Can science and religion become integrated?

Can science and religion interact fruitfully with each other? I think so. I am not alone. Ian G. Barbour has been the leading voice, insisting that such cooperative interaction, or, as he puts it, Integration, is possible. He has categorized the possible interactions between science and religion as Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration, and argues that Integration is possible, and desirable. See here for scriptural reasons for Integration.

A recent issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (not readily available on the Internet) considers Barbour's ideas.

Taede A. Smedes, in "Beyond Barbour or Back to Basics? The Future of Science-and-Religion and the Quest for Unity," in the March, 2008 issue, pages 235-258, has some serious criticisms of Barbour. So does Sjoerd L. Bonting, in "Is There a Future for the Dialogue?" (pp. 227-234). Bonting defines science as the natural sciences, only, excluding most psychology from the natural sciences. He says that the different areas of the natural sciences ". . . develop theories from observations and experiments, frequently aided by mathematics." Religion, however, is harder to pin down, says Bonting. Religion is:
. . . a phenomenon with several facets, such as experience of the transcendent and the sacred, belief, spirituality, mysticism, prayer, worship, moral awareness, and theology. Because of its multifaceted nature I claim that religion is not a suitable partner for the dialogue with science. (p. 228)

Barbour is not quenched. "Taking Science Seriously Without Scientism: A Response to Taede Smedes," (pp. 259-269) is his response. He concludes his contribution by expressing his continued optimism for future constructive interaction between science and religion.

If God is the author of the objects that science studies, and has also revealed Himself through the Judaeo-Christian religion, then surely there is a place for positive accommodation between them, and Christians ought to work toward such positive accomodation.

Thanks for reading.

A biblical mandate for scientific study?

Psalm 111:1 Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and merciful. (ESV)

This can be read as a mandate for scientific study of nature. I suspect that that's not the main meaning, maybe not the intended meaning, which was probably more about how God had rescued the Israelites, but it's nice to think that it also applies to looking into the way things around us are put together.

I noticed this passage as a consequence of following the ESV on-line Bible reading for a day in May.

Thanks for reading.

Templeton Foundation: "Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?"

My personal answer, of course, is "no!"

The Templeton Foundation has posted a web page, which I have not yet fully explored, with the title indicated above. There are statements from a variety of people, giving different answers. I expect that this will be an important resource on questions of faith and science.

I found the essay by philosopher Mary Midgley to be especially insightful. (The essays all seem to be brief.)

Thanks for reading.

I believe that the universe was designed intelligently, but I don't believe in the Intelligent Design movement

My wife asked me, "What is your problem with Intelligent Design?" I am trying to post my answer, more or less as I gave it to her.

I believe that the universe, the earth, living things, and humans are here because they were planned by an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God. I can't prove this. People much smarter than I, with larger audiences, have not been able to make a knock-down argument for this proposition. Hebrews 11:3 implies that I comprehend this by faith. Some people do not believe in such a God. Not surprisingly, they see the same evidence that I do, and come to different conclusions. The converse is true of me and my fellow believers, of course. In other words, I believe in an intelligent designer.

Over the last twenty years or so, a movement has grown up. It calls itself the Intelligent Design movement (ID). I have problems with it, and a lot of other people, some of them Christians, also do. (Here's a recent example of a Christian who has such problems. He has said some of the same things I am, and more.) Why do we have problems with such a group? Here are some of the reasons.

1) ID claims that it is possible to scientifically prove that God designed things. On the face of it, that would be extremely difficult, especially for biological phenomena. An IDer may say (one, Michael Behe, did) that blood clotting is so complicated that it couldn't have come about through random mutation and natural selection. However, even if such an origin couldn't be fully proposed when Behe wrote his book, this isn't a knock-down proof of ID. It is always possible that a plausible path for the origin of blood clotting mechanisms by natural selection will be found. That's what has happened to most or all of the "proofs" in Behe's book.

Being as generous as possible, the number of peer-reviewed scientific articles showing scientific evidence for ID can be counted on one hand. The less generous would say that it would take five less fingers than that. (Behe himself, in his testimony in the Kitzmiller case, agreed that, at the time, there was only one. To be fair, he also said that there were few, if any, peer-reviewed articles showing that what he calls irreducibly complex structures could have arisen by natural selection.)

I believe that the proof for an intelligent designer is not a scientific matter at all. It's a religious or philosophical matter. (ID has also made it political.) Trying to prove God's design in a laboratory is like trying to fry eggs in the shower while the water is running. It's not an appropriate place to do this, it won't work, and it may mess up the shower.

2) ID claims that it is scientific, not religious. A recent court case (presided over by a church-going Republican judge, if that matters) denied this. And no wonder. The Discovery Institute, the most important ID institution, published the "Wedge Document," which lays out ID's strategy. One of the "Governing Goals" is "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” (p. 15 of the document from the previous link.) If that isn't religious, I'm not sure what is.

Why claim to be scientific, not religious? I'm afraid that the answer is to deceive. The court case cited in the previous paragraph was over an attempt to have ID included in public school science classes. If ID is religious, it doesn't belong in a science class.

Lest there be any doubt, I believe that God did design nature, and human beings.

3) ID is often presented (to conservative religious publics -- it was not presented this way in the court case) as compatible with young-earth creationism, when it isn't. When the South Carolina state legislature considered legislation that would have opened the door to presenting ID as an alternative scientific theory, at least one legislator hoped, apparently encouraged by IDers, that this would mean teaching that the earth was only a few thousand years old. But the leaders of the ID movement have said that they believe that the earth is probably very old, and two of the main young-earth creationist organizations have severely criticized ID. (See here for documentation.)

