...sheepish. You've been including me in comment s for the last few months and I've missed them. Mea culpa. If I actually knew Latin I'd add a variation on *maximus* there.
As penance allow me to say I actually finished Don't Let The Science Get You Down Timothy & enjoyed it. Some of the broad sweep of knowledge reminded me of William Lane Craig.
Now, back to the point of this post. Have you tried reading the essay Problem Picture in Dorothy L. Sayers's The Whimsical Christian?
Covers the layperson's misunderstanding of what science is and its limitations, particularly to the sociological...
Sayers was only an English major or whatnot, but the fact she incorporated racemic mixtures of optically active organic molecules into a mystery novel, back in the 1930s, even before molecular mirror symmetry had been identified as the cause of optical activity, was *very* impressive.
All the best to you, thanks for writing!
Hi greywhiskers! I'm so glad you enjoyed Timothy!
RE: Sayers. I'll have to check out The Whimsical Christian. Just because she was "only" an English major doesn't mean that she is incapable of discerning what science is and its limitations. Indeed, probably it's the case that she is an English major that enables her to see this. [I may be biased in this: I'm a double major in English and philosophy]
Science is extraordinarily limited in what it can know about reality because its method deals only with material things. It either ignores — or outright denies — all things spiritual. And thus it undermines itself at the outset — for scientific inquiry, the creative imagination, and logic itself are NOT material things. They cannot be accessed or evaluated by the scientific method.
And yet the spiritual things are what lay back of the surface reality that science explores, are what finally constitutes both science and reality.
The main inspiration for writing Timothy was the desire to help Christians especially not to feel "outclassed" or rendered "stupid" by science and its claims.
In it own sphere of expertise, science is unparalleled. But it sees only the surface of reality. And the deeper it probes that reality, the more it sees that "matter" itself is but a useful abstraction, a mental construct, and not the ultimate root of reality. (see quantum theory)
Thanks so much for writing, greywhiskers — it's great to see you again!