Trust Science?

 

Source: https://netivist.org/

Science produced wonderful insights over the centuries. We know more today than we did 10, 100, or 1000 years ago. Are we done? Have we learned all there is to learn about the universe and time and life?

Of course not.

"Since we know we don’t know what we don’t know, why would we assume that what we do know is enough?"

Don’t "trust" the science. No legitimate scientist would ever say, "Trust me, I am a scientist." Instead, follow the science, because science is the best way we have for falsifying competing theories.

Follow science, not scientists. Scientists are humans and thus fallible and suceptible. Scientists themselves know this, and for this reason the scientific method features a process of verification known as peer-review. The community is less likely to be wrong than any one individual. Paradoxically, the greatest advances in science have occurred when an individual challenged the frontier of human knowledge in an unexpected way. Progress depends on the rogues.

Bottom line: Life is an experiment. Choose your questions carefully. When you see an answer, be skeptical and critically examine the investigator's motive, funding source, context, method, results, and conclusions. Have the results been peer reviewed and replicated? Some questions are better than others and some answers are deadly.

Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God? A Look at Eric Metaxas' Recent WSJ Article

Recently a friend posted an article by the evangelical author and Intelligent Design proponent, Eric Metaxas. In the article, published by the Wall Street Journal, Metaxas argues that scientists have determined that life is so improbable it must have been created.

“Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life [and] every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart.”

To which my friend, a fellow Christian, added, "Amen and Hallelujah." And that is the precise moment when the proverbial excrement hit the cosmic wind tunnel.


First, if you are not already familiar with it, please follow this link and read the article:
Eric Metaxas: Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God - WSJ:

Next, please have a gander at the rebuttal which the WSJ wouldn't publish, but Richard Dawkins did:
https://richarddawkins.net/2014/12/letter-to-the-editor/


What follows below is a lightly edited transcript of an online conversation that broke out between my friend and fellow believer, I'll call him "PM," our mutual friend, a geophysicist and theology student I'll call "CW," a Christian apologist called "TMD," and the author of PhilosFX a.k.a. "PFX." I love this conversation so much that I wanted to share it. But if you don't have time to read the whole thing, the bottom line for me in all of this is that:


The human race is dividing between those who trust science and those who hold a pre-Copernican view of life and death. Why must these camps be mutually exclusive? Why can't believers trust science? And why must scientists refuse to accept the possibility that the truth is bigger than our human powers of perception?

A Friendly Discourse on Religion, Science, and God

Inspired by a Recent WSJ Article

CW: Nice column. Well, aside from the fact [Metaxas] significantly misinterprets both history and science. Two brief examples. First, the "parameters" debate over habitable planets has been around for decades. Even Sagan, along with Shklovskii co-wrote the technical book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" in the early 70's that discussed the range of probabilities and problems. As for "tuning" at the subatomic level, at the risk of over simplifying a mind-numbingly complex topic, that discussion is a bit ridiculous since we don't as of yet completely understand the relationship between the various "constants" in physics. The weak force and electromagnetic force are actually manifestations of the same thing, so to treat them as independent values as many ID proponents do is ignorant at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

Note that I am *not* arguing either for atheism or against religion at this point, only that the ID folks are stretching or outright misinterpreting the science. FWIW IMNSHO as a practicing scientist, the science at best only restricts the religions that are potentially true (which is, to be honest, most of them). However, science does not exclude *all* religions (including core Christianity), contrary to the assertions of atheists. But science itself is agnostic.



TMD: Science is only agnostic if you isolate each scientific fact or line of reason. If you look at science as a whole, the overwhelming amount of evidence shows that there has to be a Creator.


