We're thinking a lot lately about plans for Isaac's schooling, and along those lines, I have been wondering how best to foster various intellectual disciplines in him. The process is more complicated, I think, than simply repeating ideas in front of him over and over -- I don't want to get to a point where my words are meaningless background noises to him, but I do think that some of that repetition will be necessary. I think that the first and most necessary item for me to pursue will be cooperative works; he should help me make things, and making things together will provide natural and easy opportunities to teach him (he has to learn to do what I'm doing after all). To this end, I've been trying to engage with him in little lego projects, and to come up with ways for him help me whenever I fix or assemble things around the house -- he's usually eager to help, and I don't want to shut that down by refusing him.

Once he has a habit of working with me, and when he knows the joy of creation, I expect we'll be able to do projects together, and those projects will be the most valuable time for me to instill ideas in him while we work. I've already seen that he has excellent comprehension skills; when I show him how something works, he is eager to listen, and he is able to repeat what I've taught him and even to teach others. For example, my wife showed him once how she changed the batteries in one of his toys; later, when the batteries died, he brought me the toy and showed me where the compartment was, and explained to me that I needed to turn the screw to remove it from the compartment panel before I could access the batteries. I know it doesn't sound like much, but he only just turned 3, and it's a great improvement from where he was last year, and so I believe he's proving to be very intelligent, and he's developing intellectually at a lively pace, and I'm very much needful to pace my interactions with his growth.

We've been presenting Christianity to him regularly (so far it's been in terms like, "let's thank God for ___", and "Jesus wants you to be kind", because try as I might, he doesn't seem to grasp substitutionary atonement yet), and so I think he'll intuitively have correct philosophical and epistemological leanings, but the difficulty is that the solutions to epistemic concerns are so natural and so intuitive that a person who hasn't been forced to think through them won't have any conscious knowledge of them at all. And so when a proper explanation is given alone, it's so obviously true that it's taken for granted and treated as meaningless, but when someone comes along with a poor or misleading explanation, it isn't easy to see why they're wrong. To this end, I intend to integrate epistemic explanations into practical work, especially as he gets a little older and needs to crunch numbers to complete minor electrical or programming projects. I intend to impress upon him the necessity of acknowledging your epistemic roots when deciding how to process observations.

But also, I've been thinking about some of the thinkers who I admire from long past, and how they decided to pass along their legacies (obviously, through books). In particular, I've always admired Augustine for his production of an enchiridion targeted particularly for his son. I think, since my son is quickly approaching school age, it's time for me to begin work on something like this. I just need to organize the topics for it, so that I can prepare the ideas I think are important in a manner which is relatable and easy to digest, even for very young people.

To that end, here I will write out a rough sketch of the things I want to include in such a work, off the top of my head. This isn't a definitive table of contents; I'm just brainstorming here. These are in no particular order:

