A Colossal Waste of Time – Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là
Date: October 25, 2007 | Author: Jon BlumenfeldCategory: Religion/Faith | Comments: 21 » |
I just received my copy of the Reports of the National Center for Science Education, the publication of the eponymous organization that is one of the great lights of the pro-evolution world. The group’s director, Eugenie C. Scott, works tirelessly to promote good science education, and to fight the dark forces of creationism. Dr. Scott is a friend of the skeptical movement, and has been a guest on the ‘Skeptics Guide’ podcast. Dr. Scott is one who seeks to reconcile religion with science, arguing that evolution is compatible with religious faith, or at least, in the mold of Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘non-overlapping magesteria,’ that there is no conflict between them. Time for battle stations in the comments section, because I am going to say something that is sure to ruffle some feathers: The attempt to reconcile religion and science in general, and the bible and evolution in particular, is a colossal waste of time.
RNCSE is a lovely little mag, with updates from the battlefront and excellent articles by scientists, educators, and just plain interested parties. The book review section is extensive, with reviews of books on evolution, for and against, and every shade in between. Consider these:”Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith,” by Philip Kitcher. “The Challenge of Creation: Judaism’s Encounter with Science, Cosmology, and Evolution,” by Natan Slifkin (for which the author was excommunicated from his ultra-orthodox community). “The Evolution Dialogues,” by Catherine Baker. “Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist,” by Joan Roughgarden. “Darwinism and its Discontents,” by Michael Ruse. “Thank God for Evolution! How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World,” by Michael Dowd. “By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe,” by Denyse O’Leary. And finally, “Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution,” by Daryl P. Domning. Every single one of them, in whole or in part, is an attempt to reconcile science and religion – and that’s just one issue of RNCSE.
Some of the arguments are more detailed than others. Some are more slanted toward religion, and some more slanted toward science. The best of them go something like this: “Science is the best way we have of relating to the physical world. It’s the only way we can know anything about anything, really. BUT – I still believe, I still have faith in a loving God, or a providential God, or some kind of God, and it doesn’t interfere in my pursuit of science.” In other words, science is great, but ah buh-leeve! I feel it deep down. I had an experience of God’s love. I know it, I just know it. All right, already. The thing about evolution (and the rest of science really), the really dangerous thing, is that it makes God unnecessary. Sure, you can have evolution and the rest of science with God, but you just don’t need the old boy – the system works fine without him. As Laplace famously stated, “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là” (I did not need that hypothesis). God becomes a choice, not an imperative. You want to make that choice? Fine, but recognize it for what it is, a choice. That’s what Martin Gardner, the subject of last week’s post, did. He calls himself a Fideist, and that’s it. He hasn’t written a 700 page tome about it.
So can’t we dispense with all the book writing, all the mental contortionism, all the close study and redefinition of every word in the bible to somehow rescue God, and just say, “Science good. Faith not subject to reason.” As Hugh Laurie’s character, Dr. House, recently said: “Rational arguments do not work on religious people, otherwise there would be no religious people.”
Think of the trees we’d save, think of all the time we could put to better use. Think of all the room that would be freed up in the pages of RNCSE for crushing Michael Behe and William Dembski, and their ilk. Just think of it. And stop worrying about things that waste your, my, and everybody’s time.
21 Responses to “A Colossal Waste of Time – Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là”
By Galadan on Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
The Stoics had it right:
Conduct me, Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,
Wherever thy decree has fixed my lot.
I follow willingly; and, did I not,
Wicked and wretched would I follow still.
I’ve personally several times had to simply accept that otherwise absolutely rational friends of mine, despite holding more or less the same views on science as I do, still believe in God based solely on faith. I find that baffling in much the same way that they find it baffling that I don’t. But since there is absolutely no way to change their minds, and they’re not going to change mine short of a really good miracle (a few hundred million dollars’ worth of gold turning up behind my sofa cushions would do nicely) it’s easier to just avoid those hours-long debates and have some fun instead.
So in short; I’d love to disagree with you, but I can’t. Darn you to heck.
By Conlan on Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
As you may know, Martin Gardner actually did write a book about his “religious” beliefs: The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener. It’s a good read.
I think most of the scientific/philosophic (rather than pseudo-scientific) attempts to reconcile faith and reason are more a reaction to those who state that because God is not necessary to explain things, there is definitely no God. It’s almost a straw man: because there are no gaps to fill, there is no God. But most serious theists are far removed from the old “god of the gaps” mentality.
