Yesterday, I posted on Ignorance as submission, about how God knows everything, and we don't, and, sometimes, we have to just submit to that.
Today, I'd like to consider the question of ignorance in science. Really, the question of limits to science -- are there things that science cannot ever know?
I believe, and I am not alone, that God gave humans the ability to discover things, and that is part of the image of God (see here and here) in us. Part of discovering is what we now call science, God can be honored by good scientific work. Many of the great scientists of the past were deliberately trying to find out about how God made things, and even atheist scientists (and by no means all scientists are atheists) may honor God, unwittingly, by making new discoveries, or by developing new theories. Science can produce knowledge that can be terribly misused -- for example so-called atomic bombs, biological warfare, or using the Internet to spread racial hatred or to exploit women. But it can also produce knowledge that can be used for good. For example, the Internet can be used for communicating the gospel of Christ, or more efficient crops may be produced. But mostly, knowing more is a good thing.
It is possible that God has placed some limitations on scientific discovery, for His own reasons. I'm not aware of any such, but that would, I suppose, be possible. (One such reason might be to fight human pride.) That's not what I'm musing about here. I'm musing about limitations to scientific knowledge. Are there things that scientists can't learn? I believe that there are.
First, how do we know anything? How can I be sure that the computer I am typing this on actually exists, and that the yard I see out the window actually exists? Perhaps they are all the products of my imagination. Lest there be any doubt, I do believe the evidence of my own senses, unless there is very good reason not to, and so does every other sane person. But it is possible that I am deluding myself.
Second, why is there something, rather than nothing? Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous scientist of our time, recently said that that was the biggest mystery that he wished were solved. I don't see science solving that, ever. I believe that it is a limit on science. (Hawking is famously not a Christian. Neither is Michael Ruse, one of the most important philosophers of science, who also asks the question given at the beginning of this paragraph.) Hawking, with a co-author, wrote a book which claims to answer that question, and specifically claims that God need not be part of the answer, but the book has been seriously criticized, and not just on religious grounds. My judgment is that it does not really answer the question.
Third, what, if anything, came before the Big Bang? We don't know. I understand that some readers may believe that there was no such thing as a Big Bang. I disagree. The evidence is quite good, considering the subject, and I see no reason why a belief in the Big Bang and a belief in a supernatural Creator need conflict.
Fourth, where is a particular sub-atomic particle found, and what is it doing? For decades, scientists have believed that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sets limits on what we can know about very tiny particles -- one reason being that the very act of observation changes what we are trying to measure.
Fifth, there are things that we cannot know, because of time, distance, or both. For example, we cannot know exactly what is going on at this very moment, on planets around the stars in some distant galaxy, because, if we ever get there, too much time will have passed. The very evidence of what went on then, there, will have decayed significantly, or disappeared. On a more commonplace level, we can't predict the future exactly.
Sixth, in mathematics, which is a tool of science, there are things that cannot be proved, or disproved.
If science has limitations, does that prove that there is a God? No. It is certainly compatible with the existence of God, but the main evidence for God's existence is not scientifically oriented.
It may be that one or more of the limitations listed above will eventually be shown not to be limiting. Not knowing that is, in itself, a limitation on present science.
I have previously had a profitable dialog with an atheist, covering part, but not all, of the same ground, and you are welcome to read some of that.
Thanks for reading.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
Showing posts with label limits of science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label limits of science. Show all posts
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Ruse: Questions that science can't answer
Michael Ruse is not a Christian. He is a much better philosopher than I am, or, for that matter, than almost anyone else is. He knows science well.
In a recent article, he argues two significant things:
First, science and Christianity (and other religions) should be able to co-exist, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and others notwithstanding.
Second, as it is currently usually understood, science cannot answer the following:
I agree with Ruse on these points. I have been very slow to continue my series on the book by Kitty Ferguson. I intend to continue, and conclude that, God helping me.
In a recent article, he argues two significant things:
First, science and Christianity (and other religions) should be able to co-exist, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and others notwithstanding.
Second, as it is currently usually understood, science cannot answer the following:
Today's mechanical science does even set out to ask or answer certain questions, and hence if the religious want to have a crack at answering them, they can. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the ultimate foundation of morality? What does it all mean? Perhaps, what is consciousness that sets animals, humans particularly, apart?
I agree with Ruse on these points. I have been very slow to continue my series on the book by Kitty Ferguson. I intend to continue, and conclude that, God helping me.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Stephen Hawking and God
Stephen Hawking may be the most well-known living scientist. Confined to a wheelchair, and unable to speak, Hawking still communicates effectively. He has had an interesting life, it seems. Among other things, he has experienced free fall training with US astronauts, and had a bit role in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, playing himself. He also wrote a best-selling book. Hawking shares a birthday with Galileo, and, until his retirement, he held the professorial chair that was once held by Isaac Newton.
Here are two quotations from Hawking, on the subject of the existence of God:
In an interview with Reuters last year, Hawking said he was "not religious in the normal sense."
"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he said. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." "Pope sees physicist Hawking at evolution gathering," Reuters, October 31, 2008.
Diane Sawyer asked Hawking what question he would ask the universe, if given the opportunity. He responded "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something rather than nothing."
He also said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works."
Sawyer said, in commenting on the interview, that Hawking once said that "God not only plays dice with the world, but sometimes throws the dice where they can't be seen."
- ABC World News with Diane Sawyer: "Conversation with Stephen Hawking," June 7, 2010. (My original source for this has been removed by YouTube. Here is a source for the first quotation in the above paragraph.)
Hawking's thinking can be described as bold. This is obvious in his book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes . (Bantam Books, 1988, pp. 173-4)
Brief History is a discussion of the implications of quantum gravity. See the Wikipedia article on the subject, which indicates that there are several competing theories of quantum gravity. It also says (version of July 28, 2010) that all these theories ". . . face the common problem that, as yet, there is no way to put quantum gravity predictions to experimental tests. . ." Hawking's view belongs to the Sum Over Histories group of theories, according to the book, and also according to a history (as of 2000, published in 2001, but the on-line verson has a 2008 date) of theories in quantum gravity, by Rovelli. (See here.) So, although Hawking may be right, he may also be wrong, and currently there isn't any way to prove that he is right. He is understandably enthusiastic about his own approach, but does not dogmatically state that he is right.
The book is only 175 pages long, with only one equation, and minimal scholarly apparatus. It sold very well. Hawking's point is to let it be known that his theory of quantum gravity may indicate that the universe, rather than having had a definite beginning, is eternal. (I'm don't know if the other theories also do this) Hawking makes clear that he thinks such a truth would profoundly change our view of God's activity, in fact meaning that there is no God. Kitty Ferguson, author of The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. says, I believe correctly, that Hawking writes as if the possibility that his theory ". . . erases our need for a God is far more reason for celebrating than the fact that the theory makes a new part of this mysterious universe accessible to human beings." (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. See here for my most recent post on the book. p. 76. Ferguson's title is a quotation from Brief History, and she indicates that Hawking read at least part of her manuscript before her book was published. See below.)