Again, this tactic is deceptive.

God doesn't need these sorts of defense.

I thank my wife for the questions. Thanks for reading.

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April 18, 2008. On this date, I modified the introductory portion of this post. There were no changes past the first paragraph.

June 2, 2008. On this date, I became aware of Behe's testimony about peer-reviewed articles in the Kitzmiller case, and added the parenthesis to the second paragraph under point 1).

Science versus Christianity? I don't think so.

A commenter on a previous post said, in part:

The scientist Stephen J. Gould said the world can be divided into two "majesteria." One is the physical world of evidence and experimentation. This is where science goes. The other is the world of thoughts and conjecture and belief. This is the world of religion. . . .

The creationism/evolution debate is caused by people leaving their magesteria. Creationism and Intelligent design are unscientific, just as denial of a soul is atheistic. Thus, unless people want Darwinism to be taught in Church, they must stop trying to insert Creationism and ID into science class. One is supported by fact, one by millenia of scripture. They cannot and should not be mixed.

The reference is to Stephen Jay Gould, one of the great popularizers of biological science of the late twentieth century. In Rocks of Ages, one of his many books, Gould proposed that science and religion are Non-Overlapping Magisteria -- each is legitimate, but they don't have anything important to say to each other. On the face of it, that's an attractive view. Science can't answer a lot of "why?" questions, and religion doesn't produce valid equations for gravitational attraction. However, there are some problems with such a view.

This scheme results in the trivialization of religion. Science, after all, is based on facts, and religion is only a matter of opinion, it is often said. In a way, that's true, but there are opinions in "science" that masquerade as facts. For religious persons, the things that are believed are also facts, although they can't be demonstrated experimentally.

For the Christian, there is another problem. That problem is that God has revealed Himself to us in multiple ways, and it is shortsighted and dangerous to ignore any of these ways. (I am not attempting to cover the subject of all the ways God is revealed to us in this post.) Why do I say this? Because of the Biblical evidence. Psalm 19 and Romans 1 tell us, respectively, that
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

and that "20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. . . ."

Not only that, but, as I was forcefully reminded in yesterday's sermon at the church I am presently attending:
Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
(All quotes from the ESV)

If all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ, surely that includes knowledge about quarks and ecosystems, quartz and energy. How, then, can Christianity be isolated completely from science, or how can science be completely isolated from religion? I am not arguing that only Christians can do effective science, or that the New Testament is a primary text for courses in astrophysics or microbiology, but that Christ, the Bible, and scientific findings are all ways of knowing about God. Nor am I arguing that we correctly understand all scripture, or all scientific findings.

Ian Barbour has been a leader in what he calls integration of science and religion. I think that, rather than what Barbour calls "conflict" or "independence," is the proper relationship between these two important areas of human thought.

Thanks for reading.

Science in Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness

I have recently posted (see here and here) on Ursula K. Le Guin's 1969 novel, The Left Hand of Darkness (LHD). I wish to continue this series, by musing briefly on the science in this work.

LHD is science fiction, in that Le Guin attempts to extrapolate from the science of today to the science of the future, on other worlds. It is hardly original with me to note that the products of magic and science might be difficult or impossible to distinguish (imagine Frodo trying to understand a cell phone). But there are no wizards in LHD. (Le Guin does have such in her fantastic Earthsea -- see here for one of my posts on that fictional world.)

Although she didn't invent the ansible for LHD -- she had already written about it, and, since she imagined it, so have others -- this device to communicate instantaneously across immense distances plays a role in the book.

The Gethenians are said to be the result of genetic engineering, carried out by the Hainish, a long time before the time of the action in LHD.

Le Guin, as usual, pays attention to the ecology of Gethen, and includes descriptions of how the climate might have influenced the biology. She also has a character say that the rapid adaptation of machines by humans on earth had a significant cost, a cost which the slow development of Gethenian industry has avoided.

Le Guin also pays some attention to psychological or neurological science. Telepathy is one of the abilities of Genly Ai, the Envoy to Gethen, and he is able to teach Estraven to develop this ability to some extent. The most remarkable mind power of the Gethenians is their ability to Foretell the future. They do this by combining minds, in a more or less controlled way, although there seems to be some art in the practice, not just science.

There is mention of various inventions, including electric automobiles, guns, radio, and the Chabe stove, a remarkable device that weighs a few pounds, yet can heat and light a room for months. Le Guin doesn't explain how this device might work, unfortunately.

Thanks for reading.

"What Have You Changed Your Mind About?"

Edge has published it's fascinating "World Question," with answers, for 2008. For this year, the "World Question" is "What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?"

Each year, Edge poses this question to a group of more or less influential people, scientists, computer experts, and others, and publishes their replies. The replies are mostly about something in the contributor's area of expertise, but this is not always so. There are something like 160 responses included this year. I confess that I have not read them all, and probably won't. It is also true that some of the responses weren't interesting to me, for various reasons. But some of them were very interesting. Generally, the responses are about a page each, and well-written.

This page of responses included several responses that I found interesting.

The most interesting response on the page was the shortest. Joseph Ledoux has, he says, changed his mind radically about how human memory works, and says why. If he's right, I need to change my mind, too.

Martin Seligman (there's a line or two about the accomplishments of each person, and you can click on the name to find out more about each contributor) has come to believe that there aren't any other civilizations in the galaxy, or maybe the universe.

