Quick to Listen Should Christians ‘Believe in Science’ in the Midst of a Pandemic?
Transcribed highlights of the show can be found in our episode summaries.
As governors across the U.S. consider whether to relax stay at home orders, many are pitting the words “politics” and “economics” against the word “science.” California Governor Gavin Newsom, for example, told the Los Angeles Times.“We are going to do the right thing, not judge by politics, not judge by protests, but by science.”
And as Governor Brian Kemp opened up Georgia, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms urged people to “Follow the data, look at the science, listen to the health care professionals and use your common sense.”
Similar calls to “believe in science” or “listen to science” are all over policy debates and social media fights. But what does it mean to “believe in science”? And does “science” have a unified answer to questions like “who gets a ventilator,” or whether your child should go to summer camp?
We should be cautious when suggesting that science can speak in such a unified voice, says Sy Garte, a biochemist who has taught at New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Rutgers University.
“The idea that ‘science says’—suggesting that it's easy to come up with a consensus, a uniform, finished version of what is true—that's a problem because that's very rarely the case,” said Garte, who is also the editor in chief of God and Nature, a magazine from the American Scientific Affiliation. “One of the things you find out if you're a working scientist is that almost every answer brings up new questions. So we never actually finish learning anything in any field of science. We are continually trying to get deeper and learn more.”
Garte joined digital media producer Morgan Lee and editorial director Ted Olsen to discuss the historic distrust between Christians and science, what science can and cannot answer, and how Christians should engage in conversations with neighbors who are suspicious of science.
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Quick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee and Matt Linder
The transcript is edited by Bunmi Ishola
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