I agree that there’s little hope of “convincing” anyone on either side, but I disagree with Galadan–hours-long debates about this (in the best philosophical tradition) can be very fun.
By Jon Blumenfeld on Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Re: Gardner’s book – I was afraid of that. I had a feeling. Should have checked that out. Such is blogging – freeform, easy to make unfounded (i.e. incorrect) statements. As to the hours long debates, I’ve done my share, but I no longer have the patience.
By jonny_eh on Oct 25, 2007 | Reply
Trying to reconcile science and religion just creates huge cognitive dissonance. I had to choose one or the other, I chose science, and I couldn’t be happier.
By Nevar on Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
The Dr. House quote reminded me of how Dr. Steven Novella once put it :
“It is very rare to ever change the mind of a true believer. You cannot reason someone out of a belief they did not reason their way into in the first place.”
(Unfortunately, I can’t recall from which article that was.)
By Milano on Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
I agree completely. It boggles my mind that anyone could believe in the value of reason and faith simultaneously. They are antonyms by definition. Religion is based on faith, and science on reason. Take your pick.
By gavino on Oct 26, 2007 | Reply
Lots of things we do are, arguably, a complete waste of time.
Heck, I spent a few hours of my life last night watching absurdly-highly-paid people try to hit a ball with a stick (Go Red Sox!).
If people want to think deeply about the relationship (or lack thereof) between religion and sciene I think we should treat them just like anybody else with a hobby or pastime that we don’t understand– smile and nod politely and then try to change the subject to something we find more interesting.
By FatherWolf on Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
People in general are a lot less rational an integrated than they would like to imagine. Most people have passions like opera or NFL football that have nothing to do with science.
There is no conflict between science and rock music, and no way to reconcile the two. What is it about religion that makes people want to reconcile it with science?
People in the U. S. generally think about attempts to reconcile science and religion in the context of the Abrahamic religions. The issues that belivers in these religions have in trying to reconcile their religious impulses with the content of science, are well known.
But what about other different religious traditions?
I’m not aware that any Hindus or Buddhists feel the need to reconcile their religions with science. Is there any such struggle?
By Jon Blumenfeld on Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
Interesting question… as far as I know, Hinduism tends to coopt any ideas that it encounters into Hinduism. Both Hinduism and Buddhism make claims about metaphysics becoming accessible to the human mind, which kind of renders ’science’ moot. I mean, once you know the absolute truth, science is just an aspect of that truth.
Of course, that’s on the ‘high plane’ of philosphy. On the ground, Hindus and Buddhists don’t look any less susceptible to superstition and magical thinking than anyone else. At that level, I’m sure that science has the same struggle with religion that it has with Abrahamic religions – though all of this is kind of speculative musing. Investigation, as always, is needed.
By dcardani on Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
FatherWolf, to answer your question, “What is it about religion that makes people want to reconcile it with science?”
Here in the US, it’s public policy. People who are in that middle ground of, “I believe, but I can see that science is right about many things that contradict my beliefs,” are then left unable to make rational choices about certain issues they feel conflicted about. (Gay marriage, abortion, etc.) Most of the books mentioned in the article are attempting to tell people they can have it both ways, as far as I can tell (from their titles
). If you can make a person think there’s no overlap between religion and science, then all you have to do is convince them that a particular decision is a religious one, and they no longer have to worry about facts.
By Al Moritz on Oct 31, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for having the intellectual decency of posting this trackback which upholds reason and common sense.
As a Catholic, I have never experienced any discrepancy between the rationality of science and my faith, which I embrace as a rational person (the 7-day creation has never even remotely been an issue, since for Catholics it has always been clear that no 24-hour days are meant; this is confirmed by modern studies of the Bible in relation to Hebrew linguistics).
Once I studied evolution seriously, I did not have any difficulties embracing the mechanisms postulated by the scientific theory of evolution, but then it came easy to me, since I am a scientist myself. As far as the origin of life by natural causes goes, I had to delve into the primary scientific literature to become convinced, but also this was not too difficult. As a result, I decided to contribute my part to the defense of the rationality of science by writing the review “The Origin of Life” for the leading evolution website, talkorigins.org:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html
Also the founders of modern science have never experienced any discrepancy between the rationality of science and their faith in God – Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton etc. As one of the founding fathers of the scientific method, Francis Bacon, wrote:
“No one should maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s Word or in the book of God’s works (i.e. the study of nature, my comment); divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both.”
