Another Paul Copan article from Chris Shannon.

Some atheists think that the only way to know what is really true is to use the scientific method.

Richard Dawkins declares,“Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.” Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin calls science “the only begetter of truth.”

This is called scientism, and it comes in two varieties.

Scientism comes in two versions: strong (science is the only path to knowledge) and weak (science is the best path to knowledge, even if some other disciplines like philosophy may help).

Scientism, particularly its strong form, is a worldview or philosophy of life that affirms two things: the material world is all that there is, and science is the (only) means of verifying truth claims. All claims of knowledge have to be scientifically verifiable; otherwise, they are meaningless.

The rest of the paper discusses the following topics (and more):

• What is science?
• Can the scientific method find evidence of non-physical and/or intelligent causes in nature?
• is materialism falsifiable or is it just an assumption?
• can scientism itself be tested scientifically?
• is science self-justifying, or does it rest on certain assumptions?
• has the progress of science removed the need for God?
• what is the god-of-the-gaps? Is there a naturalism-of-the-gaps?
• can scientism block the progress of science?

Also see my posts on how the progress of science disproved atheism via the cosmological argument and the fine-tuning argument.