Page 22 - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science

THE QUR'AN LEADS THE W A Y TO SCIENCE

RELIGION HELPS SCIENCE TO

BE RIGHTLY GUIDED

Science is the investigation of the material world we live in through
observation and experiment. Accordingly, in conducting such
investigation, science will lead to various conclusions based on the
information collected through observation and experimentation. In
addition, however, every discipline of science also has certain norms that
are simply taken for granted, or accepted without further verification. In
scientific literature, this set of norms is called a "paradigm".
This initial outlook charts the "course" of all related scientific
investigation. As is known, the first step in scientific investigation is the
formulation of a "hypothesis". To begin with, for their research topic,
scientists must form a hypothesis. Then, this hypothesis is tested through
scientific experimentation. If observations and experiments verify the
hypothesis, the "hypothesis" is called an "established principle or law". If
the hypothesis is disproved, then new hypotheses are tested, and the
process continues.
The formulation of the hypothesis, which is the first step of the process,
is often dependent on the scientists' basic viewpoint. For instance,
scientists, if committed to an erroneous outlook, could base their work on
a hypothesis that "matter has a tendency to self-organize without the
involvement of a conscious agent". Then, they would conduct years of
research to verify that hypothesis. Yet, since matter has no such capability,
all these efforts are bound to fail. Furthermore, if scientists are overly
obstinate about their hypothesis, the research may well last for years, and
even for generations. The end result, though, would be but a huge waste
of time and resources.
However, had the point of assumption been the idea that "it is

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