Of course, the typical atheist will counter that in modern times these early scientific revolutionaries would have been atheists. This is highly debatable; Francis Bacon for example wrote: “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion”. Indeed, I have found that atheists mostly have little clue of philosophy, with also the consequence that they often fight against concepts of God that no serious, educated theist believes in.
The “embarrassing” fact remains that the discipline of science, which gives atheists so much pride as a tool of reason, has been founded by God-believing people based on the very principles of reason. These were instilled by the rational faith that God created an orderly world with laws of nature that can be studied because they do not change on every whim.
Also in modern times prominent scientists have been/are believers. For example, much of the pivotal research on the Big Bang was performed by believers. The theory was proposed by George Lemaitre, a physicist who was a Catholic priest no less; the microwave background radiation, a vital observation to verify the theory, was discovered in 1965 by Nobel-Prize winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson; Penzias is a believer. The COBE team that established the famous “ripples” in the microwave background was led by now Nobel-Prize winner George Smoot – also a believer in God. Are these men all “irrational”?
But atheists have peculiar ways of arguing. I have been accused of not being a real scientist, since real scientists do not succumb to the (according to them) irrationality of faith. My bosses who are satisfied with my work would laugh at the notion that I am not a real scientist. What then am I supposed to think of the rationality of atheists in the face of such risible nonsense? And again, the first scientific revolutionaries were all believers. Were these no “real scientists”? Long live irrational argumentation that prides itself to be rational – the summit of ludicrousness.
What atheists then usually say is that my scientific work may be okay, but only because I “compartmentalize” (a comforting idea to them, apparently): one compartment in my mind is faith, the other compartment is science and rational living. Believers like me can only intellectually survive because in our thinking we artificially, but successfully, keep our mental compartments apart.
No such luck, folks. I do not compartmentalize. It does not happen once when I recite the Creed in church that I do not think about physical evolution of the universe, the sheer vastness of the universe, and biological evolution. My thinking is one.
As far as belief in God goes, I believe not just because of divine revelation, but because the God concept offers to me the most rational answers to two things:
a) why is there something rather than nothing
b) the fine-tuning of the universe
I have rationally weighed all the atheist explanations for these, and I have found them lacking, light-weight or simply – yes, unbelievable. And yes, I am skeptical enough that I would have embraced atheism if it had convinced me in any way.
By the way, a naturalistic explanation is not automatically a scientific explanation – a distinction that many atheists do not understand. Let’s take the multiverse for example, postulated to “explain away” the fine-tuning of the universe. Other universes cannot in principle be observed, since they are in other spacetime domains. Therefore, they lie outside science; they are not a scientific explanation, but a metaphysical one. As the atheist or agnostic Paul Davies states (God and the New Physics):
“One may find it easier to believe in an infinite array of universes than in an infinite Deity, but such a belief must rest on faith rather than observation.”
***
Whenever atheists claim that a believer in God can ultimately not be an entirely rational person it strikes me as strangely, let me be honest – irrational.
Richard Dawkins (whose phenomenal writings on evolution I respect and admire) has called belief the “God Delusion”. Yet if the laws of nature which science studies, the discipline that atheists mostly build their “rational thinking” upon, have been created by God, whom atheists deny, then it is the atheists who live under the delusion.
By Jon Blumenfeld on Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Al,
Clearly you have put a lot of thought into your ideas. Can I ask you a question, in all seriousness: Did you actually read my post, or just the title?
I ask because you don’t actually seem to be answering anything I wrote. I did not promote atheism, or say that belief in God is incompatible with science. The heart of the argument is this:
Science works without God’s existence. It also works with God’s existence. Faith in God then becomes a choice, just as you’ve described. Why then do we need to engage in so much debate about it? Either make the choice or don’t, as your personal inclinations lead.
To address your last 2 paragraphs, I guess I would say that belief in God is ‘extra-rational,’ not necessarily ‘irrational,’ but I can see that you disagree (I read YOUR post, you see).
As for atheists being delusional, well, if atheists accepted the premise that rationality was created by God, then they WOULD be delusional, but I hardly think most atheists would agree with the premise.