There have been past occasions where scientific understanding has led to a re-thinking of our role in the universe. Two of the most important are the astronomical findings that show that the earth is a small planet, orbiting a rather mediocre star, in an ordinary galaxy, and that living things on earth seem to have arisen from one, or at most a few, common ancestors, over a very long period of time. These both caused, and, to some degree are still causing, theological upheavals. But I don't think that they necessarily destroy, or even diminish, belief in an omnipotent divine Creator, and I'm not alone in such belief. In fact, these scientific revolutions make many believers more confident of God's power.
Suppose Hawking is correct about quantum gravity and the universe -- bearing in mind that we don't know that. What are the possibilities?
First, it is possible that there is no God, and there doesn't need to be one, because the universe is eternal, and did not have a beginning.
Second, God, much as Christians believe in Him, is part of the universe, co-existent, and, perhaps, playing an important creative part in its development.
Third, God created the universe at some point in time, and created it with an appearance of age, so that there is evidence that supports Hawking's ideas, but that evidence is misleading.
All of these would, of course, have profound implications for theology, and Hawking says just that, on his pages 173 and 174.
But, as indicated above, Hawking at least entertains the idea that God started things:
On page 125, Hawking tells us that "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron." He goes on to say that the values of these various physical constants "seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life," and indicates that values that were much different would have made life, as we know it, impossible, and, in fact, the stars, as we know them, impossible, also. He also says that, so far, there is no theory which would have predicted these particular values for these constants. This may be taken as evidence for a Creator, or as evidence for the Strong Anthropic Principle.
On pages 126-7, he writes about the initial conditions of the universe, which, he says, must have been in a narrow range of temperatures, so as to allow the cosmic background radiation to be so uniform. There must have also been a constricted rate of expansion, because if it were much different, the universe would have collapsed. "It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." (p. 127)
On pages 136-7, Hawking says this: "I'd like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite without boundary is just a proposal: it cannot be deduced from some other principle. Like any other scientific theory, it may initially be put forward for aesthetic or metaphysical reasons, but the real test is whether it makes predictions that agree with observation." (emphasis in original) He goes on to say that it will be difficult to even make predictions, let alone test them.
On page 160, the author sets forth three possibilities:
1) There really is a unified theory, which will tie all the forces of nature, the elementary particles into an explanation that ties them together, and also explains the constants referred to previously in the book.
2) No such theory exists, but we may be able to explain the phenomena indicated with better and better theories, as time passes.
3) There is no such theory, and there is an underlying randomness and unpredictability to the universe.
He goes on to say that some would argue for the 3rd possibility, because it allows God freedom to act. But, says Hawking, God is said to exist outside of time, so there is no reason that He couldn't intervene by making laws in a certain way initially, and, also act sub-atomically, operating through the events which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't let us predict, or even measure. Hawking says that current experience seems to indicate that the second possibility is the one we are experiencing.
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him? (page 174)
Thanks for reading.
* * * *
As indicated above, I added a source to replace one that is no longer available. I did this on April 13, 2012.
* * * *
As of July 22, 2012, I am disabling comments on this post, because I have gotten dozens of spam comments on it. Feel free to comment on a different post, and refer to something in this one, not to politics, etc., if you are a real person. Thanks.
* * * *
On September 23, I made three minor editorial changes.
Here are two quotations from Hawking, on the subject of the existence of God:
In an interview with Reuters last year, Hawking said he was "not religious in the normal sense."
"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he said. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." "Pope sees physicist Hawking at evolution gathering," Reuters, October 31, 2008.
Diane Sawyer asked Hawking what question he would ask the universe, if given the opportunity. He responded "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something rather than nothing."
He also said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works."
Sawyer said, in commenting on the interview, that Hawking once said that "God not only plays dice with the world, but sometimes throws the dice where they can't be seen."
- ABC World News with Diane Sawyer: "Conversation with Stephen Hawking," June 7, 2010. (My original source for this has been removed by YouTube. Here is a source for the first quotation in the above paragraph.)
Hawking's thinking can be described as bold. This is obvious in his book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes . (Bantam Books, 1988, pp. 173-4)
Brief History is a discussion of the implications of quantum gravity. See the Wikipedia article on the subject, which indicates that there are several competing theories of quantum gravity. It also says (version of July 28, 2010) that all these theories ". . . face the common problem that, as yet, there is no way to put quantum gravity predictions to experimental tests. . ." Hawking's view belongs to the Sum Over Histories group of theories, according to the book, and also according to a history (as of 2000, published in 2001, but the on-line verson has a 2008 date) of theories in quantum gravity, by Rovelli. (See here.) So, although Hawking may be right, he may also be wrong, and currently there isn't any way to prove that he is right. He is understandably enthusiastic about his own approach, but does not dogmatically state that he is right.
The book is only 175 pages long, with only one equation, and minimal scholarly apparatus. It sold very well. Hawking's point is to let it be known that his theory of quantum gravity may indicate that the universe, rather than having had a definite beginning, is eternal. (I'm don't know if the other theories also do this) Hawking makes clear that he thinks such a truth would profoundly change our view of God's activity, in fact meaning that there is no God. Kitty Ferguson, author of The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. says, I believe correctly, that Hawking writes as if the possibility that his theory ". . . erases our need for a God is far more reason for celebrating than the fact that the theory makes a new part of this mysterious universe accessible to human beings." (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995. See here for my most recent post on the book. p. 76. Ferguson's title is a quotation from Brief History, and she indicates that Hawking read at least part of her manuscript before her book was published. See below.)
There have been past occasions where scientific understanding has led to a re-thinking of our role in the universe. Two of the most important are the astronomical findings that show that the earth is a small planet, orbiting a rather mediocre star, in an ordinary galaxy, and that living things on earth seem to have arisen from one, or at most a few, common ancestors, over a very long period of time. These both caused, and, to some degree are still causing, theological upheavals. But I don't think that they necessarily destroy, or even diminish, belief in an omnipotent divine Creator, and I'm not alone in such belief. In fact, these scientific revolutions make many believers more confident of God's power.
Suppose Hawking is correct about quantum gravity and the universe -- bearing in mind that we don't know that. What are the possibilities?
First, it is possible that there is no God, and there doesn't need to be one, because the universe is eternal, and did not have a beginning.
Second, God, much as Christians believe in Him, is part of the universe, co-existent, and, perhaps, playing an important creative part in its development.
Third, God created the universe at some point in time, and created it with an appearance of age, so that there is evidence that supports Hawking's ideas, but that evidence is misleading.
All of these would, of course, have profound implications for theology, and Hawking says just that, on his pages 173 and 174.
But, as indicated above, Hawking at least entertains the idea that God started things:
Science seems to have uncovered a set of laws that, within the limits set by the uncertainty principle, tell us how the universe will develop with time, if we know its state at any one time. These laws may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that he has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not now intervene in them. But how did he choose the initial state or configuration of the universe? What were the "boundary conditions" at the beginning of time?
