Welcome to Breakpoint, daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Michael Faraday was born in London in 1791 to a local blacksmith and a housemaid.

Despite these humble beginnings, Faraday is now remembered among the most respected scientists in all of history, a pioneer in the fields of

electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Without Faraday, there would be no modern economy. At least,

that's what Andy Kessler recently claimed in the Wall Street Journal. Here's Kessler. Quote,

In 1820, Faraday noted that electricity applied to a loop of wire could get a magnet to move through it.

That was an insight that produced the electric motor.

It's now found in every fan, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and electric car.

Faraday then turned his own thinking inside out.

In 1831, he invented the dynamo, an inverse motor. By running electricity

down a long wire to an electromagnetic relay switch, you could ring a bell. This innovation

became the telegraph, the telephone, and today's wireless devices, all based on Faraday's induction,

end quote. Now, that resume alone would make Faraday someone well worth remembering.

But as Kester then continued to point out, his example also matters greatly in an age like ours,

when so many use science with a capital S as a kind of unquestionable authority, even beyond its natural purview.

For example, the off-repeated phrases,

scientists say, or the science is settled, are usually intended to inspire a hushed awe and to silence

any dissent on everything from economics to government policy, to gender ideology, to climate

change. Now, Faraday might have laughed at this way of employing the science. While the

scientific enterprise points to the logic and the order that God is woven into the cosmos and is

therefore a high calling for God's image bear, people are often guilty of bias and irrationality.

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