Science and Faith
by BradfordPaul Davies authored Taking Science on Faith an opinion piece in the New York Times. He asks some questions about laws of physics at the end of this paragraph:
The most refined expression of the rational intelligibility of the cosmos is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental rules on which nature runs. The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion "” all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?
Davies next notes an attitude shift and the dependence of life on a limited range of mathematical values. We live in a universe that accomodates life; a most convenient condition.
Although scientists have long had an inclination to shrug aside such questions concerning the source of the laws of physics, the mood has now shifted considerably. Part of the reason is the growing acceptance that the emergence of life in the universe, and hence the existence of observers like ourselves, depends rather sensitively on the form of the laws. If the laws of physics were just any old ragbag of rules, life would almost certainly not exist.
A second reason that the laws of physics have now been brought within the scope of scientific inquiry is the realization that what we long regarded as absolute and universal laws might not be truly fundamental at all, but more like local bylaws. They could vary from place to place on a mega-cosmic scale. A God's-eye view might reveal a vast patchwork quilt of universes, each with its own distinctive set of bylaws. In this "multiverse," life will arise only in those patches with bio-friendly bylaws, so it is no surprise that we find ourselves in a Goldilocks universe "” one that is just right for life. We have selected it by our very existence.
Davies also takes note of a growing appreciation for the existence of something outside our own universe and the failure of science to "provide a complete account of physical existence." The history of the idea of physical laws is traced back to theological concepts held by Newton.
Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith "” namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.
This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.
Davies's editorial ends on a note that anti-theists find most discordant.
But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Bradford:
And how do you know anti-theists (whatever they are) find this so, um, discordant?
Anyhow, there is obviously a rather big difference between faith that the world is, in the words of Davies, "ordered in a rationally intelligible way", and your faith in a Big Daddy in the Sky. Regarding the former faith, Davies also wrote:
Very much unlike the latter kind of faith I might add.
Comment by Raevmo — November 25, 2007 @ 9:42 am
November 25th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Raevmo:
The belief that the world operated in rational fashion originated from the faith of the latter. The latter kind of faith is measured by the quality of the lives of the people who hold it. It means doing what is right even when that is frowned upon and when there are no palpable rewards.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I happened to notice the same quote previously mentioned.
Bradford:
However Davies wrote two important sentences preceding the above sentence:
Davies was quoted out of context. What Davies says, in context, is most certainly something non-theists would support.
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
What Davies is clearly inferring is that an element of faith underlies human endeavors and science is no exception. Anti-theists are notorious for their distortions of the meaning of faith and an insistence it must be blind. That is inconsistent with Davies' points. I've used the term anti-theist which you altered to non-theist. Their meaning differs.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Davies:
Actually those are Enlightenment values which were incorporated into Christian thinking at the time — and vice versa. It is not Christian doctrine, to my knowledge. In fact the term rational, in this sense, is taken directly from the Enlightenment. The Bible makes no mention of "rational" or "rationality". Christianity existed for a long, long time without those values.
Incidentally, the conflation of Enlightenment values with Christian values is currently the source of much confusion about the history of the United States.
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
From the dictionary:
The ancient Jewish writers of scripture frequently wrote about reason, wisdom and a sound mind. Languages do not often translate precisely and I'm not sure if an equivalent word for rational exists but the concepts do. Davies referred to Newton and Newton's source for the belief in rationality. It stemmed from scripture.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Frostman, do not accuse and pretend an apology in the same sentence. As for what is inflammatory, I'll be the judge of that. If you think the blog entry is inflammatory you can always exit. I'll show you the door.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Frostman
I recommend Rodney Stark's two books For The Glory Of God and The Triumph Of Reason in them he popularizes the view of the vast majority of modern scholarship that science owes it's existence to Christianity and the reason it took so long to happen is because of the negative effect of Greek philosophy on the thinking of the time. It was only in the 16th century that European thinking finally freed itself from the pagan past.
Raevmo
The question is on what basis you have faith. The Christian trusts that the universe is "ordered in a rationally intelligible way" because there is a ordered and rational God behind it all. We believe in such a God because he has chosen to reveal himself to us historically through Christ.