• Logic and argument
• laws of thought
• boolean algebra
• identifying necessary conclusions
• various logical errors/fallacies; their limits
• identifying emotions and controlling their influence in a discussion
• deduction, induction, inference, prediction
• types of evidence
• categories of knowledge (laws, theories, etc)
• linguistic barriers and how to cut through them (dismantling intentional linguistic barriers, i.e. "language as a weapon")
• practical steps to drill to the root of a disagreement
• mental blocks/hangups
• how they're formed
• identifying them in yourself and others
• how to dismantle them in yourself
• how to gently handle them in others
• knowing when to stop and let someone else be wrong
• Epistemology
• different ways to frame the problem
• the one and the many
• perception vs reality
• rationalism vs empiricism
• materialism vs idealism
• "other minds"
• logic indefensible on its own; references itself
• nature an unreliable teacher
• capacity for error
• measuring error (probabilities, Bayes)
• various secular theories; their successes and failings in particular
• foundationalism, coherentism, infinitism, constructivism, "pragmatism", naturalized epistemology, standpoint epistemology*, relativism, idealism
• the need for God; the importance of the divine Nature
• the trinity
• natural universe a self expression
• logical laws a self expression
• supernatural (closed/open systems)
• limits on supernatural (necessity of doing vs power to do vs capacity to do)
• trustworthiness, faith, ultimacy, etc
• "one truth, many lies"
• God's nature and the abolition of the supernatural
• limits of knowledge
• limits of certainty
• measuring/assessing confidence (empirical: evidence, experiments, predictions, repeatability... rational: valid vs sound, strength of deduction, degree of removal from ultimate, perspicuity, articulation, communicability, defensibility)
• epistemic weights/priorities
• reason for practical expectation of certainty
• how epistemology affects approach to science, math, language, etc.
• Literacy
• importance of communication skills (both listening and telling)
• importance of reading
• recommended books/authors
• value of fiction, poetry and art
• how to approach the study of history
• how to approach the study of philosophy
• tips for how to power through boring but valuable books
• how to filter misinformation online and in books
• informed skepticism vs broad skepticism
• how and when to speed-read
• Hermeneutics
• using the clear to interpret the unclear
• reading a whole book as a single argument
• avoiding prooftexting
• distinguishing between poetry and literal narrative
• identifying precisely what the text does and doesn't say; limiting yourself first to what it does say
• how to do a word study; (practical guidelines; e.g. words don't have to mean the same thing every time they're used, etc..)
• how to handle passages which quote other passages
• managing symbolism
• taking interpretation tips from Biblical authors
• avoiding convoluted theories which demand unnatural interpretations
• avoiding advice from heretics 
• don't waste your time with Rabbinic commentary or LDS D&C
• there's enough good writing out there to occupy all your time, so you'll lose out by spending too much on bad writing
• sometimes it's valuable to read a book you know in advance will be wrong; how to know when that is
• Ethics
• "problem of evil"
• nature of evil
• nature of God
• euthyphro
• necessity of Christianity
• greatest good; its impact in decision making process
• practical decision making
• anxiety and other hidden motive forces
• setting priorities (the highest priority, the greatest good)
• altruism vs expectation of reward
• commitment, following through
• a noble character; abstract topics
• religion
• integrity
• self control/courtesy
• (fruits of the spirit etc)
• hard work/perseverence
• curiosity/inquisitiveness
• respect/honor
• healthy skepticism
• "gray areas"
• masculinity, what it means to be a man
• when to fight
• how to know what hills to die on
• how to view governments in light of the imminent kingdom of God
• the option of taking a government office
• military service
• Topics in Christianity
• the Gospel
• what it means to make your faith "your own"
• having an experiential relationship with God
• grace vs. mercy
• soteriology
• Christology
• theonomy
• eschatology
• prayer & meditation
• forgiving others
• God's knowledge of himself
• infallibility and preservation of scripture
• history of the text, its transmission, etc
• the canon
• translation issues
• the Bible's literary superiority
• how to identify damnable heresy
• examples of tricky false faiths (Mormons, RC, etc)
• other debates of the day
• covenant theology
• spiritual gifts
• predestination
• original sin/federal headship
• what about people who never hear the gospel
• predestination
• age of earth (geology)
• age of solar system (astronomy)
• evolution (biology/archaeology)
• evidence for Biblical events
• evidence for God
• gender
• "victimless" crimes
• multiverse/simulation theories
• why there is something rather than nothing
• etc
• Other miscellaneous topics
• what is "science" and why the word matters
• what is the value of a title -- secular credibility
• the value of education
• repeating what past philosophers have said, regurgitating millennia-old debates, vs contributing to knowledge
• "choosing what to believe"
• purpose and meaning in life
• authority figures (or figures claiming authority); how to view/treat them, and what to expect in return
• being proud of yourself, what/who you are, without being prideful
• masculinity
• femininity (ask your mom; I'm not actually gonna write about this)
• measuring twice, cutting once
• the value of dirt, sweat, and difficult labor
• hard labor a gift from God
• handling stress (Epictetus)
• interpersonal conflict
• pursuing wisdom, knowledge
• being slow to speak
• politics
• government aid and the strings attached
• government protections vs freedom
• the importance of a vote
• local vs national elections
• top-down vs bottom-up change
• social/political trends I've observed; some predictions about the future and what might happen during your lifetime
• how non-Christians see us and talk about us; how to process it
• deciding what you want to do with your life, professionally
• general financial advice