One possible answer is to say that God chose the initial configuration of the universe for reasons that we cannot hope to understand. This would certainly have been within the power of an omnipotent being, but if he had started it off in such an incomprehensible way, why did he choose to let it evolve according to laws that we could understand? The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. (page 122. The color used indicates a block quotation.)On page 125, Hawking tells us that "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron." He goes on to say that the values of these various physical constants "seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life," and indicates that values that were much different would have made life, as we know it, impossible, and, in fact, the stars, as we know them, impossible, also. He also says that, so far, there is no theory which would have predicted these particular values for these constants. This may be taken as evidence for a Creator, or as evidence for the Strong Anthropic Principle.
On pages 126-7, he writes about the initial conditions of the universe, which, he says, must have been in a narrow range of temperatures, so as to allow the cosmic background radiation to be so uniform. There must have also been a constricted rate of expansion, because if it were much different, the universe would have collapsed. "It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." (p. 127)
On pages 136-7, Hawking says this: "I'd like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite without boundary is just a proposal: it cannot be deduced from some other principle. Like any other scientific theory, it may initially be put forward for aesthetic or metaphysical reasons, but the real test is whether it makes predictions that agree with observation." (emphasis in original) He goes on to say that it will be difficult to even make predictions, let alone test them.
On page 160, the author sets forth three possibilities:
1) There really is a unified theory, which will tie all the forces of nature, the elementary particles into an explanation that ties them together, and also explains the constants referred to previously in the book.
2) No such theory exists, but we may be able to explain the phenomena indicated with better and better theories, as time passes.
3) There is no such theory, and there is an underlying randomness and unpredictability to the universe.
He goes on to say that some would argue for the 3rd possibility, because it allows God freedom to act. But, says Hawking, God is said to exist outside of time, so there is no reason that He couldn't intervene by making laws in a certain way initially, and, also act sub-atomically, operating through the events which the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't let us predict, or even measure. Hawking says that current experience seems to indicate that the second possibility is the one we are experiencing.
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him? (page 174)
Thanks for reading.
* * * *
As indicated above, I added a source to replace one that is no longer available. I did this on April 13, 2012.
* * * *
As of July 22, 2012, I am disabling comments on this post, because I have gotten dozens of spam comments on it. Feel free to comment on a different post, and refer to something in this one, not to politics, etc., if you are a real person. Thanks.
* * * *
On September 23, I made three minor editorial changes.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
"Can Science Explain Everything? Anything?" by Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg is a Nobel laureate in physics, and the author of ten books, at least some of which are aimed at an intelligent lay audience. (It is possible that all of them are, but the only one I have read is his The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. Here's the link to the Amazon page on the book, and here is a link to a service I am not familiar with, namely Questia, through which, apparently, you can read the entire book on-line.) My impression is that Weinberg has been a highly qualified scientist, and also one who has thought deeply about the relationship between science and society. As nearly as I can figure out, he is a liberal Jew. I don't know whether he is a religious Jew or not.
On May 31, 2001, an article that Weinberg had written for the New York Review of Books was published. I saved that article at about that time. As far as I can determine, it is no longer available freely on-line. The article has the title given in quotes in the title of this blog post. The article is available, at cost, or with a proper membership, here.
I wish to muse about the article.
Early in the article, Weinberg asserts that "There is no purpose revealed in the laws of nature." Soon after, he indicates that science declines to discuss the question of purpose in nature, although theology claims to look for such.
Much of the article is given to a discussion of the meanings of the words "explanation," "fundamental," "deduced," "principle," and "description." This is an important discussion, and Weinberg brings considerable insight, and, I believe, even some clarity to this discussion. He concludes that science can, indeed, explain some things. Then he moves to the question of whether science can explain everything.
Weinberg claims that there are some types of phenomena that science, or scientists, cannot explain. These include the following:
The results of accidents, wherein we cannot know all the initial conditions that led up to the accident. (Weinberg indicates, that, in these cases, if we did know all the initial conditions, we could explain the phenomenon.) He gives some examples, one of which is a comparison between the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of President Truman. Weinberg says that we will never be able to explain completely why one assassination attempt resulted in a murder, but the other didn't.
He says that we cannot explain moral principles: "The moral postulates that tell us whether we should or should not do [some particular action] so cannot be deduced from our scientific knowledge."
He further says that we will never be sure how good our current explanations are.
Finally, Weinberg says that we cannot explain the most basic scientific principles, and does not believe that we will ever be able to do so.
He does not say so, but I would add to his list that we cannot explain why there is something, rather than nothing. This relates to the first statement from the article that I quoted, and it seems that Weinberg believes that that is another question that science is not going to be able to explain, although he doesn't say so explicitly.
Weinberg has by no means given up on science. He thinks that we should work toward finding a Theory of Everything. He does not seem to believe that, even if such a theory is found, it will explain everything. That is, we will only know that, whatever the equations of such a theory might be, we won't know why they are as they are.
Thanks for reading.
On May 31, 2001, an article that Weinberg had written for the New York Review of Books was published. I saved that article at about that time. As far as I can determine, it is no longer available freely on-line. The article has the title given in quotes in the title of this blog post. The article is available, at cost, or with a proper membership, here.
I wish to muse about the article.
Early in the article, Weinberg asserts that "There is no purpose revealed in the laws of nature." Soon after, he indicates that science declines to discuss the question of purpose in nature, although theology claims to look for such.
Much of the article is given to a discussion of the meanings of the words "explanation," "fundamental," "deduced," "principle," and "description." This is an important discussion, and Weinberg brings considerable insight, and, I believe, even some clarity to this discussion. He concludes that science can, indeed, explain some things. Then he moves to the question of whether science can explain everything.
Weinberg claims that there are some types of phenomena that science, or scientists, cannot explain. These include the following:
The results of accidents, wherein we cannot know all the initial conditions that led up to the accident. (Weinberg indicates, that, in these cases, if we did know all the initial conditions, we could explain the phenomenon.) He gives some examples, one of which is a comparison between the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of President Truman. Weinberg says that we will never be able to explain completely why one assassination attempt resulted in a murder, but the other didn't.
He says that we cannot explain moral principles: "The moral postulates that tell us whether we should or should not do [some particular action] so cannot be deduced from our scientific knowledge."
He further says that we will never be sure how good our current explanations are.
Finally, Weinberg says that we cannot explain the most basic scientific principles, and does not believe that we will ever be able to do so.
He does not say so, but I would add to his list that we cannot explain why there is something, rather than nothing. This relates to the first statement from the article that I quoted, and it seems that Weinberg believes that that is another question that science is not going to be able to explain, although he doesn't say so explicitly.
Weinberg has by no means given up on science. He thinks that we should work toward finding a Theory of Everything. He does not seem to believe that, even if such a theory is found, it will explain everything. That is, we will only know that, whatever the equations of such a theory might be, we won't know why they are as they are.
