onald N. Giere, in his book Examining Science: A Cognitive Approach, points out that "The relationship between theory and data...is said to be a 'rational,' or even 'logical,' relationship," yet with the scientist-philosopher's job being "to demonstrate that a particular principle captures a relationship that is uniquely rational," the "severe empirical problem" surfaces in which Giere points out that "If scientific judgment were indeed guided by intuited principles of rationality, one would expect far more agreement among scientists than in fact exists."[2] He takes issue, as well, with "the social construction of scientific knowledge," arguing that "it utterly fails to explain the obvious success of science," such as technology based on science.[3] In place of the rational and social perspectives on science, Giere proposes a cognitive view that attempts to explain how scientists use cognition in the form of "perception, motor control, memory, imagination, and language" to "interact with the world."[4] Rather than rationality, which Giere views as "hypothetical," scientists would argue from the basis of what their cognition demonstrates to them.[5] This would yield a pure science that does not attempt to superimpose philosophical, or even religious, thinking upon scientific fact but merely reports what is found. With this approach, the different branches of science such as archaeology and anthropology would find greater common ground with each other and with the religious community seeking scientific answers for questions that originate with religion.
On the religious side of the controversy between creationism and evolution, religion would have to acknowledge that there are scientific principles that govern the universe and that science has a legitimate role in identifying and classifying these principles. What religion sees as "supernatural," i.e., beyond the scope of explanation in terms of natural science, is analo...