Oh, one last thing. No need to thank us for our ‘decency’ – and speaking just for myself, and not on behalf of anyone else associated with this blog or the SGU or the NESS – I find the implication in your opening sentence condescending and insulting. Think about it.
By Al Moritz on Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Jon,
yes I had read your post. When you say in your reply to me:
“The heart of the argument is this:
Science works without God’s existence. It also works with God’s existence. Faith in God then becomes a choice, just as you’ve described. Why then do we need to engage in so much debate about it? Either make the choice or don’t, as your personal inclinations lead,”
this sounds good. But let us see what you said in your opening post:
“The attempt to reconcile religion and science in general, and the bible and evolution in particular, is a colossal waste of time.”
This implies that a religious person cannot accept science.
Well, maybe you personally did not mean to imply this, but for a believer it is automatically implied. If the Bible cannot be reconciled with science (even not just by claiming that the language is allegorical), then how can a believer take science seriously?
Also, you go on to say:
“So can’t we dispense with all the book writing, all the mental contortionism, all the close study and redefinition of every word in the bible to somehow rescue God, and just say, “Science good. Faith not subject to reason.” As Hugh Laurie’s character, Dr. House, recently said: “Rational arguments do not work on religious people, otherwise there would be no religious people.”
In my view this now undoubtedly implies that a religious person cannot accept science, since science is a collection of rational arguments, and this kind of argument “does not work on religious people”. In any case, I like Hugh Laurie’s character a lot, and my wife and I love to watch the show.
In any case, I am glad you cleared up what you really meant.
As far as the opening sentence in my previous post goes, in hindsight I can understand that you find it condescending and insulting. I sincerely apologize. However, the “intellectual decency” part of it was meant as a real compliment since, sadly, I rarely encounter intellectual decency among atheists/skeptics.
Some of the tone in my previous post may have been overly aggressive and cynical, but I have become – justifiedly or not – hardened by the general tone of comments by atheists (some of it mentioned in my previous post), of which the following comment on this thread is just a mild, very polite version:
“I agree completely. It boggles my mind that anyone could believe in the value of reason and faith simultaneously. They are antonyms by definition. Religion is based on faith, and science on reason. Take your pick.”
You replied to me:
“To address your last 2 paragraphs, I guess I would say that belief in God is ‘extra-rational,’ not necessarily ‘irrational,’ but I can see that you disagree (I read YOUR post, you see).”
I appreciate that you use the term ‘extra-rational’. I would add that part of belief in God is rational, part is extra-rational. The rational part comes from weighing the concept of God against entirely naturalistic alternatives of explaining the world. These may be convincing to some, not so convincing to others like me. The extra-rational part relates to divine revelation, which refers to things that man cannot contemplate by rational powers alone. However, even though for many believers the acceptance of faith in divine revelation was not a rational choice because, like me, they have received faith from childhood, maintaining this faith as an adult should be a rational choice, like it has been many, many times for me. If the maintanance of faith is a choice from unthinking fear or from sheer comfort and laziness, it is worthless – at least, intellectually worthless.
From all this it will be clear that I do not consider myself a fideist, and the Catholic church actually condemns fideism – faith without employment of reason. And no, I am against fideism not because of what the church says – my own intellect revolts against it. I could not accept faith within its framework.
***
By the way, it is not just believers who have had to reconcile their world view with science. History shows that findings of science have confounded atheists too, in particular the Big Bang. Atheists used to believe that the universe simply was, and that it was eternal. The evidence for a Big Bang confounded this world view dramatically, and lead to such questionable, and now refuted, reactions as the steady-state model by Fred Hoyle.
The Big Bang concept also vindicated the theistic notion that time had a beginning (stated already in the 5th century by St. Augustine). Also in the current standard Big Bang cosmology time still did have a beginning. Modifying proposals (incorporating quantum cosmology) that try to avoid this are neither unequivocally successful nor universally accepted (unlike Big Bang cosmology from 10E-43 seconds after the event onwards).
Of course, in the meantime, a few decades later, atheists have become comfortable with the Big Bang model, and believe to even have found a way of getting around the idea of a creation event associated with it. The science associated with this is debatable though, and observational evidence is lacking. Much of the scientific modeling associated with this is based on string theory, which has come under a lot of fire lately, and for good reasons (I recommend the outstanding book “The Trouble with Physics” by insider Lee Smolin for a critical perspective).
