound, he also lists centuries-old science beliefs that have been discredited including Spontaneous generation, Phlogiston theory, Miasma theory of disease, Caloric theory of heat, Geocentrism, and the Static Universe.

1 Timothy 6:20 warns against “oppositions of science falsely so called,” indicating that not all claims of science align with truth or faith. This verse emphasizes the importance of discerning genuine knowledge from misleading information. The KJV translates the verse thus, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” The ESV translates the word as “knowledge” instead of “science” because the word science comes from the Latin word scientia, which means “knowledge.” It has been used in English since the 14th century to refer to the state of knowing or the body of knowledge acquired through study.

As an degreed engineer myself, I (like Marks) recognize both the power AND limitations of science. A worldview constructed entirely of scientism will always fail at some point in its understanding of reality. It cannot address transcendent reality. It cannot explain unique, unrepeatable events. For example, materialism (which is the heartthrob of modern science) decrees that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain firing neurons. Write that in your next Valentines Day greeting to your lover. There is nothing transcendent about love in that flawed worldview.

Watch this video of a formerly-atheist MIT professor, Ian Hutchinson a nuclear engineer specializing in nuclear fusion and plasma, warning about scientism (which he characterizes as a “terrible intellectual error”) and explaining his conversion to Christianity. By definition, science cannot investigate unique events.

The antidote to the Church of Scientism is a Biblical worldview which opens the door to all reality.