the timboucher experience

People talk a lot about how religion and science are antithetical to one another. But are they really? While I disagree with him on many points, Ken Wilber in his book A Theory of Everything laid out a very elegant summation of the scientific method as a three part process. I’m going to change his language around a little, but it works according to a three part process:

1. Experiment - basically a series of steps which you can take to cause a specific result
2. Result - the experience or event which occurs during and as a result of completion of the steps prescribed in part 1
3. Verification - Other people should be able to follow the same steps you went through in part 1, and experience the same result as described in part 2

The scientific method of course also deals with observation and theory. Observation occurs throughout this process. You must observe in order to create a practice, ordering it into steps and setting it into a specific reproducible form. You must also observe the experience and results. If these are not the results you were looking for, you have to go back and modify the practice. When other people come in and test your practice and results, they too make observations throughout the whole procedure.

Theory goes hand in hand with observation. While observation concerns itself with looking at details, the theory weaves a story about how these details fit together. Nowadays, most people misinterpret the purpose of theory in scientific practice. We tend to look at these stories about how things fit together as articles of faith, which can’t be questioned. But to the scientist, the theory/story is only used so long as it doesn’t contradict observations and can effectively predict results of certain practices. It’s not supposed to be the answer; it’s simply an answer that works well enough for the purposes at hand.

Let’s use an everyday example to explore it further. A preacher on television announces: “Surrender your heart to Jesus, admit you’re a sinner and you’ll be saved.”

What’s being described here? The preacher is offering an experiment or practice which you can try yourself (part 1). He’s also promising an experience or result which you can expect upon completion of this simple practice (part 2). You are offered the opportunity to verify the effectiveness of the whole procedure for yourself. All you have to do is try it out.

If we want to be a little more rigorous in our analysis of this though, we need to look at the underlying assumptions offered by the preacher. The biggest one obviously is that there is someone or something called Jesus. Next is you have to assume you are a sinner (whatever that means). I’m not counting salvation as an assumption here, because that’s technically a promised result, not something you start with (although maybe that could be debated differently). If both of those assumptions don’t conflict with your own observations, then it functions fine. If not, something else happens when you undergo the procedure they describe - you end up accepting the assumptions.

This reminds me of one of the biggest “tricks” that the Scientologists supposedly use to bring people into the fold: the personality test. Supposedly after you complete the personality test, they invite you in for a session after that to take care of the psychological/personal problems indicated on your test. At the completion of this session, you expect that your personal problems will be taken care of. Instead, you get a little piece of paper that says you’re now an official Scientologist. In other words, you have inadvertently accepted their underlying assumptions by agreeing to undertake their procedure, in the hopes of a specific result.

Anyway, my point here is not so much to try to accuse evangelists of trickery. Quite the opposite in fact. I think it’s cool that they are trying to outline something you can try for yourself. People often accuse Christians of having mindless blind faith. But in a way, it’s really not. They are trying to lay out a simple program of experience which you can verify on your own. What comes after that might be a different story, but it’s a very good hook, if you ask me.

• Occult Investigation & the Scientific Method
• Franklin on the Socratic Method
• Skeptic’s Are Idiots
• The Guild of Scientific Troubadours
• Global Warming Real Meaning