Science & God

I’m not a scientist by a long shot and if you pushed me in a corner with hard scientific questions I would crumble up like a little school girl. But I don’t think you have to be a scientist to appreciate the value of science. In the same way you don’t have to be a musician to appreciate good music or an artist to see value in art. So,

What is science?

Why is it so important?

And can it help us answer the biggest question of all:

Is there a God?

Science is the branch of human endeavour that seeks to understand the world around us by subjecting our ideas, observations and evidence that we find in the world to a system known as the scientific method.

We owe much to our advances in science. From the modes of transport we use to travel around the world to the breakthroughs in medicine that allow us to live longer, healthier lives. Life as we know it today simply would not be possible without the aid of our scientific endeavours, we truly do live in an age of scientific achievements. But do we live in an age of scientific thinking? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. Science is far more than just a bunch of facts we know about the world. It’s a way of thinking about the world. Scientific thinking is about finding the truth, regardless of our beliefs, our emotions or our traditions.

While it’s true that there are currently many questions that seem beyond the reaches of science. Such as, what is the purpose of life? Why am I here? And one might argue; the existence of a God? The next question we should ask ourselves should be, is there a better alternative to finding the answers to these questions? And more specifically:

What should we do when we find ourselves at the boundaries of empirical science?

While I agree that many answers to our deepest questions may very well lie outside the reaches of empirical science, we should be very careful with what system of knowing we put in place of science. Let’s now take a look at God. I personally don’t think God can be proved or disproved through empirical science. You can’t prove that something invisible exists outside of time and space, and you certainly can’t disprove that either. If you could I wouldn’t be an agnostic asking questions, and there would be no such thing as religion, we would all just know!

For some, the alternative to science and the only way we can know the answers to these great cosmic questions is by faith. I personally disagree. While science gives us an objective means to asses’ truth, faith and belief do not. If anyone needs proof of this just look at how many competing ideas and beliefs people have around the world about God through faith. Now faith isn’t necessarily a bad thing (although it can be), but if we are after objective, absolute truth, I don’t think we can find it through personal beliefs and faith. One of my greatest desires is to find out what and who exactly God is, but I can no longer accept that the best way to find truth is through abandoning my reasoning capabilities in favour of what the bible puts so clearly:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. Hebrews 11:1

When the boundaries of empirical science are met, I believe we should withhold judgment. If we wish to continue the conversation we should step forward not in personal conviction or “faith”, but in uncertainty and scepticism. We should awash ourselves in honest, intellectual humility and integrity and accept that the discussion can only go on in philosophical or theological terms. Never should we slap the word “truth” to our beliefs and scare others with threats of eternal damnation for having a different view. The thought that millions of people throughout history have died for simply holding to a different belief about God to one another is one of the biggest disgraces to human history. Something we have yet to grow out of. I look forward to the day (if it comes) when we can stand together; believers form all backgrounds and non believers alike and marvel at the stupidity of our ancestors killing each other over beliefs about questions no body knows the answers too.

Whether we find the answer through science or not, the most important thing to me is to keep an open mind. There would be nothing I would love more than to know there is a God out there who loves us all, but I will not believe this because it feels good. Truth will always be what matters most to me. To me, it seems science is far more objective and focused on discovering truth than faith. Science is open to correction, it is willing to change its course based on the evidence and has proven itself time and time again throughout history. It is these reasons I think science may one day, be able to answer the biggest question of all. Until then, I must remain content with not knowing.

Love Jason

Coming soon: Part 3 something from nothing?

What came before the big bang?

Awesome documentary exploring the question: What came before the big bang?

Michael Schermer lays out our top 10 best answers to the biggest question of all, "why is there something instead of nothing". Great read.

http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/the-biggest-big-question-of-all

Visions Of The Future

A series called Visions of the future just finished airing on abc. The final episode named "the Quantum revolution" just completely blew my mind. This series gives us a great perspective on just how valuable science is to our world and where science will take us in the future. It is both wonderfully exiting and if i am to be honest, somewhat frightening at the immense scale of the possibilities that lay before us. This is a must watch for anybody and everybody. You wont be disappointed!