Douglas Rushkoff says that the Internet hasn't changed people very much, if at all, and he's obviously pretty sour about the whole thing.

Howard Gardner says that psychologist Jean Piaget raised good questions, but came up with wrong answers.

Donald Hoffman believes that natural selection often has not selected for senses that bring in exact information about the world.

James O'Donnell writes about the Fall of Rome.

Colin Tudge thinks that genetic engineering of crops won't solve all the problems of agriculture, world-wide, because scientists don't understand all these problems, and that this merely illustrates that science as a whole is not as powerful an enterprise as many of us think it is.

Thanks for reading!

Science is not morally neutral

In an article in The New Atlantis, Yuval Levin argues that science is not a morally neutral enterprise. He writes that, on the contrary, " . . . modern science was a profoundly moral enterprise, aimed at improving the condition of the human race, relieving suffering, enhancing health, and enriching life." One of Levin's sources for this is Francis Bacon. But Descartes also wrote, says Levin, in a similar vein, and in his Discourse on Method, he said that the "conservation of health" was the greatest good.

Here is Descartes, in his own words (translated into English):
". . . the preservation of health, which is without doubt, of all the blessings of this life, the first and fundamental one;" (public domain)

What's wrong with that? Levin says that this idea, that health is the primary good, is the unspoken assumption behind much of what we do today, not just in science. (He didn't say it, but consider hospitals. They are always adding on and remodeling, while, at least where I live, public schools are in outmoded, cramped, and even dangerous buildings. That says something very loud about our priorities.)

Levin does say this "And so when the pursuit of health through science and medicine conflicts with even the deepest commitments of modern life—to equality, to rights, to self-government, or to protection of the weak—science and medicine typically carry the day."

In his concluding paragraph, Levin writes that "The real challenge lies not in the tools that science gives us, but in the attitudes it forms in us. The trouble is not that technology can be used for both good and evil, but that people in the age of technology may have real trouble telling the difference between the two."

This is a warning that we should certainly heed.

Thanks for reading.

On the roles of science and theology, by John F. Haught

I have read John F. Haught's Is Nature Enough: Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) I highly recommend the book. It is well written, by a knowledgeable scholar who is unquestionably a believer in a transcendent and omnipotent God, understandable, and only 215 pages long. Here's a key quote:

Theological explanation can coexist quite comfortably and noncompetitively with scientific explanation. How so? To begin with, theology does not emulate the kind of explanation that science gives with respect to natural causes. Although theology must be conversant with the methods and fruits of scientific discovery, it cannot imitate the scientific way of explaining things without losing its own identity. Discourse about divine action, moreover, must begin with metaphor or analogy,or else it is likely to appear as though the notion of divine creativity is competing with scientific accounts of natural causes. A major reason why "Intelligent Design Theory" draws so much justified animosity from both scientists and theologians today is that it attempts to situate divine action, barely disguised as "Intelligent Design," in an explanatory slot that is customarily reserved for science. Theology has a legitimate explanatory role in an extended hierarchy of explanations, but it is not an alternative to scientific understanding. (p. 60)

Thanks for reading. Read Haught! (Here's a later post on the same book, covering more issues.)

A Biblical mandate for scientific study

This verse hit me this morning as I was reading my devotions:

Psalm 111:2 Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them. (ESV)

How true! God's works are great, and studying them, as many great and not-so-great scientists (such as Isaac Newton) have believed, is a way of learning about God Himself. It's also a delight. In other words, nature is one of God's revelations to us.

. . . Newton appeared to believe that divine attributes could be read in the book of nature. The fact that the light of the fixed stars is one with the light of the Sun pointed to the unity of the Godhead; the fact that star systems had been placed at such immense distances from each other, preventing what would otherwise be an uncomfortable implosion, was a mark of wisdom and foresight. John Brooke, "The God of Isaac Newton," pp. 168-183, in Let Newton be!, edited by John Fauvel, Raymond Flood, Michael Shortland, and Robin Wilson. New York: Oxford, 1988. Quote is from p. 171.

For Isaac Newton and other architects of the modern scientific worldview, the "laws of nature" were a direct expression of God's will -- God's control of all physical processes. Nancey Murphy, "Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan's Ass and Schrödinger's Cat," pp. 325 - 357 in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy and Arthur R. Peacocke. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1997. Quote is from p. 325.

Thanks for reading.

Science and glory

I believe that the Bible teaches that one of the ways God has revealed Himself to us is through the natural world. (Psalm 19, Romans 1:20) I believe that we, fallen beings that we are, can and do make mistakes in our interpretation of this, and His other revelations, but that, nonetheless, they are all, including nature, legitimate.

The Bible says that "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2 (ASV)" The ESV has very similar language, and so do all other versions of the Bible that I have seen.

Many people have seen God's glory in various displays of natural beauty and majesty, from the microscopic to the telescopic. If His glory is seen in nature, (Psalm 19:1) then studying nature should increase our appreciation of His glory.

Proverbs 25:2 seems to be telling us that not only is God's glory seen in nature, but that we can get glory (although we aren't kings) by seeking out the ways and secrets of the natural world, in other words, by being scientists. It isn't the only way, of course, but it's a legitimate way to get glory for ourselves, and, more importantly, to increase our appreciation of God's glory.

Thanks for reading.

The Language of God, Chapter 11 and Appendix

This is the final post in a series on The Language of God, by Francis Collins. Here's the previous post.

In Chapter 11, Francis Collins gives some personal history not found in the first part of the book, about how his faith was tested and renewed as a doctor visiting an impoverished hospital in Africa. He closes by calling again for Concordism -- faith in God's revelation through the evidence of science, and His revelation through scripture.