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Science & the Search for God, part 3
I have been posting on Kitty Ferguson's book, The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995) In my next to last post (see link in previous sentence) I attempted, following Ferguson, to discuss the idea that science has limits. My last post on the book was a compilation of comments on that next to last post.
In the post that was all mine, I quoted one of the great scientists of the previous century, who said, basically, that science cannot tell us why science works. That scientist, Richard Feynman, was not, so far as I know, a believer in a personal God of any sort. (I have read a couple of biographies of Feynman, and they don't mention or suggest such belief.) I would paraphrase Ferguson thus: "There are things that science cannot explain, or that are outside the legitimate realm of science." Does this prove that God exists? No. Does it mean that God must be invoked to explain why science works, or why science frequently seems to succeed when it follows a quest for elegance? I don't think so.
I continue with chapter three of Ferguson.
On her page 74, Ferguson says that, if there is a God, that, in itself, means that there are, most likely, limits to what science can discover.
She goes on to say that God might be better served by trying to prove He does not exist, and failing to do so, than by attempting scientific proof that he does. She draws a parallel with the Big Bang theory, which, originally, was not believed by most scientists. However, that previous disbelief, and the fact that the main evidence for the Big Bang was discovered by scientists who were not looking for such evidence, are now powerful arguments for an initial Big Bang.
Then, writes Ferguson:
A Brief History of Time [by Stephen Hawking] and The Blind Watchmaker [by Richard Dawkins] are two of the finest books ever written for the popular science audience, and both authors seem obsessed with God. Whether or not it is true, both give the impression that the fact that the scientific theory they are writing about erases our need for a God is far more reason for celebrating than the fact that the theory makes a new part of this mysterious universe accessible to human beings. This can't be called a religiously neutral point of view. Science, for Hawking and Dawkins, is not essentially Godless. (p. 76).
In her acknowledgments section, Ferguson thanks both Hawking and Dawkins (and others) for reading and commenting on parts of The Fire in the Equations. She doesn't indicate what parts they read, or what they said about her manuscript.
If Ferguson had written later, she might, or might not, have considered The God Delusion by Dawkins. That book, published after hers, is about what you might expect from its title.
I have read both of the books cited by Ferguson. It's been a while. However, my impression is that her assessment is correct. Both of these important writers do seem to celebrate erasing the need for a God. The later book by Dawkins certainly does.
On page 79, the author puts out an interesting idea. Many people, including, I suppose, most scientists who have thought about the question "why do we have the ability to do science?" believe that our thinking ability is present because it has been selected for. That is, our ancestors must have been able to think, and in ways that helped them to survive and produce viable offspring, more than their peers who weren't able to think as well. Not only that, but even the type of thinking that we do must have been selected for, at least in part, for the same reason. Ferguson suggests that, should there be any intelligent life forms on other planets, they might also be able to think, but might have been selected, because of differences in their environment, in a way different from humans. That, she supposes, might make their science, should they have any, rather different than ours.
I understand that some readers might disagree seriously with the idea that the ability to think, or the way we think, may be the way they are in us humans, at least partly, because of natural selection. But most scientists, especially non-Christian ones, believe it, if they have thought about the question.
On page 84, Ferguson says the following:
Ferguson goes on to say that if such an explanation was forthcoming, for any of these matters, we would still not be sure that it was the only possible explanation. She does not claim, as I see it, that the lack of explanation in these areas proves the existence of God.
This, for now at least, concludes my published musings on Chapter 3 of The Fire in the Equations. Thanks for reading. I expect to continue the series.
In the post that was all mine, I quoted one of the great scientists of the previous century, who said, basically, that science cannot tell us why science works. That scientist, Richard Feynman, was not, so far as I know, a believer in a personal God of any sort. (I have read a couple of biographies of Feynman, and they don't mention or suggest such belief.) I would paraphrase Ferguson thus: "There are things that science cannot explain, or that are outside the legitimate realm of science." Does this prove that God exists? No. Does it mean that God must be invoked to explain why science works, or why science frequently seems to succeed when it follows a quest for elegance? I don't think so.
I continue with chapter three of Ferguson.
On her page 74, Ferguson says that, if there is a God, that, in itself, means that there are, most likely, limits to what science can discover.
She goes on to say that God might be better served by trying to prove He does not exist, and failing to do so, than by attempting scientific proof that he does. She draws a parallel with the Big Bang theory, which, originally, was not believed by most scientists. However, that previous disbelief, and the fact that the main evidence for the Big Bang was discovered by scientists who were not looking for such evidence, are now powerful arguments for an initial Big Bang.
Then, writes Ferguson:
A Brief History of Time [by Stephen Hawking] and The Blind Watchmaker [by Richard Dawkins] are two of the finest books ever written for the popular science audience, and both authors seem obsessed with God. Whether or not it is true, both give the impression that the fact that the scientific theory they are writing about erases our need for a God is far more reason for celebrating than the fact that the theory makes a new part of this mysterious universe accessible to human beings. This can't be called a religiously neutral point of view. Science, for Hawking and Dawkins, is not essentially Godless. (p. 76).
In her acknowledgments section, Ferguson thanks both Hawking and Dawkins (and others) for reading and commenting on parts of The Fire in the Equations. She doesn't indicate what parts they read, or what they said about her manuscript.
If Ferguson had written later, she might, or might not, have considered The God Delusion by Dawkins. That book, published after hers, is about what you might expect from its title.
I have read both of the books cited by Ferguson. It's been a while. However, my impression is that her assessment is correct. Both of these important writers do seem to celebrate erasing the need for a God. The later book by Dawkins certainly does.
On page 79, the author puts out an interesting idea. Many people, including, I suppose, most scientists who have thought about the question "why do we have the ability to do science?" believe that our thinking ability is present because it has been selected for. That is, our ancestors must have been able to think, and in ways that helped them to survive and produce viable offspring, more than their peers who weren't able to think as well. Not only that, but even the type of thinking that we do must have been selected for, at least in part, for the same reason. Ferguson suggests that, should there be any intelligent life forms on other planets, they might also be able to think, but might have been selected, because of differences in their environment, in a way different from humans. That, she supposes, might make their science, should they have any, rather different than ours.
I understand that some readers might disagree seriously with the idea that the ability to think, or the way we think, may be the way they are in us humans, at least partly, because of natural selection. But most scientists, especially non-Christian ones, believe it, if they have thought about the question.
On page 84, Ferguson says the following:
. . . hasn't science proved to us in more positive ways than 'Sorry, can't study it' that the supernatural world is only a trick of the brain, only psychological experiences, at most unusual but altogether natural occurrences? Hasn't it shown that what we call God is only the laws of physics, or wishful thinking? Hasn't it shown that meaning is only interpretation -- meaning in the eye of the beholder? And isn't there already good evidence that human mind and personality are only the product of complex physical mechanisms?