Al
By Jon Blumenfeld on Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Al,
You make some good points about the tone of my original post, and I accept that I should have been more even-handed and cautious. I undertstand your reaction, and in retrospect I think it was somewhat justified.
Let me say one final thing, and if you want to respond I will let you have the final word.
You are unsatisfied with naturalistic explanations of the universe. Okay, so are many others. You appear to me to have made a decision that a supernatural creator is a better explanation than anything else you’ve seen. Is that the final word, or would you be convinced by a better naturalistic explanation? Or have you made a final decision that the supernatural is the only possibility?
I still think it comes down to choice for you, and in this case, you made have made a choice that DOES interfere in your ability to be a rational scientist.
By Al Moritz on Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Jon,
thanks for the fair words.
I find it highly unlikely, for scientific, logical and philosophical reasons (a lot of reasons thus), that a naturalistic explanation for the universe will be found that satisfies me. However, if against all odds science would come up with some unexpected and spectacular twist that would shine a whole new light on the issue, I would entirely rethink my position and decide accordingly. I am flexibly open to evidence. As I said, I have considered atheism before, so this would just be a re-exploration.
But it would require real observational evidence associated with it, not just some nice mathematical speculative model with no significant experimental or observational angle attached to it – this alone does not satisfy the requirements of true science relating to actual physical reality.
Al
By Al Moritz on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply
I stand by my statement of my previous post, but I feel the need to qualify what I mean with observational evidence that would satisfy me to such a degree as to force me to reconsider, and how huge the odds against this really are.
We have several options to consider:
1. A naturalistic origin of the universe out of nothing
2. The postulate of necessary, unique laws of nature (against the fine-tuning argument)
3. The exquisitely special conditions of our universe arose by brute chance (against the fine-tuning argument)
4. The cyclic universe (matter is eternal, may answer the fine-tuning argument)
5. The multiple universe (matter is eternal, may answer the fine-tuning argument)
(Since this is not a short text, and I do not know what the maximum post length is, I will spread it out over several posts.)
Option 1:
A naturalistic origin of the universe out of nothing
Some (Victor Stenger and others) try to sell this as a counterargument to “creatio ex nihilo”. A universe could spontaneously pop out from a quantum vacuum as a result of vacuum fluctuation, just like virtual particles pop out of quantum vacua all the time. Even though it is an outlandish idea, and there is no proven physics supporting it, I have in principle nothing against the generation of universes out of quantum vacua. If some day it can be shown that that’s the way it happens, so be it.
However, to seriously sell this as an origin of the universe out of nothing is one of the greatest intellectual blunders I have ever encountered in all my life. A quantum vacuum is not nothing, it is a field. Stenger of course holds that making a distinction between the philosophical nothing and the physical “nothing” of a quantum vacuum is just wordplay. This is silly: a quantum vacuum is still a field and can only exist where there are laws of nature, i.e. not nothing, that allow for it.
So who or what created the quantum vacuum background from which universes can arise (if they can, that is)?
Option 2:
The postulate of necessary, unique laws of nature
Some claim that any debate about what happens if the laws of nature were just a bit different, and would not allow for the existence of life (or rocks, for that matter), may be irrelevant, since perhaps there can only be one unique set of laws of nature – it cannot be any other way. Obviously, this would obliterate the fine-tuning argument. However, to my knowledge, when physicists speak about “unique solutions” they mean that these solutions uniquely satisfy certain conditions, e.g. quantum physics and general relativity. Perhaps – not likely, but anyway – there will turn out indeed to be only one possible unified structure that satisfies both quantum physics and general relativity, and all physical constants are locked. But who says that any possible set of laws of nature has to satisfy both, or even just one? One could dream up any number of laws of nature that would be logically and mathematically self-consistent.
Thus, I reject option 1 on philosophical grounds, and option 2 on logical grounds.
Option 3:
The exquisitely special conditions of the single universe that exists arose by brute chance. The fine-tuning argument is irrelevant on this basis. Well, you got be incredibly hard-nosed to be satisfied with this idea, and many cosmologists who think about it on grounds of their profession don’t seem to be. The fine-tuning argument is taken very seriously by prominent cosmologists/astronomers, like Martin Rees, Paul Davies, Steven Hawking, Steve Weinberg and Robert Jastrow, to name a few, and all of the persons mentioned appear to be atheists or agnostics.