In a lengthy appendix, Collins considers a number of bioethical (by which he means medical ethical -- unfortunately, but understandably, he doesn't consider environmental problems) dilemmas. These include moral and ethical questions raised by DNA testing, by cloning, and by the possibility of "enhancement" of human capabilities by some form of genetic engineering, or other techniques. He has no easy answers, but he understands the questions, and knows that God has answers.

All in all, a splendid book. I am sorry to have to return it to the local library, where someone else has already requested it.

Thanks for reading.

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I corrected two typos on July 11, 2008.

The Language of God, Chapter 2, by Francis Collins

A previous post gives the contents of Chapter 1, and the bibliographic and author information for The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Chapter Two considers four common arguments against faith in God (and against the validity of religion in general) with rebuttals.

The first argument is that religion is just wish fulfillment. Collins, following C. S. Lewis on this topic, says that, if religion were really wish fulfillment, the god we imagine would be much more indulgent than the God of the Bible. He also says that just because we may wish for a god, that does not prove that there isn't one.

The second argument is that there is a lot of harm done in the name of religion. Collins does not deny that, but points out that there is also a lot of good done in the name of religion, for example the story told in the film "Amazing Grace." He also points out that great evil was done by a supposedly atheist society, the Soviet Union. Finally, he says that it is not reasonable to judge the truth of religion solely by its human adherents. He asks "would you judge Mozart's The Magic Flute on the basis of a poorly rehearsed performance by fifth-graders?" (p. 42)

The third argument is the evil that exists. How could God allow it? Collins has a personal story of great evil done to an innocent person. I'll let readers of the book discover that story for themselves. He follows Lewis (and many others) in pointing out that much evil is the result of God's allowing humans free moral choice, and our choices being bad. He also says: . . . if the most important relationship we are to develop on this earth is a relationship with God, and if our existence as spiritual creatures is not limited to what we can know and observe during our earthly lifetime, then human sufferings take on a wholly new context. We may never fully understand the reasons for these painful experiences, but we can begin to accept the idea that there may be such reasons. (p. 46)

The fourth argument is about miracles. How can a rational person, a scientist, believe in them? Let's put it this way. Collins is a scientist's scientist, and he believes in them. He does say that we use "miracle" much too often, and that we should not assume that everything we can't explain is due to divine intervention, but he sees no reason that a scientist cannot believe in miracles. Nothing in science can disprove them, as they are outside the purview of science.

Collins won't convince a reader who refuses to be convinced, but he makes a good case.

Thanks for reading.

The Language of God, by Francis Collins

Francis Collins is the long-time head of the U. S. Human Genome Project. (Here's the Wikipedia article on him, and here is his page at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Here is a statement by Collins to CNN, with some responses from readers.) I knew that Collins was a Christian, and an important scientist, but, based on the first two chapters, and a later one, I discovered that he is also an important author for the general public. His The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2006) is currently among the 300 best-sellers, according to Amazon. It was in the top 10, I believe, when it first appeared. I've read a lot of books related to science and Christianity, and this one has to be in the top five of all of those, perhaps the best. Why? Because Collins is writing for a reasonably intelligent reader, on a simple, but very important topic, namely, "is science compatible with Christianity?" His answer may be summarized in a single word, and it begins with y, and ends with s. (He defends his answer at some length!) The book is also excellent because Collins is aware of contrary arguments, and deals with them, and writes well.

The first chapter of this splendid book describes some of Collins' journey to faith. He was an atheist, but, like many intelligent readers of his generation, found Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. This book, he says, demolished all his arguments as to why there was not a God. I will not rehearse all these arguments here, or re-hash some probably valid criticism of Lewis. Suffice it to say that reading Lewis was a major contributor to the conversion of a great scientist, and he is doing his part toward defending the faith (and science) in this book.

I hope to post more on this splendid volume in the future.

Hydrogen is NOT a practical source of energy

Hydrogen is not, repeat, not, a practical source of energy. The reason is plainly laid out in a recent article in The New Atlantis.

As the author says, almost all of the Hydrogen on earth is combined with some other element, and the only way Hydrogen can serve as a source of energy is if it is not so combined. In order to free it, it is necessary to apply energy, and, because of the second law of thermodynamics, it takes more energy to separate the Hydrogen from, say, Oxygen, than we would get back by re-combining the two in, say, an automobile.

The chemistry in what follows is simplified greatly.

Hydrogen + Oxygen gives off energy. Lots of it. But you have to have the reactants to carry out this equation.

Just in case anyone hasn't thought of it, it also takes energy to obtain energy from petroleum -- it must be found, tapped, shipped, refined, and stored. But we get more energy from petroleum than it takes us to do all of this. The reason is because the Hydrogen in hydrocarbons does not need to be free in order to serve as a fuel. It's the same Hydrogen, but combining Oxygen with the Hydrogen in hydrocarbons gives off energy. Not as much as if free Hydrogen were combined with Oxygen, but, with hydrocarbons, we don't have to free it. The fuel + Oxygen reaction gives off energy. Hydrogen in hydrocarbons is in a form that can combine with Oxygen without being freed first. Photosynthesis, done freely for us by plants, using the energy of the sun's light, combines Hydrogen with Carbon to make organic matter, which was the source of hydrocarbons and other fossil fuels.

Hydrogen, like gasoline, can be a carrier of energy -- stored until needed. But the article claims that it isn't even very good at that. (See also the Wikipedia article on the Hydrogen Economy.)