No. Science has not yet been able to offer us a complete physical explanation in any of these four areas; we do not know that it has the capacity ever to do so; we do not know whether there are, even in principle, unknowable physical explanations. (84)Ferguson goes on to say that if such an explanation was forthcoming, for any of these matters, we would still not be sure that it was the only possible explanation. She does not claim, as I see it, that the lack of explanation in these areas proves the existence of God.
This, for now at least, concludes my published musings on Chapter 3 of The Fire in the Equations. Thanks for reading. I expect to continue the series.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Science & the Search for God: A Reaction
I have been posting on Kitty Ferguson's book, The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. The previous post is here.
There has been an exchange of views between a reader and me, as a result of that post. I thought that it was serious, and perhaps interesting enough, that I ought to reproduce the exchange as a separate post, and have done so, with the permission of the commenter. Inserted material, not in the original comments, is in square brackets - [thus].
Pete DeSanto said
After reading this chapter, I am having serious misgivings about the direction that Ferguson seems headed. She dwells a lot on what science CAN'T do, almost as if she is making the bed of ignorance in which god will rest.
There is a lot of discussion about preconceptions and how that affects the "emergence of scientific knowledge" that seems to ignore the fact that what emerges is always due to the questioning of our preconceptions! How else to explain the move away from natural theology? We have removed the need for god to explain the how to needing god to explain the why, despite centuries of religious claims to truth. Religious preconceptions were overcome with evidence (under penalty of physical and spiritual death), why should we not expect that secular biases will also not be overcome should that be required by evidence?
I would also like to see more contrast of science with Ferguson's religion. E.g. how does religion deal with questioning of preconceptions? How does society and culture influence and change religious belief? Most importantly, what checks are used to determine if a school of religious thought is valid?
I fear Ferguson is digging herself a hole which will collapse in upon itself.
[There was another comment, not germane, by another person, at this point.]
Martin LaBar said
Perhaps so, Pete DeSanto.
My own view is that her comments about what science can't do are a welcome voice. I wouldn't characterize her as proposing a strong argument for God's existence. I would characterize her as showing, in a number of ways, that science can't disprove God's existence. I'm re-reading as I post, and will try to deal with this in due time, perhaps not satisfactorily. I have decided that it makes more sense to write about the book in the order it was written.
As always, thank you for your comments.
Martin LaBar said
Thanks again for your comment, Pete DeSanto. After reading it again, and my response, I apologize for not responding more thoroughly.
First, there are two kinds of preconceptions related to science. One of them is a preconception about what sort of result you will find. There was, at one time, a preconception that protein was the genetic material. And you are quite right. Perhaps the greatest strength of science is that that sort of preconception gets discarded, as discoveries are made.
The second kind of preconception is about the very nature of things, or the scientific enterprise. The quotation from Feynman, [see previous post, in the first link above] as I read and understand it, shows an example of that. Scientists have a preconception that nature will let us discover things. There are other preconceptions of this type, the most fundamental one being that our senses are giving us reasonably accurate information about the world around us.
Certainly, religion has its own preconceptions, and they can be dangerous in a number of ways. But religion gets questioned a lot. There are atheists in a position to do so, and competing religions that question each other. Ferguson's book, to me, in a sentence, says that science is great, but it doesn't tell us everything. It is not principally a book about religion.
Thanks again.
Pete DeSanto said
Feynman was certainly entitled to his opinions, but I think the jury is out on such things. You can always ask a deeper "why?" that doesn't have an immediate answer and assert that it is a matter of metaphysics and not science. In any case, the scientific approachability of nature is not an a priori assumption, but one discovered only after centuries of trial and error at determining answers to questions about nature. It so happens to be shown valid throughout the history of science.
Not to be insolent here, but show me a scientist who begins an experiment with the notion that nature will let us discover things. I would suggest that most experiments (and most human endeavors) are prefaced by the question, "Will this work?" and little else. The fact that we can use results from one experiment to predict expectations of other experiments in a wonderful thing, but certainly not one that was presumed with certainty absent evidence that it might indeed be the case. There was no shining moment when one person claimed such a thing and a whole realm of knowledge was suddenly opened to us. It took considerable effort by many people to come to the point of realization that nature is approachable analytically instead of by revelation.
Comments about what science can't do abound. Answering those comments with "therefore god" is special pleading. Science can't disprove the tooth fairy or santa claus either, yet no one considers that a valid argument for their existence. So I agree that she does not make even a weak argument for the existence of god.
I think it's a bit disingenuous of Ferguson to make arguments about science's inability to disprove any god and then use that to make claims about a specific god. I.e. she uses examples of the Christian god throughout, but not any other.
As for the questioning of religious preconceptions, let's be clear that in the short time during which such questioning was not punishable by death or excommunication the result is ever more divergence in religion. Witness the thousands of Christian denominations based on various interpretations stemming from one group breaking off from another denomination. The situation is quite the reverse in science, where the number of diverse hypotheses gets whittled down to converge upon only those that are best supported by the evidence.
Martin LaBar said [Not as a comment, but as part of this post.]
Thanks again, Pete DeSanto, both for the comments, and for agreeing to allow me to post them as part of a full blog post.
First, let me say something about your comments about religion. I reiterate that my impression is that the book is not primarily about religion, but about science. To summarize it: Ferguson argues that science has its limits. That being said, perhaps the book would have been stronger if it had dealt with, say, Hinduism. But the three major monotheistic religions of the West, splintered as they may be, are the most influential ones, by far, for the audience who was likely to read the book.
Second, about Christianity. Yes, it is true that Christianity is divided into thousands of denominations. I am not an expert in Christian denominational history, and have no plans to become such an expert, so I don't want to say more about this beyond this paragraph. I will say that I agree that this splintering of Christianity can, indeed, be taken as evidence that we Christians have some serious difficulties in interpreting God's revelation. I think that it is also true that pride and human traditions have led to some of the fracturing of the church. I can see that it would be possible to take this as evidence that God's revelation is non-existent, or at least not relevant. My own experience with God, and what I believe that God has done for me, in spite of my own failure to understand all of what He is saying, and in spite of the flawed humans who introduced me to Christ and accompany me on my Christian journey now, is far more important than these human failures. God is able to work through a church, or a person, with human limitations, even human sins. That's not an excuse for sin.
You mention punishment by Christians for disagreement. That was, and even is, reprehensible. Perhaps this is part of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:21-23, when he said that he never knew some who said "Lord, Lord." (He may have also been referring to some church splitters.) Such things happened, and, a little bit, are still happening, and I'm deeply sorry that they did and are. They were and are wrong -- sinful. I can't do anything about them. I don't want to say more about this, either.
Third, about the main issue -- the limits of science.