Needless to say this will be a lengthy tome. All these topics are at one time or another touched upon in my blog, but not with much structure. I'm intentionally leaving out a few very practical matters, such as dating advice, because I'd like to have those conversations in person. But I think it will be valuable for me to write all this out, because what if I die and don't get to tell him myself? It's not that I expect him to adopt all my views, but rather that I hope to teach him how to critically process new information. I don't expect anyone except my son to take an interest in this book, because I have no credentials which should make anyone want to take me seriously, and I will consider it a great success, an outstanding joy, if my son does ever take an interest in my ideas and read it. But these topics have proved very valuable to me, and I wish that someone had sat down with me and explained them all before I went to college, so that I would have have fewer regrets as to my behaviors, and would have wasted less time and made less a fool of myself by wandering aimlessly through those endless opinions, fruitless explanations, and sophomoric philosophical dead-spaces.

"I can't be bothered to learn about that."

I've been asked to help moderate a forum where the age of the earth will be debated. This video was posted on the forum, and I listened to it yesterday while working. I want to respond to the video, but not in the forum, because I expect my response to be very long, and I'm not inclined to post a very long argument in that forum at this time.

In short, I disagree with some of his premises concerning falsification and justification or confirmation. I'll explain, but first, here's what I'm listening to while I write today:

Regarding falsification:

I believe that there is only one theory which is in all respects coherent with ultimately verifiable reality, and all other theories are falsifiable by reference to truths which are confirmed in ultimate. If a theory continually changes in order to adapt itself to observations about reality, then it will eventually be conformed entirely to reality and be true, even if that means it finally bears no resemblance to its initial form. So I don't believe that there is any such thing as a false unfalsifiable theory -- only that we might not immediately have the means to falsify a given theory at a given moment. 

This does not mean that I'm willing to accept every theory which isn't as yet falsified, but only that I do not believe that theories can be rejected on the grounds that they are not falsifiable. He seems to acknowledge that unfalsifiable theories are not always invalid when he says, "if you have two theories and one is falsifiable and the other is not, you should probably be leaning toward the more falsifiable theory, other things being equal." However, I only agree with this statement insofar as it is relevant to a scenario where I have two ideas which are in all other things equal, except that one possesses a known means of falsification but the other doesn't, and I must immediately make a decision with irreversible consequences based on adherence to one or the other of those ideas. In the general course of things, if all other things are really equal except that one is falsifiable and the other isn't, then I think it's better to reserve judgement while pursuing (a) the known mode of falsification for the first theory, and (b) the discovery of a mode of falsification for the second. 

Here comes the chorus: "But the existence of God is a plain example of something unfalsifiable!" 

And, strictly on the notion that a "falsifiable thing" is "a thing for which, if it were really false, it could be disproved", I disagree. I don't even agree that it's unfalsifiable prior to our transition to the afterlife. I'm saying, the existence of God is falsifiable (on those terms) in this life, while we're alive. How? Well, step 1 is to develop a coherent epistemological framework which can function apart from God, so that we can then brainstorm a test which makes sense given that framework. And, why should you be curious about the nature of the test in step 2, when you don't even know what tools step 1 affords us to work with? How would you make sense of step 2 without step 1? In the meantime, if all our rational epistemological frameworks do depend on the existence of God, the question about falsifying him by means of a tool which depends on implicit affirmation of his existence puts us into a position where the very endeavor is in conflict with itself. No, step 1 has to be accomplished before proceeding to step 2. 

Regarding justification or confirmation:

He suggest, on the grounds that YEC can survive scrutiny in light of any material evidence, and has not made any material or immediately observable (repeatable) predictions, that YEC is unfalsifiable, and so the strength of confirmation held by YEC is certainly weaker than the strength of confirmation held by ToE. 

