The Ideological Prejudice of Scientific Materialism

Why was a blindfold added to the portrayal of Lady Justice, with sword in one hand and lifted scales in the other? It is because, when the evidence is weighed in the scales, we recognize the importance of heeding the evidence rather than prejudice.

Imagine instead what it would be like to be accepted onto a jury only to be instructed by the judge as follows.

"As you consider this case, you must begin with the assumption that the man before you is guilty. You will be presented various theories about what happened. Your job will be to weigh the evidence and decide which theory best explains this man's guilt. Our rules specify that you must proceed according to this methodology, even if it seems to you the evidence points to his innocence. Otherwise, if you allow yourself to consider that he might be innocent, then when there are mere gaps in the evidence against him and it becomes difficult to show his guilt, you might give up too quickly on finding an interpretation of the facts that portrays him as guilty. You would be committing the serious error we call the innocence-of-the-gaps."

Phillip Johnson points out that there are two very different understandings of the nature of science. In the introduction to his excellent book, The Wedge of Truth, he writes:

"On the one hand, modernists say that science is impartial fact-finding, the objective and unprejudiced weighing of evidence. Science in that sense relies on careful observations, calculations, and above all, repeatable experiments. That kind of objective science is what makes technology possible, and where it can be employed it is indeed the most reliable way of determining the facts. On the other hand, modernists also identify science with naturalistic philosophy. In that case science is committed to finding and endorsing naturalistic explanations for every phenomenon--regardless of the facts. That kind of science is not free of prejudice. On the contrary, it is defined by a prejudice. The prejudice is that all phenomena can ultimately be explained in terms of purely natural causes, which is to say unintelligent causes." (p. 14)

Should healthy science be empirical in nature and free to follow the evidence it has wherever it leads? Or should it be bound to a prior allegiance to an ideological position, whatever the evidence may indicate?

This forum topic is devoted to examining how science is distorted by the ideological prejudice of scientific materialism, and to considering the following question posed by Johnson.

"What should we do if empirical evidence
and materialist philosophy
are going in different directions?"

(Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, p. 114).

Honesty (and logic) would tell us that we should follow the evidence WHEREVER it leads. It is sad that individuals, who are supposed to be objective, predetermine where the evidence should point and then call people “delusional” when they do not follow. Theists are the ones who practice objective science (methodological naturalism) while atheists practice metaphysical naturalism and tout it as “science”, furthermore those who do not have such biased presuppositions influencing their conclusions are labeled “unscientific”. It was such nauseating hypocrisy that turned me away from atheism. I was now actually free to use science as a tool rather than a religion, I could now follow evidence.