You say "You can always ask a deeper 'why?' that doesn't have an immediate answer and assert that it is a matter of metaphysics and not science." That is true. You always can, and to say so is not to trivialize the situation. I contend, and I believe there are a lot of good philosophers, and even scientists, by no means all of them believers, who agree, and would go further, saying that the answers to some "why?" questions are not scientifically answerable, in principle. As I understand him, Feynman did exactly that in the quotation referred to above. Probably the most fundamental such question is "Why is there anything?" That is not a trivial question. Science cannot answer it. I don't think we have any better answer than that God willed it to be so. Perhaps you are right about the approachability of nature not being an assumption, but I don't believe that there is a scientific answer to why nature is approachable.
Let me be as clear as I can about one thing that I am not saying. Should every scientist have a doctorate in the philosophy of science, in order to work at, say, NIH or NASA? No. I have a Doctor of Philosophy degree, but have never had a course in philosophy, either as a graduate or undergraduate student. I expect that that shows sometimes. Most of what most scientists do, and this is the way it should be, is what Thomas Kuhn called "normal science." The Wikipedia article that that link refers to says, following Kuhn, that such work is "not actually challenging or attempting to test the underlying assumptions of that theory." (This and other quotations from the Wikipedia are from the version of July 8, 2010.) That is not a put-down of normal science. It's important. But it's not everything.
It is also not reasonable to expect that most scientists will even care about such matters, or should. But what I am saying is that science, as an enterprise, ought to be careful not to claim, or to give the impression, that all questions can be solved through science. The general public should not believe that, either.
I will go further. There are not only limits to science, but limits within science. In the first post on Ferguson's book, I pointed out that current science says that, at the sub-atomic level, there are things that we cannot know, and that this ignorance is not going to disappear with more expensive instrumentation or more exact measurement. Quantum mechanics could be wrong, I know, but these ideas have been around for the better part of a century now, and show no sign of being overturned. It is also true that mathematics, which is closely tied to science, has a gap in what it is possible to know. To quote from the Wikipedia article that that link refers to, speaking of mathematical systems, "one particular arithmetic truth the system cannot prove is the consistency of the system itself." This idea, too, has been around for the better part of a century, and shows no sign of disappearing.
I should also point out, I guess, that I believe that there are two kinds of "gaps" in scientific knowledge. One such is fundamental gaps, gaps such as the above. Another type is gaps of ignorance. We don't, for example, know what all of the genes in the human genome are, let alone what all of them do. But there is no good reason not to try to find out, doing normal science as we go. For another example, we may not be able to explain exactly how a particular characteristic might have arisen from some pre-existing organism. But that's no reason to suppose that such an explanation will never be found.
Now for another thing that I am not saying. I am not saying, and I don't think Ferguson is, either, that the above limits to science, or others not covered here, are a proof that there is a God. My belief in God does not rest on the limitations of science. The current Intelligent Design movement seems to be acting as if it does, which is both a scientific and a religious mistake. If there is a God, then He is responsible for both what we can understand, and what we can't. If a scientific explanation can be found, that doesn't mean that God wasn't involved, any more than knowledge of how internal combustion engines work proves that humans didn't invent them. My belief in God rests on faith. (Hebrews 11:3) That science has its limits is consistent with that faith.
(You have pointed out, referring to a chapter I haven't posted on yet, that Ferguson may, indeed, be proposing a God-of-the-gaps theology. I expect to deal with that issue again when I post on that chapter. It's an important issue.)
You say, "It took considerable effort by many people to come to the point of realization that nature is approachable analytically instead of by revelation." That is true. Nature is approachable analytically, and, for science, that method is much more likely to yield useful results than trying to approach nature by revelation. In fact, the analytical approach does a pretty good job of opening God's revelation through nature to us. (Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:20.) But the analytical method does have its limits. In my first post on Ferguson's book, I paraphrased her list of five assumptions needed for the analytical method to work. The very first assumption, namely that nature has patterns and predictability, is not always true, as I indicated in the paragraph above about sub-atomic unpredictability. Ferguson also discusses chaos theory. Her book is the most that I have read about that subject, so I can't say much about it, but there is a Wikipedia article on Chaos Theory, which says that some systems (such as the weather, and many more) are unpredictable, at least with our present knowledge and instrumentation. The other four assumptions are also not universally applicable. The challenges to their applicability come from scientific thinking, not some sort of religious attack.
Thanks again for your comments, Pete DeSanto. Thanks to any other readers, should there be any such!
There has been an exchange of views between a reader and me, as a result of that post. I thought that it was serious, and perhaps interesting enough, that I ought to reproduce the exchange as a separate post, and have done so, with the permission of the commenter. Inserted material, not in the original comments, is in square brackets - [thus].
Pete DeSanto said
After reading this chapter, I am having serious misgivings about the direction that Ferguson seems headed. She dwells a lot on what science CAN'T do, almost as if she is making the bed of ignorance in which god will rest.
There is a lot of discussion about preconceptions and how that affects the "emergence of scientific knowledge" that seems to ignore the fact that what emerges is always due to the questioning of our preconceptions! How else to explain the move away from natural theology? We have removed the need for god to explain the how to needing god to explain the why, despite centuries of religious claims to truth. Religious preconceptions were overcome with evidence (under penalty of physical and spiritual death), why should we not expect that secular biases will also not be overcome should that be required by evidence?
I would also like to see more contrast of science with Ferguson's religion. E.g. how does religion deal with questioning of preconceptions? How does society and culture influence and change religious belief? Most importantly, what checks are used to determine if a school of religious thought is valid?
I fear Ferguson is digging herself a hole which will collapse in upon itself.
[There was another comment, not germane, by another person, at this point.]
Martin LaBar said
Perhaps so, Pete DeSanto.
My own view is that her comments about what science can't do are a welcome voice. I wouldn't characterize her as proposing a strong argument for God's existence. I would characterize her as showing, in a number of ways, that science can't disprove God's existence. I'm re-reading as I post, and will try to deal with this in due time, perhaps not satisfactorily. I have decided that it makes more sense to write about the book in the order it was written.
As always, thank you for your comments.
Martin LaBar said
Thanks again for your comment, Pete DeSanto. After reading it again, and my response, I apologize for not responding more thoroughly.
First, there are two kinds of preconceptions related to science. One of them is a preconception about what sort of result you will find. There was, at one time, a preconception that protein was the genetic material. And you are quite right. Perhaps the greatest strength of science is that that sort of preconception gets discarded, as discoveries are made.
The second kind of preconception is about the very nature of things, or the scientific enterprise. The quotation from Feynman, [see previous post, in the first link above] as I read and understand it, shows an example of that. Scientists have a preconception that nature will let us discover things. There are other preconceptions of this type, the most fundamental one being that our senses are giving us reasonably accurate information about the world around us.
Certainly, religion has its own preconceptions, and they can be dangerous in a number of ways. But religion gets questioned a lot. There are atheists in a position to do so, and competing religions that question each other. Ferguson's book, to me, in a sentence, says that science is great, but it doesn't tell us everything. It is not principally a book about religion.
Thanks again.