The atheist on the other hand must have faith in the laws of nature and logic and mathematics and morality based on nothing but blind faith as far as I can tell.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 25, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Frostman:
This has all been hashed out before. Per Nancy Cartwright's No God, No Laws, as discussed in the thread Laws of Nature = Laws of God [November 2005].
Scientists and philosophers of science have been along this trail for awhile. Why you guys are still bemoaning that fact is something I can't understand. But then, I'm not trying to sell a religion disguised as science. You EAs are attempting to do that.
Comment by Joy — November 25, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Of related interest to this thread is an article I discovered over at UD.
Anti-Matters
Issue 2. The "Dismissing God" article. I won't even bother to summarize it - I just think it's a fantastic and important read.
As for the OP - Paul Davies is entertaining, an actual maverick when it comes to the whole science/theology discussion. And some people find his claim hard to swallow. One response I've seen is that Davies' claim about science being based on faith is nonsense, because if the natural world is irrational or has an irrational aspect to it, that's where the data will lead. I wonder if they realize the problem with that.
Either way, maverick as he is (I disagree with him about some things, of course), I like the article. Nice admission of just how much currency faith has produced for us creatures. So to speak.
Comment by nullasalus — November 25, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
nullasalus:
"Irrational" is where biology would dearly love to take us, and has tried to impose by law when nobody in the real world bought it. I've mentioned so many times that I've lost count that science (and humanity, whom science supposedly serves) can't do a damned thing with 'random'. It offers no understanding in a cause-effect schemata, and offers zero predictive power.
Everybody knows that sh*t happens - [apparently] random events do occur. But these cannot explain a "lawful" universe, a progressively self-conscious evolution of life over time. Or even the existence of life at all. "Random" has no explanatory power whatsoever. Science cannot work with it to control nature for our practical purposes which are definitely NOT random.
Since FAPP is the job description, the sub-sect of completely irrational scientism attempting to make us all believe by force that randomness governs the universe is pretty darned disgusting. An anomaly I hope goes away soon so we can get on with business at hand.
Comment by Joy — November 25, 2007 @ 5:57 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Joy provides us with a humorous juxtaposition. She writes this:
…immediately after having written this:
No religion there, folks.
Joy and Stunney are particularly fond of Cartwright's paper, mainly because of its title, but they always neglect to mention that Cartwright's argument applies only to prescriptive laws of nature, not descriptive laws. Cartwright herself makes this clear in the introduction to her paper:
Comment by keiths — November 25, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Keiths:
Quick question Is the law of induction descriptive or a prescriptive?
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 25, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
quote:
Hume asserted there is no logical necessity that the future will resemble the past. Justifying induction on the grounds that it has worked in the past, then, begs the question. It is using inductive reasoning to justify induction, and as such is a circular argument. This logical positivist formulation of the problem would prove to be a tenacious counterargument to the use of inductive propositions. Further, even the largest series of observations consistent with a universal generalization can be logically negated by just one observation in which it is false. By Hume's arguments, there also is no strictly logical basis for belief in the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature. Notably, Hume's stated position on the issue was that instead of unproductive radical skepticism about everything, he actually was advocating a practical skepticism based on common sense, where the inevitability of induction is accepted (but not explained).
end quote
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 25, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
keiths opines:
Excuse me? Last I checked, there's no such thing as a "descriptive law" outside linguistics. Heck, last I checked (just a moment ago), there's no such thing as a "prescriptive law" outside of linguistics either. Are you telling us science is a mere linguistic exercise in sleight-of-mind (just like philosophy)? Be honest, because there are philosophers who will eat your lunch on that turf. We might all get bored with yet another instant replay on that, though. You must be starving by now.
I wrote about Cartwright's paper two years (and some days) ago on this blog, specifically ABOUT the term "laws" misapplied to regularities that can be falsified by the simple assertion of imaginary counterfactuals.
Because counterfactuals could then be used to falsify all of those assertions just as easily. It was an argument against insertion of pointless (as well as completely non-empirical and forever unobservable) multiverses to explain away what is observably real in this universe. The only one we've got to work with.
