Every now and then, I hear people say foolish things like “There is no absolute truth.” To them, I ask, “Is that absoutely true?” It should be pretty obvious that this is a self-refuting claim–a claim that cannot stand up under its own premises and which must therefore be false.
Some people have a hard time grasping this concept, though. When I tried to explain how this claim disproves itself, one guy responded with “So because there is no absolute truth, there is absolute truth? Huh?” I think it was J.P. Moreland who once said that modern man is no longer accustomed to thinking in a straightforward, logical manner.
Here’s another example. Every now and then, I hear somebody declare “Science is the only way that we can ever know the truth!” When they say that, I ask, “Is that true? If so, what scientific method did you use to arrive at that conclusion?”
When people are deeply wedded to these suppositions though, they often find it difficult to let go of such notions. One fella said, “Of course science is the only way we can know anything. That’s just common sense.” Common sense is important, but it’s not a scientific technique. Despite repeated explanations, he just couldn’t grasp the notion that by appealing to “common sense,” he was invoking a non-scientific approach to defending his claim.
One person said, “Any approach to knowledge is science. Even looking under a rock and making an observation is science.” No, it isn’t. There’s a reason why fields such as philosophy and history are not considered scientific. Nor is merely making an observation “scientific.” As any sixth-grader should be able to tell you, observation is merely the first stage of the scientific method. It is not science per se.