CW: Most Christians and Atheists fall into the same trap, starting with a conclusion then looking for evidence to support that conclusion at the exclusion of other possible theories. Your statement that "the overwhelming amount of evidence shows that there has to be a Creator" is one I strongly disagree with. In my field of expertise (geophysics/atmospheric science) I can state that as an "expert"(FWTW!) there is none. I am also unaware of any such evidence in any related fields about which I am knowledgeable enough to assert an opinion (physics, astrophysics). Not saying there is no God, just that there is no unambiguous evidence of one. As for Aquinas he certainly has been influential on Western theology - but is not accepted in the Orthodox Churches. His ethical views (slavery, inferiority of woman) could be argued to be a product of his time and forgiven, but his other views and strongly cataphatic theology, and his distinction between the natural and supernatural, are more problematic.


PFX: We don't know that there is not life on other planets, only that we have not yet found what we are looking for, i.e., life that we recognize as more sophisticated than bacteria. I like science, AND I like God. I EVEN like logical attempts to connect the two. Aquinas' argument from design is a good case in point, but then again, I'll settle for Pascal's Wager. What I do NOT like is the assertion that by not finding life on other planets, "science increasingly makes the case for God." For one, science does not prove, science either rejects or fails to reject. Science is objective, agnostic, not interested in making a case. For another, what if we DID find life on other planets? How would that reject the hypothesis of God? Why can't a Creator start life on lots of planets? Bottom line, I am comfortable with my belief in God. That belief is based on faith which is outside the realm of science.


CW: What PFX said (mostly). [W]hile I am a student of theology I'm far from an expert on it (I'm a lot more comfortable talking about quantum mechanics!), but here's an abbreviated try: The "Argument from Design" is essentially a version of the "God of the Gaps" theory, and suffers from the same fatal flaw: the more we understand, the narrower the "gaps" get until at some point they disappear. It is directly related to the cataphatic theology western theologians are so fond of because it essentially argues God's creation and interactions with nature are understandable and definable on a human level. A related aspect is that Aquinas' arguments (such as the division between natural and supernatural) and the legalistic theological worldview of the West set the stage for the Calvinistic perspective that creation is apart from the creator, and in the wider Protestant view "depraved", rather than merely fallen. (As an aside, the aphophatic theologies, and the distinction between essences and energies, prevalent in Eastern Christianity did not make those distinctions, and didn't end up in that trap.) Regarding ethics, as I said in the earlier post his views are simply a product of his time, but it is unfortunate and disturbing that so many Saints and Doctors Of The Church are ethically no more advanced than the societies in which they lived. The Christian argues they were just being human, but the Atheist uses that fact to say they are not better than the rest of humanity because there was no outside influence (e.g. God).



TMD: Most geophysics/atmospheric science people fall into the same trap. They only believe in things that they can see and touch. If they are right that there is no God, then they are right. If they are wrong, it's a mistake with eternal consequences. Faith is believing without seeing. I have faith.

PFX: What CW said (mostly, except the parts that I cannot claim because I do not understand them yet).


CW: With respect, TMD, it isn't the same "trap." You are equating scientists with atheists, and drawing incorrect conclusions from that false equivalence. Science is entirely agnostic with respect to any religion or the existence of any particular God or Gods. It does, however, severely constrain which religions are rational, and which God(s) might exist. An atheist would argue that *all* God(s) that have been posited have been rationally excluded. They are wrong, because they do not understand (and in many cases don't want to understand) the God as defined by traditional Christianity. However, they are right in that many of the definitions of God as put forth by many Christian denominations (especially evangelical Protestants and their derivatives like Mormonism) are excluded by the evidence. The formal Catholic definition of God is in a little bit of trouble, largely due to recent innovations, but the traditional definitions still held by the Eastern Orthodox Churches are in pretty good shape.

PM: Out of popcorn and out of energy to continue. Besides, we are now wandering dangerously close to a debate regarding the merits of cataphatic v. apophatic theology, and I will not willing enter that briar patch..... That is at least a 3-beer discussion. Now I'd love to have that conversation in person - you guys would make for a very lively & interesting discussion!


PFX: I think TMD summed up Pascal's Wager nicely in his comment. I believe the fact that not all scientists are atheists is a nice summation of CW's last comment. But I believe PM has wisely directed us to curtail the conversation until we can meet in person--preferably over a beer or three. It's been fun!

The End...?