First of all, it's not true that YEC can survive scrutiny in light of any material evidence. Any observable example of evolution causing one kind of thing to become another kind of thing would do it (I acknowledge that's a frustrating proposal, since large scale evolution is said to take many lifetimes; nonetheless, it's not an uncommon proposal, and it meets the requested criteria for a mode of material falsification). For example, let's see groups of apes having children which are some kind of proto-men, and proto-men having children who are men. Let's see that line blurred, and nature effectually processing one kind to another, in real time, as opposed to inferring the event from fossils, which evidence, YEC maintains, is equivocal. If ToE is right, then we will someday see it, though it may not be in our lifetime. Likewise, ToE asks for things like (as mentioned in the above video) a rabbit or a bird deposited in some or another layer of sediment; perhaps it exists, perhaps not, and perhaps we won't find it in our lifetime -- the world is a big place, and I don't see how Haldane's rabbit is much better than something like Russel's Teapot -- both can be found, but neither is a repeatable test that we can just perform on a whim, and neither is necessarily going to be found in our lifetime. 

Moreover, if Haldane's rabbit were found, (and for rhetorical purposes I am here about to engage in the kind of uncharitable speculation to which the above video is dedicated), I'm quite confident that ToE advocates would find a way to explain it without abandoning their commitments to ToE, as he does in the video while addressing and rebutting his selection of YEC arguments. Indeed, a major premise in the video, that people who are subject to the kind of self-delusion which he describes must rationalize the means by which dissenters are able to maintain their dissent, is exemplified by the subject matter of the video, which is to identify the means by which YEC people are able to maintain their dissent. I submit for your consideration: if two theories are held by a large number of people, how does it reflect on one of them to suggest that its dissenters depend on thought processes which are best described by comparison to mental illness, and therefore should not be heard in public, as is done in this video from about 44 minutes to the end? 

Here's a proposal: given two conflicting presentations, all other things equal, if one of the presentations makes a major point out of suggesting that the other shouldn't be heard at all, it is precisely this presentation which should be held in lower regard.

But I'm digressing. Back on point:

He suggests that a theory which is able to make clear, precise, unexpected, and true predictions is strongly confirmed. I don't disagree, but I'm not aware of any such predictions made and confirmed by ToE, and I think (as he seems also to indicate) that this is not the only way to strongly confirm a theory. Where he goes wrong, then, is by indicating that YEC is not as strongly confirmed as ToE, only on the grounds that it lacks said predictions. YEC is strongly confirmed on other grounds: namely, it's as strongly confirmed as the Bible, and for the same reasons that the Bible is strongly confirmed. I've spent a lot of time going over arguments for the truth of the Christian faith at length in prior posts on this blog, so I won't do it right here in this post, (these arguments are long and take a lot of time to write out), but I might write out the current status of my argument in another post in the future. In short, the Bible's presentation of YEC is both clearer and more strongly confirmed than ToE, and the means of its confirmation are not the means by which ToE attempts to confirm itself -- it is strongly confirmed by means other than the means presented in the video.

So, I don't think it's a problem for YEC people to say, "it doesn't matter whether the answer to X is Y or Z, either way my theory will remain in tact"; because it isn't the case that YEC people are claiming to have epistemic certainty about the Y or Z of X, bur rather that they're identifying that X is not relevant to the particular mode of confirmation applicable to their theory, and so they are ready to adapt their understanding of X based on findings relevant to Y or Z.

I'm not a materialist or strict empiricist. I believe that epistemic certainty can come from rationalizations abstracted from material evidence, and that said non-empirically-obtained certainty can be strong enough to dictate adherence to a seemingly-less-likely interpretation concerning otherwise equivocal (explainable) material evidence.

Now, all that said...

I do believe that material falsification is a very good means to distinguish truth from falsehood. And so, I see some value to be gained from the practice of using a theory to make empirical predictions, and from inventing hypothetical scenarios by which the theory might be materially falsified. To that end, I've decided to dedicate some mental energy toward imagining ways to materially falsify YEC, and to imagining predictions that YEC might make. I'm frustrated that I'm not an established researcher in that field, and so I don't have all the tools at hand which I would like to have in order to help me come up with an informed prediction or hypothetical means of falsification, but I expect to be learning a lot more about it in the near future, and so I'm going to try and see what I can come up with. After all, what good am I if I don't work to contribute to the things I think are excellent?