To watch the video click here:

Visions Of The Future, Episode 3: The Quantum Revoltution

Intelligent design

As someone who confesses genuine enquiry into truth, it’s imperative that I challenge my current way of thinking from time to time so as not to box myself in with black and white dogmatic views. If there is one thing I’ve learnt on my journey of truth is that more often than not there seems to be two sides (often more) to every story. Lately I’ve been looking into evolution. Evolution is something I’ve found myself on every side of the argument. I started out as a young earth creationist, believing in the literalistic biblical view that the earth was roughly around 6000 years old. It wasn’t until I was challenged by a few science educated Christians who held theistic evolutionary beliefs that convinced me to start educating myself on the theory of evolution and look more into it myself. This in turn led me to theistic evolution which I held for a while until my theological views began to fail me and I now preside within a naturalistic evolutionary world view, with strong feelings of agnosticism when it comes to the origin of those first elements of life.

I recently watched this interesting documentary on intelligent design:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6180420007079654158#

I think intelligent design as a philosophy asks some very good fundamental questions about the complexity of life. However I think its bad science to stop at a point when observing the biological functions of say a cell, and say oh these parts are irreducibly complex, therefore it must be intelligently designed. I don’t understand what that achieves? Or how that is science? Unless a theory can be tested, or give us predictions about the future in which to validate the hypothesis, than it simply isn’t science. Science is about continually gathering data and asking ourselves questions about the natural world and pushing the boundaries of our knowledge. Lots of things in our past have looked to be “intelligently designed” only for science to discover natural laws that govern these once thought mysteries. It doesn’t make sense to me to stop at a point when we’ve come so far in evolutionary biology and say this is irreducibly complex and this is far as we can go. Now let’s be honest for a second, there is a lot science is yet to explain, but just because we can’t explain something today doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a natural explanation or that we won’t be able to find one tomorrow. A short look through the history of science will reveal this.

Another point I just can’t shake is that intelligent design seems to have a great deal of underlying theological and religious implications to its observations. By saying that something is irreducibly complex and intelligently designed actually tells us, well nothing. Unless of course you bring whatever theological designer you wish to the table. This opens up the flood gates for anyone with a certain perspective on who that intelligent designer was. This is fine in the arena of philosophy or religion, but not in science. Science says nothing on whom or what that designer was. To insert a particular designer is nothing more than playing God of the Gaps in our lack of understanding about certain scientific or philosophical questions.

Overall I felt the documentary was very one sided (as most documentaries are). Many times in the documentary I was waiting for them to interview other prominent scientist in the same field who reject intelligent design and irreducible complexity (which there are many!) But they never showed up. So to even things up I found a couple of lengthy videos that argue against intelligent design, not only have I found two great men of their scientific field, but I have found two scientist who hold strong theistic beliefs, in that they believe in a God, yet reject intelligent design as a science and call it out for what they believe it really is. I’ll leave it up to you guys to make up your own minds:

Science

My current view of Science,

“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” - Carl Sagan

While I am far from one to say science can explain everything, I think the scientific method is the best tool we have for discovering truth, at least in this natural world. If philosophy and religion are about exploring truth beyond the natural world, Science is about exploring truth within it. The history of modern science is fascinating, filled with colourful characters and wonderful minds. Time and time again throughout history truth in science has persevered. It has trumped those who have ferociously apposed it and is still doing the same today.

Most of the luxuries we have in our daily lives we owe to the discoveries through science from cars, to house hold appliances, running tap water, food preservation, computers and electricity. Our understanding of the natural world is ever growing and the gap of the unknown is getting smaller and smaller. Science to me isn’t necessarily a whole bunch of facts we know about the world, but like Carl Sagan explains is “a way of thinking”. Science asks us not to be quick to draw conclusions, but to take our time and test things out through what is known as the “scientific method”.

The scientific method as I understand it, is about first collecting as much data possible on a certain scientific question or observation, formulating a reasonable theory due to the evidence and then if possible, either through observation or experimentation, test the theory again and again to see if it stands up as true. Once a scientific theory is established, it is put through what is known as ‘peer review’ where it’s passed along those within the scientific community who carefully analyse the theory and further establish its validity or its fallacies. This is to try and help keep science a bias free domain.

I do however think we should always be careful when it comes to scientific discoveries. We should always accept where the evidence points us, but never hold to strongly to a scientific idea or theory, because you never know what we will discover in the future. That is the beauty of science, its willingness to change direction depending on the evidence. That to me is a sign that science truly is a wonderful method that honestly cares about finding truth.