Horace Heffner wrote:
The realm of science is the observable, testable, measurable
universe, the physical universe. There may be things that exists
entirely outside of this physical universe, or which can
occasionally be part of the physical universe, or occasionally affect it.
Well, there may be, but I have never seen any credible evidence for
this. All kinds of things might be true, but aren't -- or are not known.
It seems to me that to be an open minded scientist it is necessary
to accept the possibility there are some things which are not
knowable, which are outside the domain of science and yet which
might from time to time be part of everyday
life.
There is a big difference between "accepting the possibility" and
believing something to be true. A scientist will only believe that
which we have credible evidence for. I accept the possibility that
life on earth may be seeded from some other planet. That is at least
plausible, and it does not break any natural laws as far as I know.
But until I see evidence for it I will not believe it.
There may exist both spiritual and physical realms, with some intersection.
Spiritual phenomena are entirely meta-phenomena of the mind. That is,
they exist only in brain tissue, just as programs exist only in
computers. Spiritual phenomena and things like love, hate, jealousy,
justice and beauty have no meaning or existence outside of the brain.
That does not mean they are nonexistent!
The intrinsic meaning of animal behavior also exists only in the
brain. That is to say, when a bird, wolf or human exhibits courtship
behavior, anger, fear or joy, those behaviors have meaning to another
creature with DNA similar to ours. They mean a lot to us, and they
are instantly recognizable, because we know what it feels like to be
angry or in love.
It certainly is true that science applies to almost all experience.
Not almost all. As far as anyone can tell so far it applies to all
experience. No one has found a phenomenon that does not appear to be
explicable by science, although of course there are countless
unexplained phenomena. One of them might turn out to be inexplicable.
If that happens you will have a point. Until it happens you have nothing.
By definition miracles are not commonplace. Many people can these
days go through life comfortably thinking everything can be
explained by science.
Everything can be explained? Or has been explained? The first
assertion is likely but unproven. There is no counter evidence
indicating that something inexplicable might exist -- but you never
know when such evidence might emerge. The second is preposterous. In
the remaining life of the stars (6 billion years?) our species cannot
possibly explain more than an infinitesimally small fraction of all
remaining open questions. As I wrote in the book:
"Progress may not continue infinitely, but as Jefferson said it will
continue "indefinitely, and to a term which no one can fix and
foresee." We are nowhere near the limits yet. Were the empire of the
unknown as large as North America, we have established a few
settlements on the coast; we have some notion how large the continent
may be, and we are still debating whether California is an island or
a peninsula. There are 3,000 miles of unexplored wilderness to the
west. Even this analogy is an understatement. The unknown and
unexplored facets of nature will never decrease in number. Each new
answer reveals dozens or scores of new mysteries. We will, someday,
run out of gumption and stop seeking answers, but we can never run
out of questions."
Things have progressed so much with such regularity it is tempting
to think the process can be taken to complete knowledge . . .
Mr. Jefferson & I disagree, as I said. I doubt anyone could even
define "complete knowledge," and I am sure we will never achieve it.
I expect we could concentrate most human effort on understanding the
biology of E. coli for the next 6 billion years and never completely
understand it, down to the string theory level. But we will
eventually answer all useful questions about E. coli, and Homo
sapiens to for that matter. That leaves maybe . . . 10E100 other
species in the universe to understand. And some equal number of
materials that can be constructed from common elements such as
carbon, many of them -- such as palladium deuteride -- having unique
and startling qualities we have never dreamed of.
. . . to think science is completely in conflict with religion and
vice versa, that science can now or eventually can be used to
understand everything.
These are non sequiturs. Conflict with religion has nothing to do
with understanding everything. Science does conflict with religion.
Most scientists are unable to believe in religion, or have no
interest in believing it. Societies where religion is widespread are
resistant to science. (I did not make that up. There are many
sociological studies of attitudes and groups of scientists showing
that belief in religion is rare among them, especially among
physicists and biologists.)
I think it is absurd to suggest that science and religion are not in
conflict. They are incompatible world views. As Susan Jacoby wrote:
"While the reconciliation of science with religion is certainly
possible, for individuals as well as for a society, it is a mistake,
albeit a soothing one, to suggest that the process is easy or
automatic. The scientific method itself, with its demand (as the
Times editorial rightly noted in 1873) to 'prove it,' discourages the
leaps of faith in the unverifiable that are the essence of any
religion. That so many manage to accommodate belief systems
encompassing both the natural and the supernatural is a testament not
to the compatibility of science and religion but to the flexibility,
in both the physical and metaphysical senses, of the human brain."
However, this is not true if science has hard limits to its domain.
True, but there is at present no evidence that it has hard limits.
As long as the possibility of a non-physical part of the universe
exists, science is
limited in its domain.
Anything is possible, but when the possibility of X is vanishingly
small and there is no sign of X we should treat X as effectively
nonexistent and not worry about it. If X emerges, then we can say
science is limited.
Yet religion has much to say about the ethics of science . . .
Religion has nothing to say about ethics, any more than baseball is a
guide to opera. Various different religions either endorse or condemn
every variation and extreme of human behavior. For example, some
religions condemn murder and others make a fetish of it --
encouraging people to crash airplanes into buildings. Some say that
sex is a sin, and others say it is divine (or it depends on context).
There is zero unanimity of belief or overlap between the full set of
known religions. Christian morality does address ethics, but that has
nothing to do with Christian beliefs in the supernatural. People like
Jefferson and I subscribe to that morality without any believe
whatever in the supernatural claims.
It seems to me not hypocritical for a scientist to be religious . . .
Not hypocritical: flexible, as Jacoby said. It is kind of like a
parlor trick or mental gymnastics, like hearing a series of 20 random
numbers and reciting them backwards, or solving differential
equations in your mind. Frankly, I have no use for such abilities.
They give me a headache. I think it is a bad idea for person to
deliberately try to accept two ideas which appear to contradict one
another. The whole point of thinking, logic and analysis is to root
out such contradictions and avoid accepting them by accident.
. . . nor for the religious to study science, and that the ethical
thing to do is respect the rights of others to hold their views . . .
Religious people should definitely study science! They need a strong
dose of logic and reality-based objective thinking.
Of course we should always respect the rights of others to hold their
views! But that does mean we should agree with them or take their
ideas seriously. I always respect the rights of skeptics to
disbelieve in cold fusion but I know for a fact they are mistaken,
because I know that the standard of truth in science is experimental
data, not someone's opinion or theory. If they disagree they are not
scientists.
. . . and express them while the world struggles to find a
consensus, or determine if a consensus is even possible.
No consensus is possible between such widely separated world views.
You have to turn back the clock and unlive the last 400 years of
history, and forget all that we have learned since the Renaissance,
Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. Believing in both, and fully
participating in both, would be like trying to live the lifestyle and
ethics of Edo-period Japan in modern Tokyo. There are a handful of
people who do that, just as there are one or two Nobel laureate-grade
physicists and biologists who believe in religion.
- Jed