Pete DeSanto said
Feynman was certainly entitled to his opinions, but I think the jury is out on such things. You can always ask a deeper "why?" that doesn't have an immediate answer and assert that it is a matter of metaphysics and not science. In any case, the scientific approachability of nature is not an a priori assumption, but one discovered only after centuries of trial and error at determining answers to questions about nature. It so happens to be shown valid throughout the history of science.
Not to be insolent here, but show me a scientist who begins an experiment with the notion that nature will let us discover things. I would suggest that most experiments (and most human endeavors) are prefaced by the question, "Will this work?" and little else. The fact that we can use results from one experiment to predict expectations of other experiments in a wonderful thing, but certainly not one that was presumed with certainty absent evidence that it might indeed be the case. There was no shining moment when one person claimed such a thing and a whole realm of knowledge was suddenly opened to us. It took considerable effort by many people to come to the point of realization that nature is approachable analytically instead of by revelation.
Comments about what science can't do abound. Answering those comments with "therefore god" is special pleading. Science can't disprove the tooth fairy or santa claus either, yet no one considers that a valid argument for their existence. So I agree that she does not make even a weak argument for the existence of god.
I think it's a bit disingenuous of Ferguson to make arguments about science's inability to disprove any god and then use that to make claims about a specific god. I.e. she uses examples of the Christian god throughout, but not any other.
As for the questioning of religious preconceptions, let's be clear that in the short time during which such questioning was not punishable by death or excommunication the result is ever more divergence in religion. Witness the thousands of Christian denominations based on various interpretations stemming from one group breaking off from another denomination. The situation is quite the reverse in science, where the number of diverse hypotheses gets whittled down to converge upon only those that are best supported by the evidence.
Martin LaBar said [Not as a comment, but as part of this post.]
Thanks again, Pete DeSanto, both for the comments, and for agreeing to allow me to post them as part of a full blog post.
First, let me say something about your comments about religion. I reiterate that my impression is that the book is not primarily about religion, but about science. To summarize it: Ferguson argues that science has its limits. That being said, perhaps the book would have been stronger if it had dealt with, say, Hinduism. But the three major monotheistic religions of the West, splintered as they may be, are the most influential ones, by far, for the audience who was likely to read the book.
Second, about Christianity. Yes, it is true that Christianity is divided into thousands of denominations. I am not an expert in Christian denominational history, and have no plans to become such an expert, so I don't want to say more about this beyond this paragraph. I will say that I agree that this splintering of Christianity can, indeed, be taken as evidence that we Christians have some serious difficulties in interpreting God's revelation. I think that it is also true that pride and human traditions have led to some of the fracturing of the church. I can see that it would be possible to take this as evidence that God's revelation is non-existent, or at least not relevant. My own experience with God, and what I believe that God has done for me, in spite of my own failure to understand all of what He is saying, and in spite of the flawed humans who introduced me to Christ and accompany me on my Christian journey now, is far more important than these human failures. God is able to work through a church, or a person, with human limitations, even human sins. That's not an excuse for sin.
You mention punishment by Christians for disagreement. That was, and even is, reprehensible. Perhaps this is part of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7:21-23, when he said that he never knew some who said "Lord, Lord." (He may have also been referring to some church splitters.) Such things happened, and, a little bit, are still happening, and I'm deeply sorry that they did and are. They were and are wrong -- sinful. I can't do anything about them. I don't want to say more about this, either.
Third, about the main issue -- the limits of science.
You say "You can always ask a deeper 'why?' that doesn't have an immediate answer and assert that it is a matter of metaphysics and not science." That is true. You always can, and to say so is not to trivialize the situation. I contend, and I believe there are a lot of good philosophers, and even scientists, by no means all of them believers, who agree, and would go further, saying that the answers to some "why?" questions are not scientifically answerable, in principle. As I understand him, Feynman did exactly that in the quotation referred to above. Probably the most fundamental such question is "Why is there anything?" That is not a trivial question. Science cannot answer it. I don't think we have any better answer than that God willed it to be so. Perhaps you are right about the approachability of nature not being an assumption, but I don't believe that there is a scientific answer to why nature is approachable.
Let me be as clear as I can about one thing that I am not saying. Should every scientist have a doctorate in the philosophy of science, in order to work at, say, NIH or NASA? No. I have a Doctor of Philosophy degree, but have never had a course in philosophy, either as a graduate or undergraduate student. I expect that that shows sometimes. Most of what most scientists do, and this is the way it should be, is what Thomas Kuhn called "normal science." The Wikipedia article that that link refers to says, following Kuhn, that such work is "not actually challenging or attempting to test the underlying assumptions of that theory." (This and other quotations from the Wikipedia are from the version of July 8, 2010.) That is not a put-down of normal science. It's important. But it's not everything.
It is also not reasonable to expect that most scientists will even care about such matters, or should. But what I am saying is that science, as an enterprise, ought to be careful not to claim, or to give the impression, that all questions can be solved through science. The general public should not believe that, either.
I will go further. There are not only limits to science, but limits within science. In the first post on Ferguson's book, I pointed out that current science says that, at the sub-atomic level, there are things that we cannot know, and that this ignorance is not going to disappear with more expensive instrumentation or more exact measurement. Quantum mechanics could be wrong, I know, but these ideas have been around for the better part of a century now, and show no sign of being overturned. It is also true that mathematics, which is closely tied to science, has a gap in what it is possible to know. To quote from the Wikipedia article that that link refers to, speaking of mathematical systems, "one particular arithmetic truth the system cannot prove is the consistency of the system itself." This idea, too, has been around for the better part of a century, and shows no sign of disappearing.
I should also point out, I guess, that I believe that there are two kinds of "gaps" in scientific knowledge. One such is fundamental gaps, gaps such as the above. Another type is gaps of ignorance. We don't, for example, know what all of the genes in the human genome are, let alone what all of them do. But there is no good reason not to try to find out, doing normal science as we go. For another example, we may not be able to explain exactly how a particular characteristic might have arisen from some pre-existing organism. But that's no reason to suppose that such an explanation will never be found.
Now for another thing that I am not saying. I am not saying, and I don't think Ferguson is, either, that the above limits to science, or others not covered here, are a proof that there is a God. My belief in God does not rest on the limitations of science. The current Intelligent Design movement seems to be acting as if it does, which is both a scientific and a religious mistake. If there is a God, then He is responsible for both what we can understand, and what we can't. If a scientific explanation can be found, that doesn't mean that God wasn't involved, any more than knowledge of how internal combustion engines work proves that humans didn't invent them. My belief in God rests on faith. (Hebrews 11:3) That science has its limits is consistent with that faith.
(You have pointed out, referring to a chapter I haven't posted on yet, that Ferguson may, indeed, be proposing a God-of-the-gaps theology. I expect to deal with that issue again when I post on that chapter. It's an important issue.)
