Prov. 21:28 A false witness will perish, but the word of a man who hears will endure.

When I was studying seminary, I rented a place with another graduate who was already working for the seminary that we both studied in. I remember seeing his bookshelf with all kinds of Christian books, including books that talked about science. Of course, his books tended towards the more “popular” fields of biology (since Evolution and Intelligent Design were the most hotly debated issues in the US), and one of them was Signature of the Cell. I thought the title was pretty interesting, but in the back of my head, I just kind of categorized the book as “just another in the Creationism camp,” and thought that it would just be the same old arguments that I’ve heard, that they would still come against the same old counterarguments of those in the Evolution camp, and nothing will have changed. That was 3 years ago. Why am I talking about this now?

Because I have just started to read it chapter by chapter. And I discovered a whole history behind the book and even after the book. I didn’t study biology, but chemistry was close enough. I could get an understanding of concepts like entropy, which would help me understand concepts in information theory, probability, how the earth is an open system that has to be linked to the sun and the surrounding background radiation, and where the problem of evolution really lay. I also studied some philosophy of science, so I knew how much “inferences to the best explanation” were respected and valued by the scientific community (at least those who also have read at least some philosophy of science). My mistake was thinking that the book was going to be a highly scientific (or even narrowly biological) book that didn’t cover all the loopholes in philosophy. After I read it, I knew I was wrong. It not only discussed philosophy of science issues, but even mentioned the current craziest physical theory—inflation theory—that was probably the ultimate trump card used to reject the possibility of God (but which still wasn’t strong enough, had the least evidence, and has the notorious problem of assuming any universe that the physicist wants is possible—it is “unfalsifiable,” or in Pauli’s famous phrase: “It is not right. It is not even wrong.”).

When I looked up the responses to the book, I realized a weird phenomenon: The first responders who had something to say against the book when it just came out made comments that exposed that they didn’t even read the book. What was astonishing was that they were so confident in their reply that they released it, and now they can’t take back what they said, and have lost credibility as a result. In the book, the author, Dr. Stephen Meyer, also tells about how he had to cite John Newton’s actual words during a court trial against another scientist who mistakenly thought that John Newton separated his theology and his science. You probably didn’t know that Neil Degrasse Tyson made this same mistake. It also exposed a phenomenon that I have seen first-hand in my own years in college as well: people don’t even read, but will pretend to have read (on a given subject or someone or something). This resonated with Dr. Meyer’s retelling of his experience in Cambridge, where a professor told him (with friendly intention) to just pretend to know or have read on a subject, since it’s impossible to have read everything. The same kind of dishonesty is present in grade inflation. And it was present in me when I labeled the book in my head without reading it. But it will ultimately harm you. The professor, the public, the person you date, and your only friend, will see it. God sees it. Instead, be as truthful as possible. That is the first step to become someone of value, to truly love others, and to enjoy real relationships.

‍