There are probably some uses of Hydrogen fuel cells that would be practical. But they won't solve our energy problems.

Hydrogen, used another way, might solve our fuel problems. That would be in a fusion reactor, a tamed Hydrogen bomb. We don't seem to be very close to making that practical yet, and, so far, we aren't using ordinary Hydrogen, but a heavy isotope thereof, in such reactors (and also in Hydrogen bombs.)

Thanks for reading.

Wired answers (sort of) the big questions

Wired has posted a number of mostly scientific big questions (samples: "Why do we sleep?" "What happens to information in a black hole?" "Why can't we predict the weather?") and attempts at answers. I was pleased by the tentative nature of the answers, and the selection of questions is good. The responses are by various experts. No doubt experts who disagree strongly with the responses could be found.

Here's the last part of Greg Easterbrook's answer to "Where did life come from?"

Did God or some other higher being create life? Did it begin on another world, to be transported later to ours? Until such time as a wholly natural origin of life is found, these questions have power. We’re improbable, we’re here, and we have no idea why. Or how.

Well, I have an answer, found in Genesis 1, John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:15-20, and elsewhere in the Bible. But, as Hebrews 11:3 suggests, it's not a scientific answer. It's an answer of faith. Easterbrook's scientific answer is great. (This seems to be a page that allows some changes by users, so I can't be sure that it will stay the same. The quotations were what I found on January 24.)

I liked Kevin Kelly's answer to the last question, which is "Why do we still have big questions?" Here's part of what he said:
The paradox of science is that every answer breeds at least two new questions. More answers mean even more questions, expanding not only what we know but also what we don’t know. Every new tool for looking farther or deeper or smaller allows us to spy into our ignorance. Future technologies such as artificial intelligence, controlled fusion, and quantum computing (to name a few on the near horizon) will change the world - that means the biggest questions have yet to be asked.

Thanks for reading.

Islamic anti-science philosophy?

I am not an expert in the subject of this post, which is the result of an hour or so of searching and reading in the Internet. The subject is important, and was an eye-opener to me.

Steven Weinberg, author and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, supports the atheism of Richard Dawkins, except that Dawkins' attacks on Christianity are misplaced, he says -- he really should be attacking Islam, because Christians don't usually act as if they really believe what they say they do. (If they did, they would be making more of an effort to convert him, he writes.) Weinberg says that, in the twelfth century A. D., an Islamic philosopher named Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (there are variations on the name -- Weinberg used Ghazzali) did away with the foundation of science under Islam (which had, a few centuries earlier, been the center of developing science) by saying that there could be no laws of nature, because these would tie the hands of the deity. See here for al-Ghazali's website.

* * * *
Added Jan 30th, 2007. See the comment below by Jeremy Pierce, which casts grave doubt on Weinberg's main thesis.
* * * *

Weinberg seems to be correct about one thing, namely that al-Ghazali was an important philosopher. (The Wikipedia article on him says that his influence has been compared to that of Thomas Aquinas in Christianity.) He is also mostly, or entirely, correct about another idea, namely that al-Ghazali attacked the very foundations of science (although he really seemed to have broader aim, at philosophy, or even more fundamentally, at reason itself). Here's what the al-Ghazali web site says about his The Incoherence of the Philosophers (this book has other names):

The so-called necessity of causality is, says al-Ghazali, simply based on the mere fact that an event A has so far occurred concomitantly with an event B. There is no guarantee of the continuation of that relationship in the future, since the connection of A and B lacks logical necessity. In fact, according to Ash‘arite atomistic occasionalism, the direct cause of both A and B is God; God simply creates A when he creates B. Thus theoretically he can change his custom (sunna, ‘ada) at any moment, and resurrect the dead: in fact, this is 'a second creation'.

This web site goes on to affirm what Weinberg stated about al-Ghazali.

This article, in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, presents a more complex picture of al-Ghazali.

The history of the development of science is a complicated subject, and opinions vary. However, it is possible to argue that Christianity has been, at least at some times, and in some ways, friendly to the development of science. (So was Islam.) To me, belief in a God of order and pattern is crucial to the development of science, although perhaps that is a simplistic view. If I really believed that there was no meaning in the universe, no fundamental laws, why try to uncover them? For example, Isaac Newton, although he would probably be classified as belonging to a Christian cult today, believed that science was an enterprise that, by showing what God had done, glorified God. Although the roots of Western Science pre-date Christianity, it grew and matured among civilizations that were, at least nominally, Christian, and I don't think that was an accident.

It seems likely that al-Ghazali really did undercut science for Muslims. If so, he did them a great disservice.

I will not go into the coherence of Weinberg and Dawkins, or that of the late Francis Crick (who is mentioned favorably by Weinberg) except to say that they have denied what I believe to be the source of the laws of nature.

This post is not meant as an attack on Islam.

I write as a Christian, and too much of what Weinberg says about the lack of certitude in Christians rings true.

Thanks for reading.

What does a college biology professor say to a high school science class?

I was honored by a request, from a former student, now a high school teacher, that I speak to a high school science class this morning. She said "You can talk about science, your classroom experiences, academics, what professors expect from college students . . . that sort of thing. Sound interesting?"

In a word, yes. It's always interesting to distill experiences, in this case, 41 years of college teaching experiences. So here goes.

Science
A. Let's start by defining terms. This is what the Free Dictionary says about science (1st meaning only):

1. a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.

c. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.

