Eric has stated correctly the inductive nature of much of science. It is about the inference to the best explanation. But is it always so dialectical — tear down the new paradigm? Maybe — but that’s a matter of historical analysis. The problem is — models are largely non-falsifiable. They are not like The Method where a negative constraint can show one to be false. Instead they require alteration to the model, and that gets far more complicated. (I need to read up on modern concepts of falsifiability as Popper’s material applied, generally speaking, to a different system.)

A good example is modern physics and cosmology. In just the last couple of decades, scientists have concluded that some 75 to 80 percent of the mass of each galaxy is some mysterious “Dark Matter” which has gravitational mass but does not interact with ordinary matter or electromagnetic radiation in any detectable way. Dark Matter plus regular matter is only about 20% of the total matter-energy of the universe, because there is a pervasive “Dark Energy” which is accelerating the expansion of the universe and is unlike any of the forms of energy we have studied. So some 90% of the universe is stuff concerning which the ignorance of science is far more than the knowledge of science.

Similarly, serious interpretations of quantum physics argue that there are an infinite number of universes, at different stages in their life cycles, and which may have completely different values of the many fundamental constants of nature which, within a narrow range of values, can ensure the possibility of living things. Among an infinity of universes, where 90% of the stuff in them is utterly indescribable by science, there is plenty of room for phenomena, and even persons, whom scientists are ignorant of but who nevertheless exist in reality.

Modern science renders the claim of scientists to possess comprehensive knowledge of reality, a corollary of which is the preclusion of the existence of God, an utter nullity.

One way to look at this is through a comment someone once made to me. This was a believer in Christ, and a well educated one. He said, “You’ve got to admit, the church made some mistakes with science in the Middle Ages, like Galileo.” I said to him, “Galileo is not such a clear-cut case as we’ve been led to believe, but set that aside for now. Besides Galileo, name the other one.”

Was human capital diverted by the practice of religion attacking people in the pursuit of scientific truth? As a non-academic, it appears that only historians have that answer.