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elfsUSA Today is running an article this morning entitled How to Honor Science and Religion, by Henry G. Brinton, and the basic idea of his article is a tired and old one: non-overlapping magesteria. Science answers the "how" question and religion answers the "why" question.
The problem with this idea, usually put forth by members on the religious side of the discussion, is that science answers one set of questions, the mechanics of the problem, while religion attempts to discern the "meaning behind existence," as if we could possibly know it. This idea is incoherent because it presumes there is absolutely no overlap. But there's a third questions both religion and science ask, and no one ever wants to look at that one too closely because it destroys the non-overlapping argument. That question is "did."
In science, a theory is a well-reasoned statement describing a collection of phenomena in such a way that it embraces all the known phenomena; we call such a theory robust. A theory that also suggests future lines of investigation, and when those investigations continue to affirm the theory, the theory is said to be "reliable." Newton's theory was robust, but not reliable; Einstein's theory, which replaced it, is robust and reliable. Darwin's theory of descent with modification by variation and natural selection has proven both robust and reliable, but his theory of vertical lineage has been tossed out in favor of a theory that embraces horizontal gene transfer and evironmental factors and a whole host of other purely naturalistic tricks evolution has crafted out of the chemistry and physics available.
A theory can find itself completely discarded by one well-described counter-example. It rarely happens that one is enough to discard a well-established theory, but it happens all the time at the level of individual experiments. A scientist crafts an experiment or field observation to demonstrate some principle he wishes to affirm. He collects mounds of data. And then one day someone just as bright-eyed looks at his data, comes up with an equally plausible explanation or, worse, finds a subset of data that shows that his explanation is even more plausible overall, and that theory is thrown out. The steady-state universe, plate techtonics, even medical hygiene, are historical examples of this at work. It doesn't happen overnight; Thomas Khun documented the idea of the "paradigm shift," and how it can sometimes take a generation for the previous body of knowledge to be revised in the face of evidence only the young are willing to examine closely.
At its bedrock, however, all science investigation requires that the universe itself be robust and reliable. Cosmologists usually use the terms "mundane" and "regular," but they mean the same thing: a mundane universe is one where the laws of physics as we understand them are the exact same everywhere and everywhen for everyone; a regular universe is one where those laws don't change, ever, for anyone, for any reason or no reason. The universe must be this way: otherwise, any observation is suspect, and can be challenged, and we have no reason to trust our senses, our observations, and our conclusions.
Intelligent Design is a threat to science not merely because it encouraged deception and despair in the face of hard problems; it is a threat to science because its adoption in one science, biology, would taint all of science with the suspicion that the world is truly contingent upon the whims of the tinkering designer, and at any moment our expectations of a robust and reliable universe could be betrayed. It is not just that we have no reason to believe that Darwinian evolution is true; we would have no reason to believe the Earth orbits the Sun or that airplanes aren't held in the sky by fairies.
Brinton's "religion" is probably the abstract, parallel-universe religion of high-end theology, where "God" is so far removed from daily life he may as well not exist, except as the guideposts to a better life of some kind. Most people seem to want an interventionist God, one that does stuff. They want a God that sends people wandering in the desert for 40 years, rains fire from the skies, and created an unwed teenage mother in Galilee. The problem is that a God that does stuff violates the regularity of the universe. When someone says, "did it?" science has to say no, and without reservation. Anything else is incoherent. There can be no counter-example accepted as fact, because one counter-example destroys all knowledge forver.
Scientists have already told states that adopt ID teaching that they're taking their convention dollars and going home. Louisiana has lost two contracts with science groups this year looking to book convention space in New Orleans. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if it isn't the mercy and humanity of scientists that keeps them all from giving up.
Someone (not me) ought to re-write an Atlas Shrugged but with the religious impulse as its source of evil. Screw John, Hank, and Dagny. A truly interesting book would feature Yochiru Nambu, Yves Chauvin, and Günter Blobel.
The problem with this idea, usually put forth by members on the religious side of the discussion, is that science answers one set of questions, the mechanics of the problem, while religion attempts to discern the "meaning behind existence," as if we could possibly know it. This idea is incoherent because it presumes there is absolutely no overlap. But there's a third questions both religion and science ask, and no one ever wants to look at that one too closely because it destroys the non-overlapping argument. That question is "did."
In science, a theory is a well-reasoned statement describing a collection of phenomena in such a way that it embraces all the known phenomena; we call such a theory robust. A theory that also suggests future lines of investigation, and when those investigations continue to affirm the theory, the theory is said to be "reliable." Newton's theory was robust, but not reliable; Einstein's theory, which replaced it, is robust and reliable. Darwin's theory of descent with modification by variation and natural selection has proven both robust and reliable, but his theory of vertical lineage has been tossed out in favor of a theory that embraces horizontal gene transfer and evironmental factors and a whole host of other purely naturalistic tricks evolution has crafted out of the chemistry and physics available.
A theory can find itself completely discarded by one well-described counter-example. It rarely happens that one is enough to discard a well-established theory, but it happens all the time at the level of individual experiments. A scientist crafts an experiment or field observation to demonstrate some principle he wishes to affirm. He collects mounds of data. And then one day someone just as bright-eyed looks at his data, comes up with an equally plausible explanation or, worse, finds a subset of data that shows that his explanation is even more plausible overall, and that theory is thrown out. The steady-state universe, plate techtonics, even medical hygiene, are historical examples of this at work. It doesn't happen overnight; Thomas Khun documented the idea of the "paradigm shift," and how it can sometimes take a generation for the previous body of knowledge to be revised in the face of evidence only the young are willing to examine closely.