I will restrict myself to meaning 1a, actually. How does science differ from three other honorable enterprises, namely the study of history, performing music, or working as a clerk in a grocery store?
The study of history usually can't involve experimental investigation. You can't see what would have happened if George Washington hadn't crossed the Delaware, for example. You can guess, and your guess may be right, but you can't know. But you can experiment in science. You can find out what happens if someone takes their medicine every other day, rather than every day.
Music performance doesn't involve much identification (in that you are classifying something, such as rock types or species of grasses) and description, nor theoretical explanation. It may involve experimentation, though.
Grocery store clerks don't do much identification, either. They may experiment, however, for example by smiling at some customers and not at others, but the amount of experimentation is limited. If they start only charging for every other container of milk to compare it with customer satisfaction, or giving more change that the customer is supposed to get, they'll get fired.

B. The controlled, replicable experiment, then, is one of the cornerstones of much science. Granted, even scientists can't experiment on everything. Historical geologists can't manipulate history any more than history professors can. Astronomers can't manipulate stars or galaxies. Where direct experiment isn't possible, most scientists may compare experiments, as it were, that nature has already provided. For example, how does the light from different stars, in different regions of the universe, compare?

A controlled experiment is one wherein, ideally, one property, and only one, is varied between groups, and everything else is the same. For example, you might test inbred fruit flies, all in the same environment, giving one a vitamin supplement, and one no such supplement, and compare their fertility. (It is usually impossible to make the environment absolutely identical for every organism, or for different attempts at the same experiment. Even inbred strains may have a little genetic variation.)

Replicable means that someone else can test what you have done, by trying the same experiment.

I understand that there is debate about how science really works, but I'm going to ignore it. See the Wikipedia article on "Science" for an introduction to this.

C. Science is clearly important. Think of global warming, energy use, and stem cell research. The products of science, often called technology, are also important. For example, according to the latest mail from my congressman, he is proud that he was a principle [sic] sponsor of legislation to use high-technology means to detect illegal immigrants along the Mexican border.

The previous sentence mentioned four important topics. I must say that none of them is a strictly scientific topic. All of them have legal, political, ethical, economic and even religious implications. If a scientist, for example, says that she is opposed to allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, or that human embryos can ethically be destroyed in the process of stem cell research, what she says on one of those subjects should carry no more weight than what a grocery clerk says, unless she is a legislator, in addition to being a scientist.

Sometimes scientists think that they are making scientific statements, but they aren't. They are merely scientists making statements, not making statements that are backed up by controlled, replicated, experiments. Watson and Crick, for example, thought that they had discovered the secret of life when they proposed the double helix. They had made an important contribution, but they hadn't discovered the secret of life. They hadn't explained how DNA came to be so central to living things in the first place. They hadn't given an explanation for how the information in DNA comes to be expressed (we now know a lot more about that, partly because of the work of Crick, himself.) Both of them, apparently, thought that they had ruled out any supernatural explanation for living things. But they hadn't. God could have created life with DNA as its main information carrier. I don't believe any experiment can rule that out (or prove it.)

D. Before leaving the subject of science, I don't want to leave the impression that science gets a better and better picture of how nature works only by doing experiments. As Thomas S. Kuhn pointed out, scientists get such a changed picture by new ways of looking at the world -- adopting a new paradigm. What experiments scientists do is determined by how they view the natural world. Galileo wouldn't have done any experiments on radio, because he didn't know there was such a thing. Newton didn't discover gravity. But he did (perhaps after watching an apple fall) realize that gravity could be explained as an attractive force. This wasn't because of any experiment that he did. The experiments came later.

Classroom Experiences
The best experiences I had in the classroom all involved (duh!) students. As a biologist, these were often on field trips, where we saw things that the textbooks (or I) could only describe. Sometimes they were in the lab, when something actually worked as they were supposed to(!). Once, an African-American student with sickle-cell anemia saw her own red blood cells sickle under the microscope (I got to see this, too) for the first, and, I suppose, the only time. (Red blood cells are normally circular. The cells of someone with sickle cell anemia assume an elongated shape when they become deprived of Oxygen.) I am sorry to say that this young lady didn't live long after this experience. She died from the complications of this terrible disease.

Often the most memorable experiences are one-time things, and happen when something goes wrong, or, at least not according to plan. I will relate two of mine. Once, a few students and I were injecting a rabbit. The rabbit died, for some reason. One of the students suggested that we dissect the rabbit, so we did. We had never seen the insides of a just-dead rabbit before, and seeing this was amazing. A rabbit's intestines include an (for a rabbit) enormous caecum, quite different from human anatomy.

Another such experience was when a student came in late for a bioethics class. I knew what had happened, because she had called and told me -- the class and I had been praying. Her father had just gotten a liver transplant. I had her sit on the table in front of the class and talk about it, and the rest of us asked her questions. Organ transplantation, of course, has some important ethical implications.

I have also had experiences where a student asked me a question that changed my way of thinking. One of my students asked me about human cloning, back in the middle 1970's. I hadn't thought much about it before, but decided that I should. Partly because of his question, the U. S. taxpayer supported my attendance at a six week conference on bioethics in 1979 at Indiana University. I was the only person in the group of a dozen or so who was trained as a biologist, and the only one from an evangelical Christian college/university. All of this resulted in a change in direction. I developed a new class at my school, and published a paper (the article is not available on-line, so far as I know -- the link is to a listing) on the subject.

Sometimes a student made a comment that changed my thinking. One once said "the Bible is inerrant, but our interpretation of it isn't."

