What are scientific perspectives of miracles?

Answer 1

Undoubtedly some scientists believe in that miracles can happen, simply because they are Christians, Muslims or members of other faiths that teach miracles. However, this is different from a scientific perspective, because miracles should violate a law of nature and therefore be contrary to science.

Science never needs to consider whether most miracles, such as those in The Bible or the Koran, ever really occurred, because historians and scholars will have already established otherwise. When scientists began to realise that the world is far older than the scriptures say, they were not looking to disprove those scriptures and were at first somewhat embarrassed by their findings.

The Catholic Church has continued to pronounce miracles right up until the present day, usually as part of the canonisation of its saints. Scientists generally accept the right of a religion to teach miracles in this way, and do not go out of their way on a case by case basis to prove that these miracles never occurred. It can be noted that the preferred miracles of modern times are cures of cancer, which in any case can go into remission with the same regularity.

Lourdes is now a site for Catholic pilgrimage because it is renowned for its cures. It receives over 80,000 pilgrims a year, of whom approximately 7000 people have sought to have cures confirmed as miracles. Only 68 of these have been declared as scientifically inexplicable by both the Lourdes Medical Bureau and the Catholic Church, a number so small as to suggest that these cases were likely to have been cured or gone into remission anyway. This is the medical and scientific perspective. For more information on Lourdes, please visit: http://Christianity.answers.com/Catholicism/visions-of-the-virgin-mary
The miracle of the Shroud of Turn has been shattered by the historical evidence surrounding its appearance, the bishop's report, written in 1389 by Pierre D'Arcis to the Avignon pope, Clement VII and by recent scientific evidence establishing it as a forgery.