I title this post with an ‘a’ in the middle to illustrate the fact that, however one chooses to label one’s over-arching view of life, the universe and everything (even if that label is vague and/or entirely earthly), one is — at some level — choosing to put one’s trust (faith) in something that cannot be fully comprehended or definitively proven. (Which is NOT to say that faith — the mental action of informed assent — is in and of itself equally well placed in everything… but that’s another post).
Consider, for example:
Paul Davies, raising some fascinating and largely un-asked questions.
…most of my physicist colleagues also believe that these perfect laws [of physics] are the levitating superturtle that holds up the mighty edifice we call nature, as disclosed through science. About three years ago, however, it dawned on me that such laws are an extraordinary and unjustified idealization. How can we be sure that the laws are infinitely precise? How do we know they are immutable, and apply without the slightest change from the beginning to the end of time? Furthermore, the laws themselves remain unexplained. Where do they come from? Why do they have the form that they do? Indeed, why do they exist at all? And if there are many possible such laws, then, as Stephen Hawking has expressed it, what is it that “breathes fire” into a particular set of laws and makes a universe for them to govern?
Unfortunately, having posed such provocative and essential questions, Davies then heads off on a search for purely secular, natural explanations, ruling out supernatural possibilities and sources of evidence from the get-go. I discovered Davies a few weeks ago on Dennis Prager’s show — an ‘Ultimate Issues Hour’ entitled ‘Science and Faith’. (Prager was equally shocked and surprised at Davies’ presumptuous narrowing of the search for answers.)
Or consider this oldie-but-goodie from the late Harvard biologist, George Wald, co-winner of the 1967 Nobel prize for physiology and medicine, as quoted in a 1978 issue of Scientific American (library trip pending to verify!)
There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose. Spontaneous generation arising to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God… There is no other possibility. Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others, but that just leaves us with only one other possibility… that life came as a supernatural act of creation by God, but I can’t accept that philosophy because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.
H/T to the insanely prolific but unfortunately slow-to-load blog ‘Right Mind’ (new to the ‘roll) and to ‘Tigger’ for tipping me off to it. RM’s post is worth checking out just for the funny graphic of man’s dis-evolution back to a hunched-over state.
I learned about evolution in Southern Baptist Sunday school, forty five years ago. Next year we had a creationist teacher. Year after that, I forget. Nobody was terribly bothered about the whole matter.
Later, not so connected to biology as just a general matter, atheism used to bother me. What if? One afternoon I saw a cablecast lecture,done locally by the Humanists or the the Atheist Community, whatever. The title was quite direct, “The Case Against Religion.” I listened attentively, as they went back to the eighteenth century German philosophers. I had heard all the refutations, on the Christian side, many times. Listening to the atheist case, no straw men, no interruptions, I was left asking, “Is that the best you’ve got?”
I really do wish that atheists were not so consumed by missionary zeal, however. We are trying to save their souls, which they don’t believe that they have. They, on the other hand, are trying to make a better world, by eliminating religion. The only thing is, these “scientific” types, who claim to base their world view solely on empirical evidence, have ample empirical evidence that whether they are right or wrong about the supernatural, their ideas have definitely never, once, made anyone’s life better in this world. Oh, I suppose that some of them felt guilty and now they don’t, because there is no Rulemaker, and therefore no eternal rules. Still, that is so personal, so individual, and actually so tied up in psychology that is true whether ones believes or not. Eradicating religion to make everyone happier is a great deal like putting lithium in the water. We are not all in need of such therapy., and, in the case of lithium, I’d just a s soon avoid the cardiac arrhythmias associated with a surfeit of that mineral. Atheism has parallel problems of its own, and I can get by, most people can, better without them.
By: Michael on January 5, 2008
at 10:23 pm
“[H]aving posed such provocative and essential questions, Davies then heads off on a search for purely secular, natural explanations, ruling out supernatural possibilities and sources of evidence from the get-go”
I think you’ve hit on why I find Davis (and bloggers like Jon Voisey, the Angry Astronomer more than a little frustrating. Scientists are exceptionally curious by nature, after all. They’re supposed to be! But then they end their searching after hitting upon their first, few, profound truths, seemingly never asking if there are other profound truths.
Funny how this attitude might indeed be the biggest road block on the path to understanding.
By: Joe on January 5, 2008
at 5:17 pm
One of my fondest wishes in the whole evolution / creationism thing is that people would recognize that the two are orthogonal concepts and that they would use more precise terminology. Evolution and creationism cannot be in opposition to one another because they are not dealing with the same thing.
Evolution — or more precisely, fitness-based selection — is a process (most commonly, but not necessarily assumed to be ‘natural’). It’s clear that this process applies to many systems, including but not limited to biological ones.
It is not established (nor is it logically provable) that natural selection applies, or has applied, to all biological processes at all times. That statement has nothing to do with my religious convictions. It is simply the ‘black swan’ problem. (Prove to me that no black swan exists anywhere in the universe. Hint: it can’t be done.)
What’s really at issue is whether it’s worth considering as hypotheses any number of possibilities (recalling that natural selection too is a hypothesis) for how God may have intervened in the ‘natural’ world over time — the options being: “once only” (the cold, remote, ‘clock-maker’ position), “occasionally”, “rather often”, and “hunh?, he is the natural world” (the pantheist position).
I personally tend to favor the middle two answers, but that’s more a reaction to overreaching by those who think natural selection is the ONLY process that’s EVER worked to change ANY biological system, and not because I’ve got YouTube videos of God doing rib surgery on Adam.
By: ultraguy on January 4, 2008
at 8:53 pm
Running a little late on replies. However, that may not be a bad thing in this case. The National Academy of Sciences has just released the latest version of a small pamphlet (They call it a book) on science v. creationism
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11876
The authors of this claim that evolution is a done deal and that all of the evidence is in. Unfortunately, during my quick read through of the book. There were a lot of claims, but no real evidence.
By: Tigger23505 on January 4, 2008
at 7:50 am