Trust God, understand science

In Scripture, God often speaks to us in stories. In the Old Testament, stories tell of the saints of Israel and the history of that nation; in the New Testament, the parables of Jesus unfold God’s will for us. These stories teach us about God’s love for his creation and why we can trust our Creator to support us in a world so often filled with brokenness, pain and suffering. The rules for our lives flow out of these stories and frame the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbour.

To read the book of creation, we use not stories but science, which helps us understand how things work. Learning what science teaches us about creation is not the same as trusting God. Science is a human endeavor, only God is trustworthy. To discern how to use science to direct our lives we need to learn how it works. In the past year, we have seen the damage that false science can do. Misinformation has thrived in response to covid. We need to learn how to evaluate what to believe when given scientific information.

Discerning evidence

Determining what to accept can be hard because science evolves, and its understanding of the world may change. As we learned more about covid, doctors’ recommendations changed from saying masks were not that important to saying they were essential as the virus could spread through the air. This change was not a failure or an attempt to mislead but simply our better understanding of a new virus and how it passes between people.

Often we’re told to look at the evidence to determine how to proceed. Yet evidence does not exist in isolation but comes with a context, and interpretation of evidence can require more extensive understanding or expertise. Even as a professor of psychology, my knowledge of other areas of science is limited and no better than most people’s. I would be foolish to rely on my ability to test and fully understand the evidence for mask use.

So how did I decide if I should wear a mask? For this and other matters, I follow these steps. I asked if the source of a recommendation was credible, if they had a conflict of interest, and if they told me how they arrived at their conclusions. Then I asked if they had the expertise to provide this information. Did they have the right credentials? Did their peers trust them? And did they have a good track record? Finally, I asked if others agreed. Was there a consensus among most scientific experts around the recommendation? These steps led me to wear masks.

Beware of those working outside their expertise who disagree with most other experts. For each of us, our knowledge is limited. And thank God for the work of the many scientists who strove to understand this new virus. Though their recommendations may change, they deserve us to listen to their advice.