I am glad to say that, sometimes, I could see students learn. Sometimes I could see that they had, when I graded their tests, quizzes, and papers.

Some of the greatest experiences came outside of class, when students came to talk to me about something unrelated to their class work, or I got to interact with, or observe them, in other settings.

I confess -- I married a student. (She came to college after being in the workplace for three years, so I didn't rob the cradle.)

Academics, and what professors expect from their students
Every professor is different. Different classes under the same professor may be different, and different universities, or different departments at the same university, may have different expectations.

Nonetheless, a few hints. They're just commonsense, mostly.
Go to class. That's pretty elementary, but it's good advice. Some classes aren't worth going to, or some sessions of a class may be a waste of time, but you should make it your goal to go to all your classes. Most universities don't monitor class attendance as rigidly as most high schools, nor do they usually contact your parents if you don't go, and the temptation to skip classes will be there. Don't do it. I have known some cases where students who could have had a promising academic career have messed it up, just by not going.
Be prompt, if at all possible, and if you can't be, let the professor know why, even if she doesn't seem to care (or even know who you are).
Sit where you won't be distracted, preferably in the front.
Stay awake.

Get enough sleep. You and I can do many things with little or no sleep, such as many types of work, or carrying on a social life, but serious learning often becomes a casualty when you don't get enough sleep.
There is a school of student thought that believes that the best way to study for a big test is to stay up all night before it is scheduled. Wrong! Sleeping on what we have learned helps us to remember it longer. "Cramming" for a test is probably better than no study at all, but it isn't very efficient, and it may mean that we don't function very well in actually taking a test, or in the other things we need to do on the day after a night with little sleep. We tend to forget material learned in a cram session rapidly. Often, we'll need to retain that material for a long time. In college classes, there are often two or three tests during a semester, then a comprehensive final, covering the entire course material. Or, in preparing for some professions, there may be a comprehensive qualifying exam, covering much of everything you are supposed to have learned in college. You will need to retain facts and principles for a long time.

Study. The best way to study for a big test is to study as you go along. Read your book. Review what went on in the previous class session before the next one. Ideally, you should know what the class will be about before you go, and be prepared with questions or comments. Study with someone else sometimes. Study should be about what's important. That is, what the professor may ask you, but also, what is important about this chapter, this diagram, this term, this lab experiment. Getting another perspective on this often helps. Even if another student knows a lot less than you, it will often help you to explain the material to someone else.

Look over terms and diagrams, chapter summaries, and questions at the end of a section or chapter, in your textbook. (Some texts won't have some, maybe any, of these things, especially in upper-level courses.)

P. S. Obtain your textbooks. Textbooks are expensive, and, let's face it, in a few classes, you don't really need them. But, in most classes, not having a text is a serious handicap. It's silly to spend good money for tuition, travel, lodging, and whatever other expenses you may have going to college, and not get textbooks. (You may be able to buy used copies, or borrow a text from someone who had the course in a previous semester.)

Most people learn through more than one sense. (Some learn mostly by hearing, some by seeing, some from other senses. In some classes, handling things may be important.) Hear your subject (In class, by recording the class, if that helps, or if you can't be present -- most professors will allow you to tape a class, or have someone else tape it for you -- they'll be thrilled that you care!) and read about it, so you've got two ways of getting it into your brain.

Turn your assignments in on time. Maybe even early. Give your professor cardiac arrest!
This means planning ahead. Start those papers, book reports, lab reports, and projects before the night before they are due.

Get noticed, for good reasons. Sit near the front, ask good questions, stay awake, occasionally talk to the professor after class, or in her office, or in other settings. Don't be a pest, but act like an adult who is interested in the subject matter.

Be interested in the subject matter.
Sometimes that's difficult. Try, anyway. Never ask "What good is this going to do us?" about a class as a whole. Your professor may not have a good answer (she should) but generally you are stuck with the class, anyway. The university, or your chosen profession, require it. Make the best of it. Sometimes you may get noticed in a good way by asking about the relevance of a particular topic, or by suggesting a relevant topic that the class doesn't seem to be going to cover.
Often, you will be helped by finding material other than the text that deals with the subject matter. The Wikipedia, although not totally inerrant, is a good source on almost any academic subject.

Pray a lot.
Pray for your professor, any teaching assistants she has, your classmates, and, of course, yourself. Ask for God's help in studying, in understanding the material, in getting to class, in staying awake, in taking a test. And, of course, do your part -- you can pray yourself into a failure, if you don't do what you are supposed to.

Thanks for reading.

". . . being dead, yet speaketh." Science

My wife saw a quote from a previous post of mine, which said this:

"I am constantly struck by the strangeness of reading works that seem addressed, personally and intimately, to me, and yet were written by people who crumbled to dust long ago." (source)

She told me that she wanted to know some of the statements that seem addressed to me. In other words, who speaks to me, though dead? (Hebrews 11:4, KJV, says "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.")

In the first installment of this series, I quoted 10 brief sections from the Bible which particularly speak to me. In the second installment, I posted quotations from three of my favorite dead authors of fantastic literature, all of them Christians, namely George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis.

Quotations from science are more difficult. Science typically depends on periodical articles, many of them so specialized that even scientists reading outside their own area find them difficult to understand. Most scientists of the twenty-first century have never read Galileo, Newton, Darwin or Einstein, whereas, in literature and theology, as I understand it, it is important to read the classics. Nonetheless, below are some important quotations from the literature of science. (The quotations are in black. Various reference and explanatory material is in this color.)

