One does not have to spend much time in the archaeology of the Bible lands without encountering controversy. There are many ideologies and not all archaeologists limit themselves to the scientific method. Whether the discussion is the nature of humanity, creation-evolution, or any historical item in the Hebrew Scriptures there are major disagreements. There are two basic approaches inherent in these matters that of science and that of hermeneutics. You might want to consider them both to hone your critical thinking skills and to gain a sense of how scientists and theologians produce knowledge.

In Overview we presented you with a general discussion of the place of biblical archaeology in the contemporary world and how it illuminates scripture. Here we consider the utility of the scientific method in undertaking this task.  Science refers to a research strategy for the production of knowledge and understanding. The scientific method consists of an objective means of coming to know how the real world works. The scientific model, established upon observation and replication, deals with observable phenomena (the domain of general revelation in theological terminology). This has to do with the issues of epistemology—what can we know and how can we know it?

Science deals with observable phenomena, a positivist view, with data obtained by objective means capable of replication. Scientific knowledge remains tentative and incomplete. Scientists do not attempt to expound upon “final truths” through their use of the scientific method. Scientific knowledge in general never does deal with ultimate truths. In theology we do.

Scientific research involves validating theoretical models and modifying theories. Further articulation of a theory results from the testing of research hypotheses against data and developing new explanations for observed results. The adjustment of a model occurs with a shift of theory resulting in a new theory replacing an old one, e.g., Darwinism replaced by the synthetic theory of evolution.

Scientific theory constitutes the attempt to explain observable phenomena within a specifiable domain of investigation (chemistry, physics, psychology, anthropology). In a more limited sense a scientific theory is a set of statements permitting prediction and explanation of phenomena. Science through application of the research paradigm known as the scientific method involves prediction not description. The simple testing of hypotheses and improving explanations is not science but description.

Science requires specific theories and laws that can be used to predict. The archaeological record, which exists in the here and now, remains subject to scientific inquiry and has predictive value.

In the scientific method, the process of conducting scientific investigation, a researcher develops hypotheses derived from the current state of knowledge, i.e., general theory, and will test these hypotheses against the data of the real world. By rejecting, modifying, or retaining hypotheses the researcher develops his or her scientific explanation to account for the phenomena under investigation. Scientific theories, therefore, are explanations of facts derived by testing hypotheses. The scientific method can never arrive at absolute truth but only operational proof.

The Scientific Method: The Process of Conducting Scientific Inquiry

Notice that the method calls for the questioning of general theory at any time. This makes scientific explanation tentative and subject to verification. Testability and verifiability are central to the scientific method. Scientific knowledge progresses based upon hypothesis formation and testing against the objective reality of the real world.

Verification proceeds by the testing of a research hypothesis by other reputable researchers. A repeatedly tested hypothesis becomes a fact when its continued verification shows that to not consider it so would border on the ridiculous. In science, however, a fact is not an absolute truth, but rather a reasonable certainty, since the scientific method necessitates that all scientific explanation be tentative (see Standards of Proof). 

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation in response to a specific scientifically posed question. Social scientists test research hypotheses through making specific observations or conducting experiments. Hence, science does not proceed on the basis of trying to prove something but upon the testing of hypotheses. The process is not one of proof and argument but one of falsification. A “falsified” research hypothesis is the result of contradiction of the hypothesis by the research data. When the data contradict a research hypothesis then, in the process of explanation, the researcher either rejects or modifies the hypothesis. Sets of tested research hypotheses give rise to general theory. 

The scientific worldview of the last four centuries is that of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, from the foundational work of Sir Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes, which assumes a knowable universe, an objective reality, regulated by discernable laws. Moreover, in this understanding all innovations must necessarily arise from preexisting energy and matter. In regard to life forms it implies that all innovations in life forms must necessarily arise within preexisting species.

The scientific model does have its own set of inherent weaknesses and a set of postmodern critics. Scientists assume that the universe and reality exist in the here and now and these can be known through application of the scientific method. This limits science to the natural world and excludes matters of religious faith. Jews and Christians argue that there exist other ways of coming to know such as divine revelation. Moreover, biases and acquisitiveness influence the objective application of the scientific method since science and scientists exist as part of the culture in which scientists work.

Identifiable biases in scientific objectivity include:

1. Gender-based inferences about males and females arising from an androcentric bias inherent in male-dominated archaeology (Conkey 1991, Conkey and Williams 1993).The distance to be bridged between evidence and hypothesis warrants questioning since the assumption of cross-species conformity and the adoption of animal modeling is highly questionable when applied to early human beings (Longino and Doell 1983).
2. Self-fulfilled prophecy dealing with data and its collection i.e., the relationship between the observer and the people to be studied (Conkey and Williams 1993).
3. Politically constituted nature of knowledge and its historical embellishments (di Leonardo 1991).
4. The “content-stripping” attributes of the scientific research paradigm lying in the assumption that general laws must be “context independent, free of specific constraints of any particular context and therefore applicable to all” although human action and experience remain context-dependent (Mishler 1979:2).
5. Concealment, manipulation, and falsification of research data to reach desired or preconceived conclusions for personal ends (usually to achieve or maintain monetary support, donors agendas, and academic prestige), political change, and/or economic goals (such as the redistribution of wealth from the prosperous to the impoverished as evidenced in the global warming scam advanced by Marxists, socialists and political progressives).
6. The political, intellectual, and emotional baggage brought by researchers and their supervisors and funders to reach social, religious, and partisan ends. While one would hope that such biases would have minimal impact they are far more pervasive than scientists would like to admit. The challenge is not science it is the the political nature and behavior of scientists. The politicization of science by the leftists with their incessant call for “Follow the Science,” meaning their “science” or more properly pseudoscience, became evident to the American general public in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis of 2020. In the American Thinker, P. F. Whalen stated it well, “The problem is scientists, and to be more accurate, scientists who lie to us and are politically motivated while pretending to be otherwise” (Science can be Great… Scientists? That Depends).
7. Other factors a researcher brings to the research situation. Concerning a shift in applied anthropology practice von Willigen writes “certain anthropologists came to feel that social scientists cannot separate their work from real-world values, and that to do so creates a dangerous illusion of true objectivity” (von Willigen 1993:28). For a good contemporary example read Funders, Politics and Bias by Hershel Shanks in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review 36.1.

Nevertheless, such biases do not exist at such a level nor reach such a magnitude as to warrant the rejection of the scientific method as some postmodernist thinkers seek. The scientific method has shown itself to be the most effective means for coming to know when utilized by ethical, objective, non-politicized scientists (i.e., they have no “ism” underlying their work). Remember, science has nothing to prove and science is not a weapon for political hacks to espouse their ideologies.

When scientists tinker with the data to reach their personal, partisan, and social ends they do not practice science but rather fraudulent pseudoscience with all the class of mafia dons!