Science and insanity

Albert Einstein is purported to have said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". This statement makes perfect sense from a purely scientific point of view. The laws of natural science (except for aspects of Geology and Biology) are based on repeatable experiments.

There would be no science if the same experiment, done repeatedly, yielded different results. However, to apply this principle to all areas of life, is fallacious. Some examples from the Bible suggest the opposite to be true. Moses tended sheep day after day for 40 years. Then one day he saw a burning bush and his life was never the same. Day after day a lame man begged at the Gate Beautiful until one day he encountered Peter and John. His healing had all of Jerusalem stirred up. Another man, who had been lame for 38 years, spent his days at the pool of Bethesda until the day he was healed by Jesus. There are many examples of people who faithfully did their duties until one day something extraordinary happened to them.

To illustrate the narrow mindedness of a purely scientific world view, consider the following. Someone claims to have walked on water. From an exclusively scientific point of view the person cannot be believed, unless he could repeat the "experiment". By this paradigm the virgin birth and resurrection of the dead are impossibilities.

The absurdity of adopting a solely scientific world view as sufficient for all branches of knowledge becomes glaringly obvious in a subject like History. That Jesus rose from the dead is one of the best proven facts of history. However, since this fact is not based on a repeatable experiment, its veracity is denied by those who refuse to accept a world view wider than the scientific.

The irrationality of this approach is often compounded when its promoters regard themselves as "open minded". According to their logic those who deny the possibility of miracles are more open minded than those who permit miracles in their world view. Their logic is similar to that of atheists who claim to be more open minded than those who accept the possibility of the existence of a God. This logic compels them to believe in the theory of evolution which they then disseminate as fact.

As far as Einstein's quotations are concerned, hardly any law of Physics has suffered as much abuse at the hands of philosophers and social scientists as the Principle of Relativity. In the first place they have applied it to Ethics and Morality, areas in which its validity has no foundation. Secondly they have made it to mean exactly the opposite of what it means in Relativity Theory. The latter is based on the fact that the speed of light is the same for all observers, whereas relativistic ethics propounds that right and wrong depends on the person and the situation.