Are Scientists Always Honest?

How much do you trust used car salesmen to tell you the truth? How about politicians running for office? How about door-to-door salesmen? How about top management of the company you work for? How about false ministers?

How about scientists?

I am not just talking about honest mistakes. I am talking about outright lies.

Some of us might trust scientists more than the others I have mentioned. We should not. They have the same human nature as used car salesmen and politicians. A scientist can lie about scientific evidence. He can falsify evidence. He can lie in his research papers. Some have done so - I have read accounts of scientific dishonesty in their research and papers.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that well-educated people are somehow more honest and less likely to lie than poorly educated people. Science and college or university based education does not make men righteous and honest. Righteousness and honesty are matters of individual choice and are also affected by how a person is raised in the home from childhood. Before a person enters higher education, his basic character is formed. If he built the habit of lying as a child and carried that habit into adulthood, he is likely to lie as an adult no matter how great his later "education" may be. He could win the Nobel Prize in science, but he may still be a liar.

Scientists like money and prestige the same as people in other occupations. Their reputation with other scientists is their life-blood. If they can "get ahead" by lying and if they think they can get away with it, some of them probably will.

So why should we trust them more than what God says in His word, the Bible?

God says He cannot lie. "...in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began" (Titus 1:2). "...that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us" (Hebrews 6:18).

The Bible is inspired by God. "...knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21).

Since God inspired the Bible and He cannot lie, that means that every word of God is true and the Bible cannot be broken. "If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken)..." (John 10:35).

Moreover, believing God is a test. God requires that we believe what He says. Obedience is not enough.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:20). But what about works without faith? Is that not dead also?

We are to obey God, that much is clear, and the Church of God has taught this and emphasized it very much over the years and decades. But we must also believe what God says. Faith must be a motivation for our obedience.

Faith, that is, believing what God says and trusting God, what we may call "faith in God", is commanded and is therefore part of the law. So to obey God, we must believe Him, for if we do not have faith, we are not obeying the law. The law COMMANDS faith.

Want proof that faith is a matter of law, that the law requires faith in God and His word? Jesus said that faith is one of the three weightier matters of the law, along with justice and mercy. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone" (Matthew 23:23).

And since sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), to disbelieve what God says is sin.

It is a sin for you or I to read God's word and decide about some verse or passage, "that is not true". It is a sin for us to willingly doubt God's word, the Bible, or any part of it. Doubts may enter our minds because we are human, but we are to fight those doubts and strive to put doubt out just as we are to put other wrong thoughts out of our minds such as thoughts of revenge or thoughts of sexual lust.

We must be committed to God to believe everything He says.

God did not count Abraham righteous because of his obedience only. He counted Abraham as righteous because Abraham believed God when God told him his descendents would be as numerous as the stars of heaven.

"Then He brought him outside and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.' And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:5-6).

"For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness' " (Romans 4:3).

"And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.' And he was called the friend of God" (James 2:23).

"Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him" (Isaiah 51:1-2).

And just as we can lose our salvation through lack of mercy and justice (the other two weightier matters of the law), so we can lose our salvation through unbelief.

"Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:17-19).

"You will say then, 'Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.' Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again" (Romans 11:19-23).

Can you see how important it is to God that we believe what He says?

Science, that is, the scientific community, culture, and tradition, is secular and atheistic. Secular science teaches evolution, which is the theory that all species came into existence through random, natural causes only. The scientific method does not allow consideration of supernatural causes as explanations of any evidence. The idea that God created the species of life on this earth is not acceptable to science.

Not all scientists are atheists. But the scientific community as a whole and the scientific method they use in their work is, in general, atheistic. It has an atheistic viewpoint. It looks at the world as if there is no God.

Any scientist who rejects evolution in his work as a scientist is likely to lose his job. Would a scientist be motivated, or tempted, to publicly lie in his work and scientific papers about physical evidence he has found that might support creation or intelligent design in order to protect his job and his reputation with other scientists? Yes, I think if he found evidence for creation, he would be tempted to lie about it, to omit it, to cover it up. Would he yield to the temptation to lie under such circumstances? I think that is very possible. It would take self-sacrifice and courage to tell the truth in such a situation, and if he did, it would be very likely his work would not be published by established scientific journals, nor would he find it easy to get a teaching job in the main colleges and universities.

I do not say that all scientists are liars, nor do I say that all their false statements about evolution are deliberate lies. Probably, most scientists are sincere, and most of the false statements they make regarding evidence or the interpretation of evidence are mistakes, not necessarily deliberate lies.

But we should not assume that scientists never lie about the evidence they uncover or their interpretation of the evidence.

Anyone who has read the Bible and who strives to live by every word of God and who also is informed and well read on science will notice many cases where the secular, atheistic scientific community directly contradicts what God says in His word. And when he finds that, what does he conclude? Does he believe the Bible or secular science? Does he trust God or man to tell the truth?

God knows our thoughts. We better trust God more than man.

What a tragedy for any Church of God member to lose his salvation because he believed and trusted men more than God.

"Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4).


Here is a link to a related post in this blog:
"Theory of Evolution vs. Faith in God's Word", dated December 25, 2015, link:
http://ptgbook.blogspot.com/2015/12/theory-of-evolution-vs-faith-in-gods.html


Here are links to related chapters or sections in Preaching the Gospel:

Evolution versus the Creation Account in Genesis, Chapter 1