Of course science has no final cause explanation for the reality we observe and experience, or for any of the phenomena that occur in it. Universal Answer to all questions from any and all points of being: "It just is."
Appeals to "Laws of Nature" as causal are entirely bogus by your own definition. Is that somehow supposed to convince anyone that your point of view is better, more empirical, more valid and more 'scientific' than their own?
keiths quoted from the introduction to Cartwright's paper. Here's the conclusion:
Comment by Joy — November 25, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Bradford,
Did you or someone else delete my post regarding anti-theism verses non-theism? It was a response to your comments on the issue.
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Bradford,
Did you delete my comment?
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Yes.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
5mm asks:
I don't think there is a "law of induction" (apart from Faraday's Law, which is clearly not what you have in mind).
Comment by keiths — November 25, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
The "law" I am getting at is the principle that things in the future will be like things in the past This is a subset of The Principle (law) of Uniformity of Nature. These are the foundational "laws" that science are based on but I think you knew that already.
Peace
Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 25, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Let's be. Where was the term atheism mentioned prior to the deleted post? If filtering atheism were the motive many commenters would be gone. Your own credibility is sunk by the God comment. Where did that hypothesis appear in the blog entry or in Davies' op ed?
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Joy wrote:
Nancy Cartwright:
Joy,
I'll let you fight it out with Cartwright. But why are you referring us to her paper when you disagree so strongly with her core premise?
Comment by keiths — November 25, 2007 @ 10:49 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Bradford:
The fact of the matter is that the Davies quote was clearly taken out of context. Non-theists and "anti-theists" alike would agree with Davies on the preceding sentences you clipped. There is nothing "most discordant" about them; indeed the contrary is true. It does not matter which term I use — they are equivalent insofar as agreeing with Davies or not.
As I said, "anti-theist" sets the stage for an us-verses-them mentality, which is to be avoided. By pointing out the problematic quoting, I did not wish to inadvertently take the side of "anti-theists". That is why the term is inflammatory — you are setting the stage for those who disagree to be on the "anti-theist" side. It's just modern-day tribalism.
Bradford:
Wow, a double entendre with irony. What are your reasons for believing that?
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Irrelevant to my claim. Anti-theists have repeatedly affirmed that science is free of faith. It's part of their schtick.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
The memory hole wasn't working for a while. It's working now, I asked that comments be deleted and saved for manual insertion. I am deleting, however, all the whining as well as my own comments.
Comment by Guts — November 25, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
From http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn...
Anti-theist Meyers inaccurately depicts what Davies wrote. Nowhere did Davies claim science is just like religion because it has to be taken on faith. Why pile lies on top of of distortions when the term faith comes up?
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Bradford:
Davies, from the article:
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Bradford,
PZ has a habit of completely misreading and misunderstanding folks when it comes to controversial topics. I'm sure even a resident atheist around here could agree to as much.
Davies certainly didn't seem to equate science and religion in the article I read. He argued that both have an aspect in common (faith), but that's a far softer, maybe even non-controversial claim. Then again, he did mention that certain realities of scientific enterprise make scientists squirm.
Comment by nullasalus — November 25, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Frostman:
Davies cites a parallel- something existing outside the universe and immediately diverges pointing out that it is God to one group and unexplained laws or unseen universes to science. There is much more to both science and religion which makes them different that Davies is aware of. So why the PZ lie and your tacit endorsement of it?
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Joy wrote:
But if a statement can't in principle be falsified by a counterfactual, then it's metaphysical or tautological, not empirical. If it's not empirical, it certainly does not serve the function of what we call "laws".
Joy quotes Cartwright, emphasizing this sentence:
But Cartwright has already told us what one of those "crucial characteristics" is:
So again, by Cartwright's own admission, her argument does not apply if we take natural law to be merely descriptive.
Comment by keiths — November 25, 2007 @ 11:26 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
nullasalus:
Davies went out of his way to point out differences between science and religion. The term faith is like a dirty word to PZ and his ilk. That's why their reaction to Davies' article is so hostile. How dare he even use that word in an article referring to laws of physics.
