Cosmos, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

I watched part of the first part of Cosmos, a series about (what else) the cosmos, on Fox TV and also on the National Graphic Channel, on Sunday evenings, with Neil deGrasse Tyson as narrator. This is an upgrade of a previous series, with the same name, with Carl Sagan as narrator, which may have been the most widely watched TV series of all time. It looks like the new one is going to be a great series, with great graphics, and magnificent subject matter, but Tyson unfortunately started it off by quoting Sagan, who said that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." (Cosmos, p. 4. New York, Random House, 1980.) That's an interesting statement. It may even be true, although I personally don't believe it, because the Bible contradicts it -- the Bible says that there is a God who is superior to the cosmos. And it's not a scientific statement at all. It's a philosophical statement, one that can't be proved or disproved by science. Sagan didn't do any experiments that showed it to be true. Neither did Tyson, or anyone else.

Here's the Wikipedia page on the new series. The Sagan series also has a Wikipedia article -- see the "previous series" link above.

Thanks for reading.

Why Strict Atheism is Unscientific

There's a fine post, on the topic of the title, "Why Strict Atheism is Unscientific," at the BioLogos forum, including a splendid quotation from Carl Sagan. It's brief, readable, and important.

Read it, if you wish to. Blessed Christmas.

Faith masquerading as science

The Cosmos series, starring Carl Sagan, originally a 1980 PBS series, is now available on Hulu. (I believe that a free Hulu membership is required.) In the first episode, Sagan began by saying that "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." That episode is here.

Please note that that was not a scientific statement. It was a faith statement! How could Sagan have known that? (Or falsified it?) I'm not accusing the late Sagan, a great communicator who did a lot for science education, of deliberately trying to foist an atheistic faith upon millions of impressionable minds. (Cosmos remains the most watched PBS series ever. It was shown to classrooms across the US.) Perhaps he (and his co-writers) was just trying to be poetic. But the fact remains -- that is and was and always will be a scientifically unprovable statement. It is and was a statement of belief.

Genesis begins with a different presupposition: 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (ESV)

God, a being outside the heavens and the earth, and existing before they came to be, created. Genesis 1:1 doesn't say when, how, or why, but it does claim that there is a Who outside the cosmos. The cosmos isn't all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Amen. Can I prove that, or could Sagan, were he still alive, disprove it? I don't think so. Why? Because God is outside the realm of science. Also, because the Bible says:
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3, ESV, emphasis added.) By faith, not by laboratory experiment.

Cosmos was, and is, an interesting program, very well done, showing a lot of good science in an interesting way. But part of it is a particular faith masquerading as science. Thanks for reading.

Is nature all there is? John F. Haught

I have read John F. Haught's Is nature all there is? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. See here for previous post on the book.)

I have read quite a few books on the philosophy of science, that is, on such topics as what the underpinnings of the scientific enterprise are, the history of the scientific way of finding things out, and what are the limitations, if any, of the scientific enterprise. I don't recall a better such book than the book referred to above. It is short -- 215 pages plus an index. It is well written, and readily understandable by a reasonably intelligent non-scientist.

After a most unfortunate beginning (Haught misquotes the late Carl Sagan, who said that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be" -- Haught substitutes "universe" for "cosmos," and lengthens the quote by a few words.) the book is great.

For anyone who does not know, "naturalist" has at least two meanings. Some naturalists spend lots of time studying nature, generally trying to disturb the natural world as little as possible in the process. Haught uses the word to refer to someone who believes that there is a natural explanation for everything, as opposed to a supernaturalist, who believes that there is at least one something outside the universe, often a god or gods. Haught is a supernaturalist. So am I.

Haught argues that supernaturalism is more able to explain phenomena on the earth than naturalism, and does quite a good job of it.

