Futile Science
Comic from xkcd.com
Here’s an example of a simple, catchy, seemingly persuasive, utterly foolish argument. His chart is drawn correctly of course, but an understanding of science points out that it is drawn the only way it could be regardless of what the true situation were. Science rather than being the unlimited source of all Truth much of the Western World treats it as, is the narrow field of study of the natural laws of this universe. For good reason, Science is restricted to naturalistic explanations for phenomena. It wouldn’t be a very useful scientist who explained away every mystery by saying it was fairies or ghosts or God. While a scientific experiment may be able to disprove claims of a supernatural event by revealing the perfectly natural cause, it cannot possibly prove that an event was supernatural. First, the natural laws are not fully known so phenomena that seem utterly inexplicable now may be perfectly obvious to future generations. Second, all the facts of any given event can never be known. It is never possible to say with certitude that the senses were not fooled, or that something did not go unobserved. As an example consider a fellow who has a coin and is flipping it to try to determine if it has a heads and a tails, or is a coin with both sides heads. If he ever flips it and observes tails then he will have disproved the double headed theory, but no matter how many times he observes heads he will never be able to prove conclusively that there is no tails side.
Am I saying the religion and science are incompatible, then, that one deals with the natural, the other with the supernatural and neither one has any business in the other’s realm? Certainly not. Much of the foundation of modern science was laid down by Christians intent on discovering the mechanics of God’s Creation. The divide between Faith and Reason is not nearly so strict as some would have us believe. Those who claim faith have faith based on reason (When a person jumps in the air, he has faith that gravity will bring him down again, a reasonable faith based on a great deal of experience and (if he is learned) scientific principles). Those who claim reason must have some faith. Faith in what? Faith in their senses. Faith in the assumption that the reasoning of a human brain really is capable of discovering truth and is not just random electrical impulses. Scientific thinking is still valuable in areas where rigorous scientific proofs are not possible (Creation vs. Evolution is a good example), so long as people recognize what science is useful for and what it is not.
“But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:21 NASB
Incidentally I happened to pick on xkcd because it provided a great example of typical scientific hubris. In general I like xkcd quite a bit. These are some of my favorites.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Haha, good point. Supernatural powers confirmed by experiment automatically lose supernatural status.
And I agree 100%: Atheism is a faith just as much as Christianity or any other religion. However, it is difficult for me to choose 1 specific religion or depiction of creation/god. Since you acknowledge it is impossible to trust our brain, because it could all be fake anyway, then there could be infinite possibilities for the answer to these types of questions. (where do we come from/what is our purpose/where do we go). Since there are infinite possibilities, it seems any specific one is wrong. It’s like the probability of one specific value in a continuous statistical distribution is always 0 because anything over infinity is 0.
Dunno, just my 2 cents. Being religious does seem to make people happier though, I just can’t bring myself to do it.
That’s an interesting thought, that because there are an infinite number of possible religions, the probability of any single one being true is 0. I think there might be a flaw in your reasoning however. Say you’re given a series of equations:
…
1+1=-1
1+1=0
1+1=1
1+1=2
1+1=3
…
There is certainly an infinite number of equations of this form that could be written which means the probability of choosing the correct one randomly is 0. However, you are well aware of which one is true and can easily pick it out of the group. That’s because, unlike choosing lotto numbers, in this case there is evidence available to enable you to choose one over the others.
I submit that religion/worldview is the same way (though the questions to be answered are much harder). You have evidence from your own observations and the observations of other people that give you knowledge about how the universe operates. You can use that to make a determination about which worldview best corresponds to reality. It’s true that these sources don’t always provide accurate information, but some are quite reliable and you can place a reasonable faith in what you learn from them (Your eyes and ears are pretty good, considering they’ve gotten you this far).
Unfortunately, it’s not a question you can ignore. Like it or not, you do have a worldview and it shapes the way you think about everything. Considering how it affects your life (and possibly what comes after), I believe it’s worth some effort to find the one that’s true.