I dismiss option 3 on grounds of credibility – it’s a non-starter.
By Al Moritz on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply
This brings us to option 4:
The cyclic universe.
Here matter is eternal, which relieves us from having to explain a Big Bang out of nothing. Also, it may answer the fine-tuning argument, since upon each bounce slightly different physical laws might arise, a phenomenon that might “explain away” the fine-tuning of the universe – at one of the endless bounces the conditions would be those of our observed universe simply by chance, and we feel lucky to be in it when it’s really no luck at all.
Yet how can we obtain observational evidence for a cyclic universe? It would have to go back before the Big Bang, which may be an insurmountable problem.
As the agnostic (yes, he emphasizes this repeatedly) cosmologist Robert Jastrow writes:
(http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth18b.html
Disclaimer: I do not support everything on the leaderu website.)
“So, the scientist asks himself, what cause led to the effect we call the Universe? And he proceeds to examine the conditions under which the world began. But then he sees that he is deprived-today, tomorrow, and very likely forever-of finding out the answer to this critical question.
“Why is that? The answer has to do with the conditions that prevailed in the first moments of the Universe’s existence. At that time it must have been compressed to an enormous-perhaps infinite-density, temperature and pressure. The shock of that moment must have destroyed every relic of an earlier, pre-creation Universe that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion. To find that cause, the scientist must reconstruct the chain of events that took place prior to the seeming moment of creation, and led to the appearance of our Universe as their end product. But just this, he cannot do. For all the evidence he might have examined to that end has been melted down and destroyed in the intense heat and pressure of the first moment. No clue remains to the nature of the forces-natural or supernatural that conspired to bring about the event we call the Big Bang.
“This is a very surprising conclusion. Nothing in the history of science leads us to believe there should be a fundamental limit to the results of scientific inquiry. Science has had extraordinary success in piecing together the elements of a story of cosmic evolution that adds many details to the first pages of Genesis. The scientist has traced the history of the Universe back in time from the appearance of man to the lower animals, then across the threshold of life to a time when the earth did not exist, and then back farther still to a time when stars and galaxies had not yet formed and the heavens were dark. Now he goes farther back still, feeling he is close to success-the answer to the ultimate question of beginning-when suddenly the chain of cause and effect snaps. The birth of the Universe is an effect for which he cannot find the cause.
“Some say still that if the astronomer cannot find that cause today, he will find it tomorrow, and we will read about it in the New York Times when Walter Sullivan gets around to reporting on it. But I think the circumstances of the Big Bang-the fiery holocaust that destroyed the record of the past-make that extremely unlikely.” (End of quote.)
Ofc course, how can it be differently, Jastrow has been attacked for this statement. But on what grounds? What would be needed for a general acceptance of a cyclic universe within and outside the scientific community would be observational evidence that ensures the contact with physical reality; just mathematical modeling won’t suffice. If the Big Bang theory were just mathematical modeling, I, or anyone else, would have no reason to accept it either. However, there is overwhelming observational evidence in favor of the theory. That’s the way real science works.
Anyway, the cyclic universe now seems less likely, given the observation of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
By Al Moritz on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply
Finally, option 5:
The multiple universe (multiverse)
Also here matter is eternal. Universes governed by different laws of nature could be spun out from an eternal background of matter. If there would be an array of an incredible number of such universes (trillions and beyond), and the variation of the laws of nature were truly random, this would explain the apparent exquisite fine-tuning of our observable universe as just one random combination of different forces of nature among an incredible number of other realized ones.
Fine, but how do we observe one single other universe if it is in another spacetime domain, which appears necessarily to be the case, since a universe unfolds in its own spacetime? Thus other universes are likely to be unobservable in principle, not a good prospect of doing real science on them.
Furthermore, the demand on eternal matter would also have to be that it does not have to obey the second law of thermodynamics (by the way, this demand also holds for the “re-set” of a potential cyclic universe upon each bounce). Otherwise, what use would be eternal matter if it had all run down into an undifferentiated mush that would not have the thermal/motional energy anymore to produce universes? In the ekpyrotic model (or one may think of equivalent other options if string theory, upon which it is based, will be refuted), for example, we have the birth of our universe from a collision of membranes (branes) in multi-dimensional space.
