Those who just happen to read posts in this and related threads might be wondering why this discussion is relevant here. Why am I responding to these posts by religious folk expressing their private personal beliefs in a secular public forum? The reason is two-fold:
1. A proper elementary conceptual understanding of science and most important scientific ideas is absolutely essential to every citizen, especially every citizen of India, because promoting scientific temper is our constitutional duty. It is as critical as understanding what is meant by democracy, liberty or secularism. 2. Whenever somebody tries to present an erroneous, benighted or biased view about an important matter in a public forum, it becomes incumbent upon those who know something about that matter to correct the record, or present the consensus position on it. Those who have read and understood what I have written here over the years know that, as a naturalist, scientist and pluralist, I am indifferent to what others believe on the basis of their Faith, a psychological need for some kind of faith, a lifelong habit, or some other compulsion. Accordingly, I have no problem with what Albert, Fr. Ivo, Nigel, Fr. Jude and Kevin write about their own faith, and what they quote from the Bible or the Secular Humanist manifesto. They certainly cannot all be right because their views are not compatible with each other. Perhaps, one of them knows the absolute truth; perhaps, they are all living in a world of fantasy. Who knows? I certainly don't. But what I know is that no Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain or Parsee would agree with most of what they are saying. I also know when and why I respond to their posts. I ONLY respond to their posts if they abuse their misunderstanding of SCIENTIFIC FACTS and IDEAS for their own parochial religious purpose. I also respond to correct them if they misrepresent or mangle my own views. I do the former because I am a scientist, and furthering the cause of scientific literacy is my duty, as a scientist and as a citizen of India. I do the latter out of self-respect and my right to be treated fairly. For example, I have to now respond to Fr. Ivo's post below because he has misrepresented not only my views, but also those of four eminent thinkers who were interviewed on the topic of science and faith on the PBS website. Please see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/religion/faith/index.html These are religious people. One is an evangelical Christian theologian (Noll), one an ex-Catholic priest who is now an evolutionary biologist (Ayala), one an Anglican priest and a biochemist (Peacocke), and one a Jewish theologian and a biologist (Pollack). These religious individuals believe that there is no conflict between their own faith and science, particularly evolution. Nowhere do they say that they believe that faith or Faith plays any role in science. One of them is not even a scientist. And yet Fr. Ivo implies that they do. He says below that "They speak of faith in scientific experiments". No such affirmation can be found anywhere in what they have said on that website. On the issue of conflict, there are hundreds of other scientists and theologians (e.g. U. S. Southern Baptists) who disagree strongly with these four individuals, stating that there indeed is an ongoing ferocious conflict between many people's faith (e.g. Nigel Britto's here) and science, particularly evolutionary biology. As a matter of fact, a major court case was fought in the U.S. on just this conflict recently. In the rest of the post, Fr. Ivo belies his earlier claims of conformity with the theory of evolution by attacking me for pointing out Nigel Britto's ignorance about this well-established scientific theory in charging that it is an absurdity. Fr. Ivo misrepresents my position as absolutism, even though all I have ever asserted and defended is that the scope of science is limited to explaining the natural world. That science has nothing to do with the supernatural, and that anybody who proclaims that science points to his God is making a bogus claim. Earlier, I had tried to explain that the principle of causality was not self-evident and universal both from philosophical and scientific standpoints. I realize that this earlier discussion would not be understood by most readers because I had referred to my prior posts in the Goanet archives, instead of laying it all out here once again. So for the sake of completeness and clarity at this moment in time, let me briefly summarize my position here. The principle of causality refers to the notion that everything has some other thing as its cause, the latter invariably preceding the former. I have provided arguments and evidence on many occasions on Goanet for why this proposition is not universally true. Briefly, they are as follows: 1. There are philosophies that contend that the universe has existed forever without any antecedent cause (Vedic school, Vivekananda's Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.). 2. There are philosophies that contend that an infinite eternal universe itself is its own cause (Vedic school, Pantheism, etc.). 3. In claiming that God is the first cause of everything, but on the other hand, He, Himself is an uncaused cause, any objective person can see that Thomas Aquinas is refuting the principle of causality by making an exception for God. Most non-Christian philosophers now point out that this Thomistic argument is flawed for the above reason, among others. 4. In an oscillatory model of the universe, an ultimate effect can serve as its own primal cause, making the concepts of cause and effect meaningless (My daughter is going to write a SciFi novel based on this idea. I will translate it into Konknni). 5. In science stochastic and non-equilibrium thermodynamic processes lead to spontaneous self-organization, and emergence of new phenomena and structures, without any actual underlying causes. 6. In the subatomic world events take place by pure chance because of quantum uncertainty. 7. SOMETHING has been experimentally demonstrated to spontaneously emerge from NOTHING in the laboratory by Steven Lamoreaux and others, due to a zero-point energy or quantum vacuum fluctuation. Cheers, Santosh --- "Fr. Ivo da C. Souza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thanks for your reference to the enriching Website > www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution. > I really found all my views confirmed by scientists, > like Francisco Ayala, > Mark Noll, Arthur Peacocke and Robert Pollack. I do > agree with them > perfectly in whatever they have said in that > section. > I really admire their holistic view, sincerity and > humility. They > distinguish between faith and Faith ('religious > faith). They speak of faith > in scientific experiments. > Thanks for helping me to know why I stated what I > have stated in my > discussion with you. > Regards. > Fr.Ivo