Galileo accepted the inerrancy of Scripture; but he was also mindful of Cardinal Baronius's quip that the bible "is intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." "The Galileo Affair," by Catholic.net.

And so, after postulating movements, which, farther on in the book, I ascribe to the Earth, I have found by many and long observations that if the movements of the other planets are assumed for the circular motion of the Earth and are substituted for the revolution of each star, not only do their phenomena follow logically therefrom, but the relative positions and magnitudes both of the stars and all their orbits, and of the heavens themselves, become so closely related that in none of its parts can anything be changed without causing confusion in the other parts and in the whole universe. Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe. Thereafter in the remaining books, I set forth the motions of the other stars and of all their orbits together with the movement of the Earth, in order that one may see from this to what extent the movements and appearances of the other stars and their orbits can be saved, if they are transferred to the movement of the Earth. Nor do I doubt that ingenious and learned mathematicians will sustain me, if they are willing to recognize and weigh, not superficially, but with that thoroughness which Philosophy demands above all things, those matters which have been adduced by me in this work to demonstrate these theories. In order, however, that both the learned and the unlearned equally may see that I do not avoid anyone's judgment, I have preferred to dedicate these lucubrations of mine to Your Holiness rather than to any other, because, even in this remote corner of the world where I live, you are considered to be the most eminent man in dignity of rank and in love of all learning and even of mathematics, so that by your authority and judgment you can easily suppress the bites of slanderers, albeit the proverb hath it that there is no remedy for the bite of a sycophant. If perchance there shall be idle talkers, who, though they are ignorant of all mathematical sciences, nevertheless assume the right to pass judgment on these things, and if they should dare to criticise and attack this theory of mine because of some passage of scripture which they have falsely distorted for their own purpose, I care not at all; I will even despise their judgment as foolish. Nicolas Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, public domain, 1543, from the dedication to Pope Paul III. The Wikipedia article on the history of science says that this book, claiming that the earth was not the center of the universe, began the scientific revolution.

Our design not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject not manual but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this – from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to this end the general propositions in the first and second book are directed. In the third book we give an example of this in the explication of the System of the World; for by the propositions mathematically demonstrated in the former books, we in the third derive from the celestial phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the several planets. Then from these forces, by other propositions which are also mathematical, we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other; which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid down will afford some light either to this or some truer method of philosophy. Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, public domain, 1687. This passage is from the Preface to the first edition. Newton was a philosopher, in his own eyes, and scientific journals weren't as important in his day, hence the introduction of Newton's ideas in this book, rather than in a journal article. This book, more than any other, founded classical physics. The Wikipedia article on the history of science says that this book completed the scientific revolution.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, public domain, 1859. This is the last paragraph of that book. Note that Darwin said "originally breathed into a few forms or into one," thus allowing for Divine creation.

"I did not think; I investigated." Wilhelm Roentgen, on his thoughts when he first discovered X-rays, from an interview with McClure's Magazine, May 1, 1896. Ideally, scientists don't have preconceived ideas about what they will find, but just let the facts take them where they will. In practice, of course, that isn't always true.

Sometimes, as Max Planck observed, and Thomas S. Kuhn quoted (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (Wikipedia article on that book, accessed 12/07/2006) p. 151):

"a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Thomas S. Kuhn was a historian of science. The quotation encapsulates the idea of his book, namely that science doesn't "progress" (he didn't use that word) by adding experiment to experiment, but by sudden leaps, or scientific revolutions, when some scientist has a revolutionary insight, such as Newton's (possibly legendary) sudden revelation, when seeing an apple fall from a tree, that gravity is an attractive force. The following quote is from a man who is not known for the experiments he did, except those he did in his own head:

The basal principle, which was the pivot of all our previous considerations, was the special principle of relativity, i.e. the principle of the physical relativity of all uniform motion. Let as once more analyse its meaning carefully.

It was at all times clear that, from the point of view of the idea it conveys to us, every motion must be considered only as a relative motion. Returning to the illustration we have frequently used of the embankment and the railway carriage, we can express the fact of the motion here taking place in the following two forms, both of which are equally justifiable :
(a) The carriage is in motion relative to the embankment,
(b) The embankment is in motion relative to the carriage.

In (a) the embankment, in (b) the carriage, serves as the body of reference in our statement of the motion taking place. If it is simply a question of detecting or of describing the motion involved, it is in principle immaterial to what reference-body we refer the motion. As already mentioned, this is self-evident, but it must not be confused with the much more comprehensive statement called "the principle of relativity," which we have taken as the basis of our investigations.
The principle we have made use of not only maintains that we may equally well choose the carriage or the embankment as our reference-body for the description of any event (for this, too, is self-evident). Our principle rather asserts what follows : If we formulate the general laws of nature as they are obtained from experience, by making use of
(a) the embankment as reference-body,
(b) the railway carriage as reference-body,

then these general laws of nature (e.g. the laws of mechanics or the law of the propagation of light in vacuo) have exactly the same form in both cases. Albert Einstein, Relativity: the Special and General Theory, public domain, from the chapter entitled "Special and General Theory of Relativity." The theory of special relativity was actually introduced in an article, one of those published in Einstein's breakout year, 1905, not in this book.

Margrethe So what was this mysterious thing you said?

Heisenberg There's no mystery about it. There never was any mystery. I remember it absolutely clearly, because my life was at stake, and I chose my words very carefully. I simply asked you if as a physicist one had the moral right to work on the practical exploitation of atomic energy. . . . (p. 36) Michael Frayn, Copenhagen. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. (Copyright by Michael Frayn, 1998) This excerpt was written