Comment by Bradford — November 25, 2007 @ 11:32 pm
November 25th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Bradford,
Did you delete this comment as well (author was 'mtravas' or something like that):
Has anyone noticed other posts gone missing?
Comment by Frostman — November 25, 2007 @ 11:46 pm
November 26th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Frostman, try reading all the comments on a thread in which you are active.
http://telicthoughts.com/scien...
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 12:10 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am
keiths responded:
I don't have to fight with Cartwright, I agree with her. Philosophers deal in linguistic finery as if its statements and counter-arguments relate directly to a true metaphysical description of reality as-it-is. As opposed to reality as-we-perceive it to be. Which is arguably the same thing, and arguing endlessly about that is what philosophers do for a living. Descriptively, not so much prescriptively by the time it devolves into that morass.
Now, you might want to argue that scientists do that for a living too, and there's certainly merit in that claim at theoretical and/or mathematical levels, both dealing with forms of syntax. Syntax is about rules. Laws are rules with general application as opposed to mere local description. Linguists in fact consider the study of syntax to be a branch of biology.
If by prescriptive you mean causal (I think Cartwright made her parsing very clear in her statement that Laws of Nature are an appeal stronger than prescriptive), go ahead and use that term. Just don't forget that so long as you use philosophical terminology you're arguing philosophy. You aren't in Cartwright's league if that's where you want to go.
You get to pick the arguments you'll make, I don't care which ones you choose. It would be nice if you knew something of the syntactical structure of the arguments you launch, because if you don't, they're just wasted bandwidth.
Comment by Joy — November 26, 2007 @ 12:11 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Frostman, you're wrong. The memory hole works fine.:grin:
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 12:32 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Geez, this is getting silly, now Keiths has restored a comment from the memory hole. Why would he waste his time like that? I said I deleted all the comments that whined about Bradford's decision to send a comment to the memory hole. I strongly suggest that this off-topic conversation end and that the participants here respect the blog.
Comment by Guts — November 26, 2007 @ 12:43 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Keiths and Frostman, keep your comments focused on the topic of the blog entry.
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 12:45 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Bradford,
Near the beginning of this thread, you made a very harsh comment in response to a post of mine. However you deleted my post, and as a result your comment left the impression that my post was off the wall, when in fact it was entirely bland.
Next, you wrote a post declaring that I "don't give a rat's behind about avoiding inflammatory language," among other things. You promptly deleted that post of yours. I inquired the reasons why you believe this, and I am genuinely interested in the answer. You have yet to justify your assertion about me, however. If you do, remember to be specific.
Next, more of my posts are deleted, along with at least one other protesting the first deletion. I asked if you deleted them also, but you did not answer. You then deleted the post in which I so asked. As I stated before in another post which you deleted, the memory hole is clearly not working because all those deleted posts do not show up there.
Bradford, do you believe your behavior here is appropriate?
Comment by Frostman — November 26, 2007 @ 12:51 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Guts wrote:
No. Frostman restored a deleted comment that was not in the Memory Hole, and I confirmed that I had seen it.
You deleted comments that complained about Bradford's decision to delete a comment.
I strongly suggest you use the Memory Hole for its stated purpose rather than deleting comments you find inconvenient.
Comment by keiths — November 26, 2007 @ 12:52 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Inconvenient?? Hardly. Read the thread, I said the memory hole wasn't working so I asked people to save comments and send them to me until I fixed it. The comment you quoted was a comment in the memory hole, so yes you restored it. Like I said, you are not in a position to strongly suggest anything here, so if you like posting here I strongly suggest that the two of you keep your next comments on topic.
Comment by Guts — November 26, 2007 @ 12:56 am
November 26th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Your word substitution and false allegation of out of context quotes are inappropriate as is your disresectful disregard of repeated requests by Guts and me to keep your comments focused on the blog topic. The blog topic is not the memory hole/deletion policy. It is now requested that you and Keiths desist from further comments on this thread.
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 1:08 am
November 26th, 2007 at 1:16 am
From the description of the Memory Hole:
From the TT Comment Guidelines:
Interestingly, Guts is the one making threats:
Are you going to delete your comment, Guts?