In this post, I will restrict myself to two issues. One of these is the explanation of critical intelligence, the ability to analyze things critically. Naturalists, and others, depend on critical intelligence, and, in fact generally appeal to it as having bolstered their cases. Haught says this:
How then can we justify the spontaneous trust we all place in our critical intelligence and the imperatives of our minds? You will note that in asking this question I too am expressing confidence in my own mind, assuming that by obeying the imperatives to be open, intelligent and critical I may come closer to the truth, to what is. If I lacked this spontaneous trust I would not be asking the question that begins this paragraph. And if any naturalists are reading this book, they will notice once again that their own sincere questioning of what I am writing here is possible only because they too have already made an act of faith in the imperatives of their own minds to lead them to truth. (91) and this:

Therefore it is out of a sense of fidelity to my desire to know that I must now press on to find a more adaptive context for my critical intelligence than the one offered by scientific naturalism. I cannot find such an environment short of a worldview that looks upon nature as completely intelligible. And in the end, I believe, such a worldview must be a theological one, where the anticipated fullness of being, meaning and truth is ultimately nothing less than the eternal reality invoked by religions. Such a worldview is a much more encouraging setting for endless, ongoing scientific inquiry than is the naturalist belief that the universe "just is" and therefore is ultimately unintelligible. (96)

He also deals with purpose, and makes these telling statements:
For if nature is all there is, there could be no overall purpose to the universe. That is, there could be no goal beyond nature toward which the long cosmic journey would be winding its way. But if the logic here is correct, then the detection of an overarching purpose in nature would imply that nature is not all there is. In the broadest sense purpose means "directed toward a goal or telos." The question before us, then, is whether the cosmos as a whole is teleological, that is, goal-directed. (98)

Thanks for reading.

Is Scientific Knowledge Reliable? (modified)

Is scientific knowledge reliable?

The simple answer is "usually." The hard part, of course, is to know when it is and when it isn't. Unfortunately, we humans lack the omniscience that would let us know which of the findings of science are reliable, and which aren't.

God has revealed Himself to us in several ways. Some of these are:
the Bible
human reason
our consciences
the wisdom of godly people
the guidance of the Holy Spirit
the evidence of nature, and especially
Himself, Jesus Christ, the God/man

The bible is clear that God does reveal Himself through the evidence of nature. In other words, through the observations of science. Here are two passages that say that:
Psalm 19:1 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.

and

Romans 1:20 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. So they are without excuse.

Both of these are from the ESV, which allows such use, if proper attribution is given. I thank them.

There are two very good reasons for thinking that scientific knowledge is, at least partly, reliable. First, it works. Second, it is one of the ways God is revealed to us.

So scientific knowledge is, at least often, reliable. Again, how do we know how reliable it is, and which knowledge is reliable, and which isn't? We don't know which, or how reliable. One thing history teaches us is that science is pretty good at making predictions. As scientists begin to observe various types of phenomena, they almost always get better and better at being able to tell us what is going to happen in the future, related to that particular phenomenon. This was true of astronomy, which is nearly perfect in the predictions it makes. Weather prediction has improved greatly within my lifetime. So has medical prognosis.

Another thing history teaches us is that, although the predictions may be very good, the underlying explanations often change, sometimes radically. If you are interested in explanations that have been mostly or entirely discarded, see phlogiston, or aether. Consider also the progression in our concept of gravity: 1) heavy things fall 2) Newton said that gravity was an attractive force and 3) Einstein said that gravity was due to the warping of space-time. Good predictions were made before Newton was ever born. But the explanation of gravity has changed markedly.

A third thing history teaches us is that some statements that seem to be scientific are not. Carl Sagan famously said that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 4. New York, Random House, 1980. (The book was based on the TV series of the same name.) This was a statement of faith, not of science. Sagan had no experimental evidence ruling out extra-cosmic entities. (I don't have any experimental evidence showing that there is a God, outside the cosmos, either.) But he was a famous scientist, hence his statement seemed to be scientific. He may have thought of it that way himself. But he was wrong.

Science, with its experiments, and its replication, is a pretty good system. It tells us a great deal about God's creation. But it isn't perfect.

Amplified from a post of Jan 19, 2005.

Thanks for reading