Where does the energy of collision come from if the second law of thermodynamics holds in an eternal universe? It could never self-renew, and if it cannot, it would eventually run down into thermal randomness, and one would be forced to ask the question: where did it come from in its original “fresh” state?
If the postulated eternal matter once had to be in an original “fresh” state, it cannot be self-sufficient and eternal after all, certainly not in a state that eternally can produce universes. Thus it would beg the question for an originator of this matter anyway.
Here are the obvious observational demands:
In order to accept the idea of even just one other universe, which is a really big deal (literally!), it would be reasonable to demand direct observational scientific evidence, not just extrapolation (and frankly, I can impossibly envision a general acceptance by the scientific community of a multiverse without that – some may accept it, but it will always be in limbo of eternal debate). From such evidence one would find it easier to reasonably extrapolate to other universes of a putative multiple array. Also, in at least this one other universe, or in at least one of multiple other observed universes, observational evidence would have to be obtained that the second law of thermodynamics does not hold, such as to make the notion of truly eternal matter (i.e. its existence does not demand an outside explanation) sufficiently plausible – from this one observation one might more reasonably extrapolate towards an eternal background of matter for these universes.
Do I here come up with outlandish, unreasonable observational demands just to “cover my theistic ass”? I don’t think so. I just demand true observational evidence, as is customary in real science (not just nice speculative mathematical models that can be neither confirmed nor refuted, only debated). After all, there is plenty of solid, even overwhelming, observational evidence relating to the Big Bang and to biological evolution, and there is also solid observational evidence relating to an origin of life by natural causes – that’s real science.
As a biochemist, I am confronted each and every day with the sometimes exhilarating, yet mostly humbling reality of observation and experimental outcome. I don’t see why cosmologists, and their recipient audience, should be above that contact and check with reality. Also the theoretical fields of science have so far kept close contact with their experimental and observational counterparts. But nowadays it seems that some, especially string theorists, want to re-write the rules of science (just look at Leonard Susskind’s book “The Cosmic Landscape” and what he sells as “science”). I do not accept that. Why should we exchange real science, which has worked so spectacularly well for us over the last few centuries, for fake science?
Atheists/skeptics are quick to demand from theists “Show me the evidence!”. Well, then I retort, show me your evidence.
None of us has the final evidence, and none of us can give proof. What is left, then, is credibility of options. And my own personal rational decision is that the postulate of a supernatural, eternal God is, as it stands now, by far the most credible – it’s not even a contest.
Only when someone comes along and shows me another universe and potentially eternal matter by observation (not just by mathematical modeling) I will, as a rational scientist, with interest reconsider the credibility issue. Or if there is some other, as I said, unexpected (what could it be?) and spectacular observational twist. However, given the above, it seems extremely unlikely that such a twist will come up. I don’t hold my breath, but you never know. I’ll be open to real evidence, if it ever comes along.
By Jon Blumenfeld on Nov 3, 2007 | Reply
Al,
Lots or work, but I still disagree with your conclusions. That doesn’t make me right – but…
Seems to me as if you are throwing up your hands here and saying “I don’t like any of the naturalistic explanations I’ve heard, so it must be God that did it.”
One more step – how do you get from I don’t like naturalistic explanations to Catholicism must be true? Seems like an awfully big step.
Personally, I’m not ready to make the leap to magic just yet.
By Al Moritz on Nov 4, 2007 | Reply
Jon,
Of course you disagree. I don’t believe such discussions can profoundly change anybody’s mind, at least not on the immediate level, but they give opportunity to organize one’s thoughts. Also, I hope to show that a religious person can be quite rational and I hope to point out a bit about where I think science ends and metaphysics begins. I love science, and I don’t like to see it mixed up with something that it is not, and I don’t like metaphysics to be sold as science.
Yes, I will concede that many religious people aren’t rational in all their worldviews, or at least, are not informed about science and therefore come to unscientific – some might say, primitive – conclusions about nature. But is this a function of religiosity per se or of simple lack of education? I have also encountered non-scientist atheists who are not well informed about science at all and, for example, proudly tried to instruct others (I stopped them) that evolution is a random process (exactly the stuff that plays in the hands of creationists). Of course this is not true; while random processes are important in enabling and, to a certain extent, steering evolution (the contingency of evolution may be historically unrepeatable in outcome), evolution overall is not a random process. The all-vital increase in genetic information, and thus the increase of complexity, through the history of life can impossibly be understood as a random process, rather it is due to cumulative selection, which is anything but random.