And now, these Wikipedia end-notes are for those of you who, like me, needed a refresher on cataphatic (positive) and apophatic (negative) theologies.

Cataphatic (sometimes spelled kataphatic) theology is the expressing of God or the divine through positive terminology. This is in contrast to defining God or the divine in what God is not, which is referred to as negative or apophatic theology. The word cataphatic itself is formed from two Greek words, "cata" meaning to descend and "femi" meaning to speak. Thus, to combine them translates the word roughly as "to bring God down in such a way so as to speak of him."

• God is omnipotent
• God is omni-present
• God is omniscient
• God is light
• God is love

In Apophatic descriptions of God through negative theology, it is accepted that experience of the Divine is ineffable, an experience of the holy that can only be recognized or remembered abstractly. That is, human beings cannot describe in words the essence of the perfect good that is unique to the individual, nor can they define the Divine, in its immense complexity, related to the entire field of reality. As a result, all descriptions if attempted will be ultimately false and conceptualization should be avoided. In effect, divine experience eludes definition by definition:

• Neither existence nor nonexistence as we understand it in the physical realm, applies to God; i.e., the Divine is abstract to the individual, beyond existing or not existing, and beyond conceptualization regarding the whole (one cannot say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; nor can we say that God is nonexistent). 
• God is divinely simple (one should not claim that God is one, or three, or any type of being.) 
• God is not ignorant (one should not say that God is wise since that word arrogantly implies we know what "wisdom" means on a divine scale, whereas we only know what wisdom is believed to mean in a confined cultural context). 
• Likewise, God is not evil (to say that God can be described by the word 'good' limits God to what good behavior means to human beings individually and en masse). 
• God is not a creation (but beyond that we cannot define how God exists or operates in relation to the whole of humanity). 
• God is not conceptually defined in terms of space and location. 
• God is not conceptually confined to assumptions based on time. 

Even though the via negativa essentially rejects theological understanding in and of itself as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not. One problem noted with this approach is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is understood as an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, and universally, the perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality. It should be noted however that since religious experience—or consciousness of the holy or sacred, is not reducible to other kinds of human experience, an abstract understanding of religious experience cannot be used as evidence or proof that religious discourse or praxis can have no meaning or value. In apophatic theology, the negation of theisms in the via negativa also requires the negation of their correlative atheisms if the dialectical method it employs is to maintain integrity.

“God's existence is absolute and it includes no composition and we comprehend only the fact that He exists, not His essence. Consequently it is a false assumption to hold that He has any positive attribute... still less has He accidents (מקרה), which could be described by an attribute. Hence it is clear that He has no positive attribute however, the negative attributes are necessary to direct the mind to the truths which we must believe... When we say of this being, that it exists, we mean that its non-existence is impossible; it is living — it is not dead; ...it is the first — its existence is not due to any cause; it has power, wisdom, and will — it is not feeble or ignorant; He is One — there are not more Gods than one… Every attribute predicated of God denotes either the quality of an action, or, when the attribute is intended to convey some idea of the Divine Being itself — and not of His actions — the negation of the opposite. (The Guide for the Perplexed, 1:58.)”

What is Science?

The Denver Post's Mark Matthews begins a July 31, 2014 story on Colorado's 6th Congressional District race with the following line:

"Rarely does political science bear resemblance to actual science."

To which Seth Masket, blogging for Mischiefs of Faction and expressing irritation at this dismissal of political science, replies:

"Political scientists come in a variety of flavors, but basically we're in the business of proposing theories about the way the political world works, testing those theories with some kind of data, subjecting our findings to a peer-review process, and hopefully publishing those findings so that others can confirm or refute what we've done. And our understanding of the political world has improved substantially over the past century using this approach. (See Hans Noel's article for some great examples, and see Julia Azari on Twitter for some more schooling.) That is science."

Masket's definition of science caught the attention of my friend, Professor Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, who posted this quip on Facebook:

"Well, sure it's a science -- but not, as this author claims, because of its vaguely neo-positivist logic of inquiry. It's a science because it is, at its best, systematic, public, and worldly, aiming at producing impersonally valid knowledge about matters of fact. None of which is limited to proposing and testing hypotheses."