"And that, I think, is the more dangerous aspect, really, to Young Earth Creationism. You're not just talking and teaching them ludicrous falsehoods; you're teaching them to think in ways that are twisted and are going to lead them down the garden path."

I don't enjoy the thought that my blog is rather becoming like one of those outlets where people complain about covid and tout conspiracy theories about it.... but this stuff is really remarkable to me and I don't know how to process it. When I don't know how to process something, it goes on my blog. 

The latest covid restrictions just came down the pipes from corporate. Now, vaccinated people don't have to wear masks unless they're (a) in a conference room with unvaccinated people, or (b) within 6 ft of an unvaccinated person. If you are unvaccinated, the new rule is that you have to wear your mask all the time, even if you're alone at your desk. (I will be working with my door closed from now on). You may only take it off if you are in a break room and eating.

We aren't allowed to ask one another about our medical history, so the corporate lawyers have determined that we can get around that rule by instead requiring everyone to display their vaccination status openly, by carrying a red or green badge. If you are vaccinated and you see someone with a red badge, you have to don your mask before coming within 6 ft of them.

Let's not forget that the reason vaccinated people have to mask up before approaching unvaccinated people is that the vaccine doesn't actually give you immunity. You can still catch and spread covid after you get vaccinated. And, the mask protects the people around you from yourself, not the other way around. And, unvaccinated people are (if the msm is right) at higher risk for developing severe symptoms than vaccinated people. So, that is to say, all the stuff in my previous blog about it being irrational to require unvaccinated people to wear masks more often than vaccinated people, is still true

So basically, they're making unvaccinated people into functional pariahs. They have to cover their face at all times, wear an additional mark of their status, and everyone else must don PPE before approaching them.

I'm no psychologist, so I won't speculate about objective psychological consequences that might occur broadly as a consequence of this, but I will say that I'm personally having a hard time with it, and I expect that being the only person wearing a mask all the time, and watching people catch themselves and don their PPE before approaching, or avoid me altogether to avoid the discomfort of a mask, may be a distressing experience for me emotionally. Idk how I'm going to handle it if the policy lasts a long time, or worse, if it extends beyond the workplace.

If I'm to try to frame this in a positive light, I suppose I'd say that this will give me the opportunity to discover any the other unvaccinated people in the factory, so that I can pull them aside and discuss the matter at length, and find out how they're handling it.

"You are sharks, certain; but if you govern the shark in you, why then you would be angels; for all angels are nothing more than sharks well governed."

Quite tired recently. This post is another one I've added-to here and there over the course of several days.

Got a few topics to cover today. I'm gonna talk about Covid again (venting about it here helps me get this out of my system, so I can avoid the topic in normal day-to-day conversations). And then I'm gonna muse a little about some dumb stuff I was thinking about while driving.

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So my company has changed their mask policy (again again). Now it's the case that you must wear a mask only if you're unvaccinated. Let's think about this a little... All this time, I've been told that wearing the mask doesn't prevent you from getting Covid, so much as it prevents you from spreading Covid (by sneezing on other people, etc). More recently, we're being told that vaccinated people still get the virus and transmit it, so (the impression I'm getting, from what I've heard is) the vaccine doesn't actually reduce infection rates, but it just reduces the severity of symptoms in those who get vaccinated. 

So, if vaccinated and unvaccinated people both tend to catch and transmit the virus, and if unvaccinated people are at higher risk for severe symptoms, then it is the unvaccinated people who need to be protected from the vaccinated people, not the other way around. If wearing the mask protects everyone around you, and not yourself, then it is the vaccinated people who should wear the mask, more than the unvaccinated people. This being the case, how should I interpret a requirement that unvaccinated people wear masks? Consider also the studies I showed before, where it was demonstrated that masks actually do not prevent spread of Covid, but cause harm to the wearers. What else can I conclude? It seems to me that the new company policy is less like a measure intended to protect people at large, and more like a measure intended to protect vaccinated people and punish unvaccinated people. 