Comment by keiths — November 26, 2007 @ 1:16 am
November 26th, 2007 at 1:21 am
Huh? Your post doesn't even make any sense (as usual).
Comment by Guts — November 26, 2007 @ 1:21 am
November 26th, 2007 at 2:06 am
keiths noted:
Oh, good grief! How in the world can you pretend that what is essential to the definition of "law" can simply be ignored so as to escape the syntax error? Effects are what we observe, along with a cascade of proximate [descriptive] causes. "Law" prescribes those events, makes them predictable.
I realize biology's currently dying theoretical framework is not predictive (that's why there's some question as to its 'scientific' status). The rest of science IS predictive, and it's predictive because of "laws" that prescribe - govern - the proximate cause-effect chain. [ed.]
Comment by Joy — November 26, 2007 @ 2:06 am
November 26th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Davies wrote:
Referring to the last sentence I had written:
That's a metaphorical way of stating anti-theists would not like the statement. The same can be said for the entire blocked quote. But it is no longer just an opinion. Rather it is evidenced by the hostility of known anti-theists as witnessed by their own comments on the internet. Start with PZ Meyers at the most trafficked blog and go from there. The two preceeding sentences did not mollify them, proving that it is Davies' statements about faith that they dislike.
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 11:52 am
November 26th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Frostman, it was previously requested that you and Keiths refrain from posting further on this thread.
http://telicthoughts.com/scien...
If you want your guest privilages revoked you can continue to ignore clear requests.
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
November 26th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
LOL. Bare minimum standards of ethical treatment = the right to not have a post deleted on a public message board. HAHAHAHA.
Please don't delete the above post. It's just too funny.
Comment by Doug — November 26, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
November 26th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Doug:
LOL. You can view it in the hole if you like. It is humorous to see someone get this hung up on his blog comments. A little pathetic too.
Comment by Bradford — November 26, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
November 27th, 2007 at 1:35 am
Just to add to the chorus of folks who had problems with Davies, I've responded in an article as well to sum up my thoughts on the matter.
Comment by Bad — November 27, 2007 @ 1:35 am
November 27th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Kind of funny how the chorus is singing in all different pitches. And a surprising number of 'Okay, sure, there's faith in science, but..' explanations. All this because Davies pointed out that there's an amount of faith in common between the religious and the scientific?
Oddly, I didn't even see his op-ed as particularly "defending" religion, as people seem to think. He just pointed out what he thought was a common point between the two in a particular regard. Apparently that's enough to stir some mild intellectual panic among theist-aggravated scientists. I can't help but think that, if Davies' op-ed was "Did you know scientists have a traditional uniform they wear when conducting certain experiments.. and priests are known to wear certain vestments on particular holy days?", we'd have seen a response like this, ranging from Lee Smolin mentioning how, while that's true, the garb is only worn in the lab while priests wear a uniform outside, to PZ Myers insisting that he conducts his experiments in swim trunks and a sweatshirt most of the time, and traditional uniforms are only for nutters.
Comment by nullasalus — November 27, 2007 @ 4:48 am
November 27th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I'm in the process of reading Paul Davies latest book, Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life. In the book, Davies who leans metaphysically towards naturalism argues for the idea that our universe is one among many if not infinite number of universes (the so called "multiverse" scenario.) Supposedly this solves the problem that was introduced with the wide spread acceptance of the Big Bang Theory. But the multiverse scenario solves nothing. As yet no one has explained how to empirically prove such an idea. Indeed how can finite minds ever hope to find a way to prove the existence of anything that is infinite?
Ironically the multiverse concept attempts to smuggle ideas into science that are really theological ideas in disguise. For example, multiverses transcend the observable universe and form an eternally existing ground of being. Is that a logical possibility? Certainly. Is it more logical than the idea that mind or intelligence ontologically precedes our present universe? Is p more logical than ~p? Davies makes a valiant attempt to makes such an argument. In my opinion, however, he fails. His argument in my view is not based reason alone but on his own personal beliefs and preferences. Or, in other words"¦ Faith.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 27, 2007 @ 4:08 pm