The atheists' take on science: a problem

There's nothing like a good book to expand knowledge, awareness and ways of looking at things. I've started reading 'Philosophy of Science', the original 1986 title of the book 'Science and its limits' by Del Ratzch. I'd recommended it to Jonathan on the Musings blog, see top right, and he posted a rather different take on it. It's an overview, 165pp long, and one of a series called 'Contours of Christian Philosophy'. That might turn off some readers before even opening it, which would be a shame, because core sections present a clear informative account of ways of understanding the nature, role and scope of science as they have developed over the centuries.
Chapter 1, Science: What is it?, outlines its basic aspects and presuppositions. The italicised words give a flavour: natural science, discipline, theoretical, natural explanations, empirical, objectivity, rational...
Chapter 2, The Traditional Conception of Science, outlines first the 'Baconian conception'. Next, rationality, sub-divided into prediction, covering-law model of explanation, hypothetico-deductive testing (in which concepts including proof, experiment, hypotheses, deduction and logic are summarised). Then the empirical element, and objectivity, where the role of the scientific community is briefly addressed. Followed by some initial implications.

It proceeds to examine 'Positivism: a Major School in the Traditional View', and its position on the empirical, rationality and objectivity. This is where, in light of the current debate with atheists, things start to get interesting. On the empirical, DR notes that British philosopher John Locke, was so impressed by the accomplishments of Newton, which he perceived as:

'having banned the nonempirical from science... that he thought that if restricting science to the purely empirical had proved to be the ultimate key to scientific knowledge (and who could doubt that?) then that restriction must be the key to other knowledge as well... the genesis of modern empiricism, the doctrine (note) that all concepts, ideas and substantive knowledge available to human beings must ultimately rest solely on experience - in particular, on sensory experience and observation. The implication of that doctrine (forcefully advocated by David Hume) was that any alleged idea or belief which did not have that empirical grounding was really empty and quite literally meaningless', p33.

When I read that, I thought heavens, this is starting to sound familiar.

I won't be spending much more blog time outlining and quoting another author's thoughts so extensively, but I've done so here in the hope of engaging my atheist readers in a level of reading and discussion we can all take seriously. Hopefully around a book like this, or of similar quality. DR goes on to outline the implications and decline of positivism, delineating the flaws that made it 'increasingly clear that the positivist outlook was bankrupt as a philosophy of science, and ultimately incoherent as well', p36. A brief look at the decline of the traditional view of science closes chapter 2. There are seven more chapters to go.

This isn't half as entertaining as reading in 'The God Delusion' about belief in God being comparable to belief in fairies, unicorns, an orbiting chocolate teapot and an imaginary friend called Binker. But golly, the science looks more serious.