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This has me thinking back on the history of the vaccine (or at least, my perceptions of the press releases as I saw them).... First, it was being rushed through approvals, and there was concern about it's safety. Then, for a while, it was simultaneously "safe and effective", and also "not approved for use in most countries", and also, "undergoing human trials in Africa", and also, "being charitably given first to those most in need, the Africans". Not long into that, anyone who repeated the concerns which we had at first, about it being untested, were conspiracy theorists touting misinformation -- liars; the science was settled; the vaccine was safe and effective, and ready to be delivered en masse. But then, several of the approved vaccines were found to be causing the deaths of their recipients, and some countries had to cancel their subscriptions to certain vaccine manufacturers, in spite of the fact that the vaccines were yet still safe and effective (I'll never forget listening to the radio broadcast where some foreign minister or delegate explained why his country was going to stop using the vaccines from a certain manufacturer -- that the vaccines were safe and effective, and yet caused a death rate higher than Covid, and so they were going to discontinue use of them, even though they were safe and effective). But then, we found out that the vaccines didn't produce a lasting immunity; the immunity wore off after about a year, but we would be ok forever if we got a booster after 6 months. No wait, immunity wore off after about 8 months. No wait, it wore off after about 6 months, and actually you need two boosters. No wait, it wore off after about 3 months, but we're still only giving you two, maybe three boosters, and those on a 6 month interval. Then it seemed that the vaccines didn't produce any immunity at all, and so didn't conform to the thus-far accepted definition of "vaccine", so the CDC changed the definition of "vaccine" from a treatment which produced immunity to a therapy which produced "protection". Now they think that the vaccine reduces severity of the symptoms of Covid, without reducing its infection rates or transmissibility. Meanwhile, (last I heard) the rate of adverse effects from the vaccine is about 1/10 the rate of long-term adverse effects from Covid.

So we look to Fauci, the hero of his own Netflix documentary in his lifetime; the voice of Science itself! Help us Fauci. Give us some advice. So what does Fauci recommend? Wear multiple masks, and ignore the tortured dogs and the gain-of-function-oh-wait-let's-change-the-definition-of-this-too research; ignore the burning economy, the global mental health crisis, and the adverse effects of treatment which (see the whole "release of lot numbers" debacle) were in large part predictable and avoidable. All the death -- the destruction of families and businesses -- it's all worth it if it saves just one life from coronavirus, and if you say otherwise then you're a cold, heartless, anti-science, misinformed, uneducated, liar.

I've got no reason to believe that the speculations declarations concerning vaccine effectiveness or benefit won't diminish again, as they have consistently done during the short life of this vaccine. And, seeing no clear benefit in it, but very clear possibility of harm, I see no good reason to get it, except that I might suffer political harm in not taking it. Thankfully, my company has recently issued a statement (it is only the "latest") stating there will be no vaccine mandates in the future, but as I said above, unvaccinated people will be required to continue wearing a mask.

Then again... my company flip-flops on Covid policies almost as fast as Science, which, at the rate it changes, either is not science at all, or the laws of physics and nature are so volatile now that experiments are reversing their results every month. Oh wait, there are no experiments. I guess science and the scientific method no longer keep company with one another. Science is philosophy in denial. "We're not philosophizing; our inclinations against this statistical data are empirical reality." 

I suppose I'd better be careful, lest I forget that "the science is settled!" and so lose all credibility.

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Speaking of science and inclination, I have noticed two simultaneous trends in my brief experience here on earth. Maybe this is nothing at all, but it interests me nonetheless to speculate about it:

Secular, empirical, epistemology (here I go generalizing) seems very much concerned with statistical inference. In theory alone, NonChristians don't gain certainty about a feature by seeing it, but rather they gain confidence about the feature by repeatedly testing their eyes against it in order to generate a statistical model. They perceive that there is an unknown or unknowable quantity of unknown or unknowable variables affecting the object of their perceptions (and consequently the truth of their inferences), and so rather than make significant effort to rule out every possible barrier to truth, they simply perform the test over and over and then aggregate the results into sets, sorted by statistical significance, and content themselves with formulating plans of action on the highest probability result.