Perhaps it is unnecessary for me to point out that Prof PTJ is a social scientist. To assure the reader (and my friend) that I mean this distinction as a compliment and not a disparaging remark, I hasten to add that I aspire to be known as a social scientist as well. It's a label I'd be proud to wear. That said, I appreciate and embrace the distinctions some would make between different types of scientific inquiry.

A good answer to the question, "What is Science?" must include all science and exclude all non-science. Definitions of science that exclude some branches of science are, therefore, unhelpful in my view. The techniques of inquiry that distinguish branches of science from one another are important. Natural and social sciences are different in meaningful ways. However the over-arching definition of science must include the branches.

Jackson's definition of science emphasizes knowledge and facts generated in real-world, applied settings. Theories, hypotheses, and experiments are nice, he contends, but not strictly necessary in the legitimate pursuit of Truth. Moreover, some Truth exists without the benefit of confirming experimental results. This idea is similar to the one which appears in poster form below:

The definition of science stirs a fair amount of passion--among scientists, anyway! What one means by the word, "science," seems to be somewhat dependent upon whether one is talking about the so-called natural or "hard" sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) or the social or "soft" sciences (psychology, sociology, economics). More to the point, the practitioners of hard sciences seem to take umbrage when social scientists assert that they are, in fact, "doing science."

All of this sturm und drang led me to ponder the question,

"What is Science?"

I concede that standards of rigor, validity, falsifiability, and reproducibility can vary with the subject of one's inquiry. Some inquiry lends itself to very precise measurements, but some perfectly legitimate inquiries use squishier scales. Still, it seems obvious that the relatively softer social sciences can, when done well, contribute to the body of human knowledge for the good of all mankind.

"Science ... is the pursuit of truth and knowledge for the good of all mankind."

When I was a PhD student at Walden University, my First Year Adviser, the inimitable Dr. Ruth Maurer, told me that

"The aim of scientific inquiry is to extend the boundary of human knowledge by an amount, epsilon." 

As if to encourage me, Walden's own Dr. Ruth continued:

"...and epsilon can be very small."

Science Club on BBC Two. Photograph: Andrew Hayes-Watkins/BBC

Naturally, all of this talk of the pursuit of Truth got me thinking about whether there is or even can be a universal definition of Science. I Googled "what is science" and got over 1 billion hits in under 1 second. Someday, when we as a species will have advanced a bit further, we will all look back on the foregoing sentence and laugh. We'll laugh not because we'll have even faster searches in the future, though we most likely will. Rather, the above search results will strike us as funny because, in 2014:

• there were a billion references to people asking and attempting to answer such a fundamental question, and
• to "Google" something was to type a question into a search engine, with fingers and a keyboard and a monitor, as opposed to simply thinking the question and having the answer play in our mind.

In the future, we'll have coalesced around a more universal understanding of what it means to "do" science, that is, "to conduct inquiry for the purpose of adding to the body of knowledge." Meanwhile, here are a few of the many answers I skimmed from the great social stew we call the Internet.

Science is:

"...the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." [Note: it says "and" experiment, not "or" experiment, so I disagree.]

"...a process of discovery that allows us to link isolated facts into coherent and comprehensive understandings of the natural world." [Note the emphasis on the process or method of discovery, as well as to the natural vs social world, so I find this too limiting.]

"... a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." --Carl Sagan [the preference for the rigorous process of inquiry over the often temporary result. is appreciated but this is too generic to satisfy] 

"...a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match."--Isaac Asimov [clear, simple, and agenda-free. I like it]

I conclude this "Science is" section with an insight from the Great Explainer

"Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation."--Richard Feynman [That is a powerful insight, even if it does not precisely answer the question.]

This figure was accessed August 4, 2014 on http://www.brainpickings.org

Of course, all of this language around what science IS led me to wonder what we could learn by discussing what science IS NOT.

