What about psychology, biology, and sociology in the light of the Biblical givens? Your question presupposes a view of science, that of ever increasing progress toward more truth and more light, which cannot be sustained even on its own terms. Even mathematics today is regarded as "fallible, correctable, and ... tentative." (Davis and Hersh ...)

Science sometimes takes a step backward under pressure of social liberalization. Tipler writes, "In 1822 a group of French doctors made a detailed ... study of exactly how" yellow fever spread in Barcelona, Spain. Since no contacts among people were possible, they

inferred that the germ theory of disease was permanently disproved. It never occurred to anyone that yellow fever could be transmitted ... by mosquitoes. Over the next half century, this French study was used in an attempt to abolish the ancient quarantine regulations which were applied in European ports. It was claimed that, since no disease could be caught from another person, quarantines were relics of superstitious times. British liberals regarded the quarantines as an irrational infringement on individual liberty and as a manifestation of Roman Catholic ignorance. The germ theory was resurrected in the latter part of the nineteenth century by Pasteur and his new medical physics. (Tipler 329-330)

30 August 1996. Copyright information is available.