So which is the greater nonsense, the belief that God directly created all life forms or that evolution is a random process? I would say both are nonsense, period.
As far as throwing my hands up in the air goes: I am not sure if that applies. You may prefer naturalistic explanations, and I do too, wherever possible – after intensely diving into the primary scientific literature on the origin of life I quickly changed my mind about direct miraculous creation of life by God and now hold that life’s origin by natural causes is very plausible. Yet the common explanations for fine-tuning (the multiverse, the cyclic universe) reek to me like trying to “explain away” the glaringly obvious conclusion from fine-tuning (design) *), just like, on the basis of the old atheistic world view that wished that the universe was eternal, the steady-state model tried to explain away the glaringly obvious conclusion from the expanding universe (the Big Bang). And we know where the steady-state theory went: into the garbage can of history.
*) and no, I don’t really think we can draw a serious parallel here with the designoid (Dawkins’s term) structures from evolution.
That “explaining away” could also be seen as throwing the hands up in the air: “I have no real evidence from nature, and worse, I possibly cannot in principle obtain observational evidence from nature, but it doesn’t matter, it must be that nature did it anyway.”
So perhaps we both are better off avoiding the suggestion that any of us throws their hands up anywhere.
Certainly, I am keenly aware that the parallel with the steady-state story cannot be drawn too heavily, since both the steady-state model and the Big Bang theory are scientific models, whereas the God concept is not. But neither are the multiverse/cyclic universe concepts scientific ones, at least not at this point, because they simply cannot be currently tested according to the observational standard principles of science, and it may well be that they will never be testable in principle, for the reasons stated (again, a mathematical model alone is no observational test). Just like the God concept, the multiverse/cyclic universe is currently, and not unlikely forever, a metaphysical concept, even though a naturalistic one.
Certainly, some inflationary models predict multiple “bubble” universes. Some scientists (Martin Rees for example) advocate that if certain predictions of these models bear out, we should take multiple universes seriously. Perhaps, but it is still not observational science. It is like saying: A predicts B and C. We have proven prediction B from observation, thus prediction C holds as well. Taking this as hard science would be what I call the “fallacy of illegitimate extrapolation”. Again, it is inconceivable that this reasoning would find general acceptance within and outside the scientific community – not the least because the acceptance of a wider material reality outside our own universe is a big deal.
***
As far as the step from “I don’t like naturalistic explanations” (I’d reformulate into “I find a supernatural explanation by far the most plausible”) to Catholicism goes, you are right, it is an awfully big step. The God of the philosophers, a rational conclusion, is not the same as the God of religion – associated with direct divine revelation – even though the attributes of the former (e.g. eternal and timeless, infinite, omnipotent) are contained in those of the latter (at least when it comes to the three great monotheistic religions).
However, if there is a God of the philosophers, i.e. a God, and he cares so much about our universe that he has endowed it with exquisite fine-tuning, it would not be irrational to assume that he has revealed himself to a resulting life-form that is able to accept his message – us, at the least. Therefore, the acceptance of divine revelation, which is extra-rational in the sense that it refers to things that one cannot arrive at and contemplate by rational powers alone, could be seen as a rational act.
Historically it may be reasonably argued that if there was a revelation by God, it first happened to the Jewish people, who then believed in one single God who made all of nature, whereas all other peoples continued to believe in many gods (by the way, the associated demystification of nature into mere things led to a mindset that made the rise of science possible). It may further be argued that the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the appearance of a saviour reached their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Analysis of which religion most faithfully transmitted through the centuries the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the tradition of the early church, may reasonably suggest that it is Catholicism.
Later modifications, like Protestantism, have, in their in principle laudable effort to purify religion from excesses, often thrown out the baby with the bathwater, i.e. removed teachings that can be argued to be part of Jesus’s message (while I have had the positively humbling experience that several Protestant acquaintances of mine appear to be far more exemplary Christians than the average Catholic).
Certainly, it is clear to everyone that the history of the Catholic church is marked not just by immense good, but also by immense human weakness and even by scandalous behaviour of church leaders, right up to the popes. I will not make any excuses for that, and for the pain and confusion this has resulted in. However, the rational attitude here might be to make a clear distinction between the message and the transmitters thereof.
Al