You say, "It took considerable effort by many people to come to the point of realization that nature is approachable analytically instead of by revelation." That is true. Nature is approachable analytically, and, for science, that method is much more likely to yield useful results than trying to approach nature by revelation. In fact, the analytical approach does a pretty good job of opening God's revelation through nature to us. (Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:20.) But the analytical method does have its limits. In my first post on Ferguson's book, I paraphrased her list of five assumptions needed for the analytical method to work. The very first assumption, namely that nature has patterns and predictability, is not always true, as I indicated in the paragraph above about sub-atomic unpredictability. Ferguson also discusses chaos theory. Her book is the most that I have read about that subject, so I can't say much about it, but there is a Wikipedia article on Chaos Theory, which says that some systems (such as the weather, and many more) are unpredictable, at least with our present knowledge and instrumentation. The other four assumptions are also not universally applicable. The challenges to their applicability come from scientific thinking, not some sort of religious attack.
Thanks again for your comments, Pete DeSanto. Thanks to any other readers, should there be any such!
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Science & the Search for God, part 2
I am attempting a series on Kitty Ferguson's book, The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God. Here is the first post, in which Ferguson points out five assumptions which scientists have operated under for the last couple of centuries, at least, and which have been considered necessary to do science. She also points out that recent scientific thinking has indicated areas where each one of these assumptions may not hold.
In her third chapter, Ferguson considers us -- the observers. Some thinkers believe that modern physics tells us that the observer determines what reality is. Ferguson doesn't go nearly that far, but she does think that what is perceived is not merely an objective reality. She writes:
Can our point of view affect what we find? You don't have to believe things are as uncertain on all levels as they are on the quantum level to see that it can. Nor do you have to believe that a point of view changes objective reality. The choice of an experiment that is more likely to coax out one set of evidence than another; the choice based on a theory as to which evidence will be more significant and ought to be coaxed out; the choice of which theory we ought to take seriously . . . such choices don't change objective reality, but they do help determine what we perceive as reality and what will emerge as scientific knowledge. (p. 41, ellipsis in original)
She discusses the discovery of the W and Z bosons, and concludes, I believe correctly, that they could not have been discovered without the prior proposal of a theory that predicted them. In other words, the observers were, in large measure, determining what reality looked like.
Ferguson continues with a discussion of beauty in science, and the choice of theories. Ferguson does not quote Richard Feynman, but I will:
What is it about nature that lets this happen, that it is possible to guess from one part what the rest is going to do? That is an unscientific question: I do not know how to answer it, and therefore I am going to give an unscientific answer. I think it is because nature has a simplicity and therefore a great beauty. Richard Feynman, "Seeking New Laws," pp. 143-167, in Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, New York: Modern Library, 1994. Quote is from p. 167.
I point out two things about that quotation. First, Feynman, one of the great scientists of the twentieth century, says that science can't explain why nature is susceptible to our examination. Second, scientists, especially in physics, are attracted by theories that have simplicity and beauty.
Ferguson briefly mentions some other ideas that bring the idea that scientific findings are especially objective, and unassailable, into question. One of them is that mathematics, on which the physical sciences depend, is a construct that has to be assumed -- it can't be shown, by mathematics, to be complete. Another idea is the importance of important scientists -- they can influence what is studied, or what is believed, even when they are wrong. Science is also influenced by the culture that surrounds it:
We're all to a certain extent prisoners of the mind-set of our culture and time in ways so inherently part of us that none of us can discern exactly how we and our science are influenced. It's easier to see biases in other cultures and historical eras than our own, but we can't look thoughtfully at human history and come away believing that our own culture is for some reason the exception -- free of biases that affect our perception of the world. (p. 73)
The author's third chapter is too complex to be summarized in a single quotation, but this one comes close:
The old, pre-Darwin 'natural theology' was a search for evidence of God in the works of his creation. Because science has found other explanations for the origin of so much that used to be considered explainable only as the work of God, there seems little basis for faith left in natural theology. We can no longer declare that nature points irresistibly beyond itself. However, the philosophical questions raised by science do irresistibly point beyond science. (p. 86) Here's the Wikipedia article on Natural Theology.
Thanks for reading. I hope to continue posting about this book soon.
* * * * *
A subsequent post deals with comments on this one.
In her third chapter, Ferguson considers us -- the observers. Some thinkers believe that modern physics tells us that the observer determines what reality is. Ferguson doesn't go nearly that far, but she does think that what is perceived is not merely an objective reality. She writes:
Can our point of view affect what we find? You don't have to believe things are as uncertain on all levels as they are on the quantum level to see that it can. Nor do you have to believe that a point of view changes objective reality. The choice of an experiment that is more likely to coax out one set of evidence than another; the choice based on a theory as to which evidence will be more significant and ought to be coaxed out; the choice of which theory we ought to take seriously . . . such choices don't change objective reality, but they do help determine what we perceive as reality and what will emerge as scientific knowledge. (p. 41, ellipsis in original)
She discusses the discovery of the W and Z bosons, and concludes, I believe correctly, that they could not have been discovered without the prior proposal of a theory that predicted them. In other words, the observers were, in large measure, determining what reality looked like.
Ferguson continues with a discussion of beauty in science, and the choice of theories. Ferguson does not quote Richard Feynman, but I will:
What is it about nature that lets this happen, that it is possible to guess from one part what the rest is going to do? That is an unscientific question: I do not know how to answer it, and therefore I am going to give an unscientific answer. I think it is because nature has a simplicity and therefore a great beauty. Richard Feynman, "Seeking New Laws," pp. 143-167, in Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, New York: Modern Library, 1994. Quote is from p. 167.
I point out two things about that quotation. First, Feynman, one of the great scientists of the twentieth century, says that science can't explain why nature is susceptible to our examination. Second, scientists, especially in physics, are attracted by theories that have simplicity and beauty.
Ferguson briefly mentions some other ideas that bring the idea that scientific findings are especially objective, and unassailable, into question. One of them is that mathematics, on which the physical sciences depend, is a construct that has to be assumed -- it can't be shown, by mathematics, to be complete. Another idea is the importance of important scientists -- they can influence what is studied, or what is believed, even when they are wrong. Science is also influenced by the culture that surrounds it:
We're all to a certain extent prisoners of the mind-set of our culture and time in ways so inherently part of us that none of us can discern exactly how we and our science are influenced. It's easier to see biases in other cultures and historical eras than our own, but we can't look thoughtfully at human history and come away believing that our own culture is for some reason the exception -- free of biases that affect our perception of the world. (p. 73)
The author's third chapter is too complex to be summarized in a single quotation, but this one comes close:
The old, pre-Darwin 'natural theology' was a search for evidence of God in the works of his creation. Because science has found other explanations for the origin of so much that used to be considered explainable only as the work of God, there seems little basis for faith left in natural theology. We can no longer declare that nature points irresistibly beyond itself. However, the philosophical questions raised by science do irresistibly point beyond science. (p. 86) Here's the Wikipedia article on Natural Theology.
Thanks for reading. I hope to continue posting about this book soon.
* * * * *
A subsequent post deals with comments on this one.
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