In Science we trust?

On our currency is a motto: "In God we trust." Surveys seem to bear out the popularity of the sentiment. But what about the practical application? In many respects, science has supplanted God as the ultimate repository of our trust. Indeed, Americans have more faith in the pronouncements of scientific journals than they do in the Word of God. Think I'm kidding? The Bible says the universe was created by God in six days. Science says any 'creating' was by natural chance over millions of years. Which narrative dominates the public consciousness today--even among many professed Christians?

The problem is the Bible is no longer viewed as the authoritative account, by God, of His actions and intentions. Scientific journals--well, now: they're peer-reviewed. "Objective." "Factual."

Really?

We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong.

Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye.

These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."

The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined...

Statistically speaking, science suffers from an excess of significance. Overeager researchers often tinker too much with the statistical variables of their analysis to coax any meaningful insight from their data sets. "People are messing around with the data to find anything that seems significant, to show they have found something that is new and unusual," Dr. Ioannidis said.

Science is useful, practical and necessary in its place, its very rationality grounded in the fact it examines an ordered, designed universe. Like any creation, though, it should never be held in esteem above the Artist. As another motto goes: "Fide sed cui vide." (Trust, but be careful in whom.)