To begin, here is a look at the "hard vs soft" divide from the perspective of scientific rigor:

There are "five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability.  ... Happiness research is a great example of why psychology isn't science" because there is no universal definition of happiness, happiness cannot be quantified, and without these two elements the remaining three are impossible.  LA Times, "Why psychology isn't science." July 13, 2012, by Alex B. Berezow

Here is a more explicit view of what science is not, based on what it does not do:

Science doesn't: 

• make moral judgments
• make aesthetic judgments
• tell you how to use scientific knowledge
• draw conclusions about supernatural explanations

I like this summary of Science and Non-science, er, Non-sense
 

Science …	Nonsense …
deals only with natural phenomena	is often based on claims of supernatural phenomena
is based on evidence from real world tests	has no supporting evidence
is consistent with the coherent body of scientific models	contradicts well-established scientific models
is based on logical arguments; anything found to be based on a false premise is abandoned	is based on false premises or illogical arguments or often both
is always falsifiable	is often not falsifiable

This table was accessed August 3, 2014 on http://scienceornot.net/

There is a hierarchy among scientific fields, yes, but the hierarchy I see has less to do with external measures of validity and more to do with the history of time--and of inquiry itself. Does this sort of chronological hierarchy work for you? Try it on...

• First, the Big Bang. Physics is the science of understanding motion, light, gravity, mass, force, velocity, and entropy (among many other things). 
• The Earth spins around its molten core. Volcanoes erupt. Gases spew. Water evaporates and falls in an endless cycle. Chemistry is the science of elements in motion, reacting--or not.   
• The quest for light and unity. Biology is born. 
• Inorganic things interact in predictable ways according to the laws of nature. We know that water will seek it's own level, and that sufficient heat will convert the water to steam. Lack of heat will eventually convert the same water to ice. We are still talking physics here, with a little inorganic chemistry mixed in and biological implications.
• Living things interact in less deterministic ways. With sufficient heat and light, bacteria will grow, reproduce, and die. Paramecia, algae, pond scum, insects, fish, frogs, monkeys, and people with various levels of education, experience, and abilities and variable opinions, values, and means. Sociology is not the study of life but the study of how living things interact in groups. And it is a science because it is the pursuit of truth and knowledge for the good of all mankind.

There is a hierarchy among sciences, and the definition of science must include all the branches while excluding other forms of inquiry and practice that may be related to science, but are not strictly organic to science. 

Not included? 

• Mathematics is not science, it is the language of science and of logical inquiry. I suppose math theory is science, but the point of math is to share abstract ideas via symbols. It's mostly a language.
• Technology is not science, it is the application of science to solve some sort of problem. 
• Medicine is technically a technology, though the line is blurry. Medical research is science but medical practice that is not aimed at adding to the body of knowledge is just an application of established ideas. If my doctor treats me and publishes a journal article about it, then the lines get blurry. Medical doctors, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, registered Nurses and other members of the caring profession are not scientists when they are caring for a patient, but they may be scientists when they design, conduct, or participate in clinical trials or other scientific research. 
• Although one may earn"Science" degrees in Engineering and Management. these pursuits are not science, but applications of science.  
• Para-psychology, and other pseudo-sciences must be distinguished from legitimate Social Science. Tarot, MBTI, Astrology, Numerology and the like my have the ring of truth in some cases, but here is where I circle back to the key distinction Professor Jackson articulated, namely, that science aims at producing impersonally valid knowledge about matters of fact. My personality profile or destiny code may help me appreciate certain things, but such knowledge is hardly impersonal or even factual.

Now finally, with all the talk about what is and is not science, there must be some discussion of Quality. All physics is not "good" physics. Quality, like beauty, is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps the Quality of a scientific endeavor is socially constructed. If so, that would explain how certain things once held to be true may be later discarded as false in light of newer and better information. I like how ProfPTJ said it best and conclude with his definition:

"Science is, at its best, systematic, public, and worldly, aiming at producing impersonally valid knowledge about matters of fact."