At its bedrock, however, all science investigation requires that the universe itself be robust and reliable. Cosmologists usually use the terms "mundane" and "regular," but they mean the same thing: a mundane universe is one where the laws of physics as we understand them are the exact same everywhere and everywhen for everyone; a regular universe is one where those laws don't change, ever, for anyone, for any reason or no reason. The universe must be this way: otherwise, any observation is suspect, and can be challenged, and we have no reason to trust our senses, our observations, and our conclusions.
Intelligent Design is a threat to science not merely because it encouraged deception and despair in the face of hard problems; it is a threat to science because its adoption in one science, biology, would taint all of science with the suspicion that the world is truly contingent upon the whims of the tinkering designer, and at any moment our expectations of a robust and reliable universe could be betrayed. It is not just that we have no reason to believe that Darwinian evolution is true; we would have no reason to believe the Earth orbits the Sun or that airplanes aren't held in the sky by fairies.
Brinton's "religion" is probably the abstract, parallel-universe religion of high-end theology, where "God" is so far removed from daily life he may as well not exist, except as the guideposts to a better life of some kind. Most people seem to want an interventionist God, one that does stuff. They want a God that sends people wandering in the desert for 40 years, rains fire from the skies, and created an unwed teenage mother in Galilee. The problem is that a God that does stuff violates the regularity of the universe. When someone says, "did it?" science has to say no, and without reservation. Anything else is incoherent. There can be no counter-example accepted as fact, because one counter-example destroys all knowledge forver.
Scientists have already told states that adopt ID teaching that they're taking their convention dollars and going home. Louisiana has lost two contracts with science groups this year looking to book convention space in New Orleans. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if it isn't the mercy and humanity of scientists that keeps them all from giving up.
Someone (not me) ought to re-write an Atlas Shrugged but with the religious impulse as its source of evil. Screw John, Hank, and Dagny. A truly interesting book would feature Yochiru Nambu, Yves Chauvin, and Günter Blobel.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 01:46 am (UTC)But there have been more than a few occasions where a "consensus" has formed around ideas to the point where further examination was deemed pointless by the larger community, only to discover later that the consensus was wrong. One can take comfort that eventually the consensus was overturned by further inquiry...or take pause that the consensus was reached in the first place, and that indeed many things we take as scientific "truth" now will probably be laughed at as barbaric stupidity a century or so from now, much as we view the flat-earth perspective now. I'd certainly hope so, even if there isn't a way to know now which are the points that we're wrong about, since the alternative is a stasis which doesn't serve humanity well.
IMO, it doesn't make any sense to say "our instruments can't measure ghosts" until and unless we can actually substantiate that the word "ghost" corresponds to a phenomena which actually exists, and that said phenomena has characteristics such that we can say "we can't measure it" with some sort of evidential support to back that up.
My point being is that we're limited by our instrumentation, and just because we can't quantify something with the tools we have doesn't mean it therefore doesn't exist. The evidential support may be there to be found, but we may not yet be at a level of technology, sensory perception, etc. to be able to perceive or measure it at this time. To take another example, I think we're still in the formative stages of understanding how the human brain-mind interaction really works, even with all the progress that's been make in the last half-century on that front. That's one area, psychotropic drugs, where I expect our current state of affairs will be considered hopelessly archaic even within most of our lifetimes.
Indeed, I'd say the only gap left is "What happened before the end of the Planck epoch?"
But the "first causes" issue is a big one. As I understand it, it is the problem of energy and matter appearing where none existed before, a violation of e=mc^2. Unfortunately, exactly what "before" consisted of may be unknowable, although I expect we'll get a much better understanding as our ability to view deep space improves.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:22 am (UTC)The point is that science doesn't stand still. Every conclusion is taken as being tentative, and subject to revision pending new information, or a re-examination of old information.
Old conclusions are sometimes replaced by new ones... but it doesn't follow that old conclusions can be accurately referred to as "barbaric stupidity." Newtonian mechanics, for instance, is neither barbaric nor stupid just because it turns out to be a limited case of a greater general theory. Also, new theories still have to be coherent with old data.
My point being is that we're limited by our instrumentation, and just because we can't quantify something with the tools we have doesn't mean it therefore doesn't exist.
Likewise, just because we can imagine a thing, or someone asserts that they saw a thing, it does not follow that it actually exists. In other words, "That which I cannot detect" and "That which does not exist" look exactly the same... until and unless you can, in fact, detect it.
But the "first causes" issue is a big one. As I understand it, it is the problem of energy and matter appearing where none existed before, a violation of e=mc^2. Unfortunately, exactly what "before" consisted of may be unknowable, although I expect we'll get a much better understanding as our ability to view deep space improves.
It could be that the entire universe is the result of a quantum fluctuation, and that the entire energy content (including gravitational - which counts as being negative) is exactly zero.
Our understanding of physics does not give us a coherent understanding of how the universe worked before the end of the Planck Epoch... that's one of the driving forces behind string theory, the resolution of the different answers we get from quantum mechanics and general relativity under certain extreme conditions - like the beginning of the universe.
How did the universe begin? The simple answer is "We don't know... yet."