And now, it would seem, so does popular Science (although, not all science). I recognize that there are still a great many fields performing their work with the most rigorous adherence to the scientific method (making a test in, as much as possible, a closed system, to achieve absolutely predictable results, in effort to disprove your hypothesis). However, I've noticed that most of the time when I see "facts" touted for argument or news reporting, the sources cited are not strictly repeatable scientific experiments, but rather they consist of aggregated data from a great many observations, with various formulas applied to help rule out known sources of error. They're built on an implicit understanding that statistical sets are the best we can do. 

This idea, combined with the understanding that science consists of theories, which change as new data arises, presents the scientists with a scenario where they may generate a high probability cause-effect relationship and then call it "the science" -- which is to say, it's the best information we have, and so it participates in the operating assumptions of the scientific community until further notice. This understanding is summarized with the word "science", and science has such an excellent reputation that it is interchangeably summarized with the word "fact". And so, if an observed effect occurs with high enough probability in a set of observations in an open system where outliers, as well as observations affected by known sources of error, are systematically ignored, it is considered to be the factual effect of a given cause. Worse, however, is that it is presented to the public as though it were the factual effect of a given cause.

Without going into extended detail about the very terminal problems inherent in pretending to have any confidence at all amid an unknown or unknowable quantity of unknown or unknowable variables... I take issue with the above system because it isn't Christian. The Bible teaches us that we may know things with certainty; particularly the things described in scripture, which on the whole are of consequence in real-world expectations concerning all other mathematical, natural, and physical laws.  The scientific method was designed with such epistemic certainty in mind, and it is the expectation of a scientist who employs that method, that all variables are knowable, and that as he eliminates variables in effort to produce a closed system for his experiment, unknown variables will become more apparent, until what variables remain yet unknown are truly inconsequential, and the repeatable result is the only possible result within the boundaries described by the laws which govern this universe.

A Christian who does science (not a "Christian Scientist" I am very loathe to explain: "Christian Science" is the name of a cult nearly as abhorrent as secular science, both being neither tolerably Christian nor tolerably scientific) seeks to find the truth of the matter in finality, and acts on the expectation that it is obtainable -- that a rigorous application of the scientific method is capable of generating actual factual information about the universe. Combine this with the most strict requirement for intellectual integrity, and a Christian should only say that a thing is fact if it is, indeed, fact. So we see, Philosophy and science are interdependent. 

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Speaking of being a follower.. since I moved to CT,  I have had an interesting experience a few times: While driving, I have found myself behind a car who drove agreeably and seemed to make all the same turns as me for a long while (my commute is about 45 minutes). And, I begin feeling emotionally attached to the car in front of me; the driver is a friend, and I take care to maintain comfortable space between them and me, for their sake. After some time of this, I begin to daydream on the road, as is startlingly common for me, though I am generally good at snapping out of it when something is amiss, and, thoughtlessly, I will follow that car into a wrong turn. Sometimes I catch myself quickly, but sometimes I'll follow for several minutes before realizing that I don't recognize my surroundings. The experience is usually rather surreal for me, and as often as not it is remedied by Google Maps, which is no less an example of the topic about which I here soliloquize than the strange car which led me astray in the first place. 

It gets me wondering, what other things am I following without really thinking about it -- on "autopilot", following the leader, or sticking to my tribe, without really paying attention to which way they're going?

The common accusation on this topic comes from religion or political theory, right -- "you blindly follow the Bible", or, "you blindly follow your political camp". But, honestly, I'm so saturated with challenges to self-asses and self-challenge my faith in God, coming both from Christians and atheists alike, that I do it all the time! In fact, I've done it so much, and so repeatedly found that I have no reason whatsoever to abandon God, yet every reason to remain faithful (by God's grace to me, upholding my spirit), I'm honestly tired of it. If there is something blind and unquestioned in my faith, then it is so deep and buried underneath other suppositions that I'm entirely unaware of it.

Those things are precisely the issue -- it does me no good to attack "Christianity" in myself over and over. It's better, rather, I think, to seek out the deep things, everything else, all my underlying suppositions, my buried thoughts, and question every one of them, and then measure the consequences of those contests against the greater structure which leans on the thoughts in question.

"I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship...Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in this life's howling gale?"