Oxford mathematician John Lennox on whether a scientist can believe in God

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December 15, 2019

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From a review of John Lennox’s Can Science Explain Everything?:

He begins by asking the question whether or not a scientist can believe in God? Particularly he considers whether it is legitimate to do so in modern times, but in order to answer this question, he spends some energy considering the history of the great men and women of science. As he does so, he seeks to destroy two myths. The first is that religion depends on faith but science doesn’t (chapter 3). The second is that science depends on reason but Christianity doesn’t (chapter 4).
Dr. Lennox then considers whether the Bible can be taken seriously in a scientific age such as the present (chapter 5) before considering the seeming contradiction between science and miracles (chapter 6). The book then turns a corner in which Christianity is subjected to a proof text and clearly passes the test before the personal elements of Christianity are considered. The reader is then left with some insightful considerations regarding the truthfulness of Christianity as well as an appropriate plea to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Throughout this journey, the reader will be struck by some excellent arguments, illustrations and one-liners by Dr. Lennox. They will also, doubtless, be struck by his own personal life story and journey of faith and science.
Nathan Muse, “Book Review: Can Science Explain Everything? by John Lennox” at Apologetics 315

As noted earlier, the scientist who doesn’t believe in God faces much bigger problems: The fundamental one is whether anything is true in the sense that it needs to be true for science to be possible.

See also: Asked at The Scientist: “Does science describe experience or truth?” As it happens, the loss of theism puts science in an impossible position. A traditional monotheist (and probably most deists) would assume that God creates according to logic and reason and that the scientist can indeed find out the truth by “thinking God’s thoughts after him.” But otherwise, why? Loss of the theistic perspective leads directly to the current demands that science credentials and acknowledgements be apportioned on the basis of fairness as if they were public goods of some kind.

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Comments

Tjguy, I don’t disagree with anything you have said other than your statement that this is a problem for science. In the last relatively short period of time we have greatly increased the median life-span, we have greatly reduced infant mortality, etc. All the result of the iterative process of science. Of constantly trying to improve the best explanation for our observations. With regard to the origin of life I think all we can say is that we don’t have anything that approaches a good (let alone best) explanation for it. And that includes the supernatural.Ed George_{December 16, 2019
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To give us a small glimpse of the power that was involved in Christ's resurrection from the dead, the following recent article found that, ”it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology.”
Astonishing discovery at Christ’s tomb supports Turin Shroud – NOV 26TH 2016 Excerpt: The first attempts made to reproduce the face on the Shroud by radiation, used a CO2 laser which produced an image on a linen fabric that is similar at a macroscopic level. However, microscopic analysis showed a coloring that is too deep and many charred linen threads, features that are incompatible with the Shroud image. Instead, the results of ENEA “show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence”. ‘However, Enea scientists warn, “it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts )”. Comment The ENEA study of the Holy Shroud of Turin concluded that it would take 34 Thousand Billion Watts of VUV radiations to make the image on the shroud. This output of electromagnetic energy remains beyond human technology. http://westvirginianews.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-study-claims-shroud-of-turin-is.html
Verses and Christmas music:
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. A King is Born - Choral arrangement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHe1Hf3z238
bornagain77_{December 16, 2019
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Interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”, i.e. conscious observation was dropped by the wayside in QFT!
Not So Real – Sheldon Lee Glashow – Oct. 2018 Review of: “What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics” by Adam Becker Excerpt: Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and their contemporaries knew well that the theory they devised could not be made compatible with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. First order in time, but second order in space, Schrödinger’s equation is nonrelativistic. Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated. https://inference-review.com/article/not-so-real
In what should be needless to say, since ‘conscious observation’ itself was dropped by the wayside in QFT , then that necessarily precludes QFT from being the correct step towards the final ‘theory of everything’ that supposedly “is capable of describing all phenomena in the universe.” Specifically, “our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied.”
“The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,” could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists." – Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, pp 167-177.
Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
THE INFINITY PUZZLE: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe Excerpt: In quantum electrodynamics, which applies quantum mechanics to the electromagnetic field and its interactions with matter, the equations led to infinite results for the self-energy or mass of the electron. After nearly two decades of effort, this problem was solved after World War II by a procedure called renormalization, in which the infinities are rolled up into the electron’s observed mass and charge, and are thereafter conveniently ignored. Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga for this breakthrough, referred to this sleight of hand as “brushing infinity under the rug.” http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/tackling-infinity
And whereas special relativity, by ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, has been semi-successfully unified, (i.e. save of course for quantum measurement), with quantum theory to produce Quantum Electrodynamics and/or Quantum Field Theory, no such mathematical ‘sleight of hand’ exists for unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics. General relativity, as the following articles show, simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any acceptable way. In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt simply are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
Does quantum mechanics contradict the theory of relativity? Sanjay Sood, Microchip Design Engineer, Theoretical and Applied Physicist – Feb 14, 2016 Excerpt: quantum mechanics was first integrated with special theory of relativity by Dirac in 1928 just 3 years after quantum mechanics was discovered. Dirac produced an equation that describes the behavior of a quantum particle (electron). In this equation the space and time enter on the same footing – equation is first order in all 4 coordinates. One startling by product of this equation was the prediction of anti matter. It also gave the correct explanation for the electron’s spin. Dirac’s equation treats an electron as a particle with only a finite degrees of freedom. In 1940s Dirac’s equation was incorporated into the relativistic quantum field theory that’s knowns as quantum electrodynamics (QED) independently by Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga. This is the theory that describes the behavior of electrons and photons and their interactions with each other in terms of relativistic quantum fields that have infinite degrees of freedom. QED allowed extremely precise calculation of anomalous magnetic dipole moment of an electron. This calculated value matches the experimentally measured value to an astonishing precision of 12 decimal places! The integration of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics has proved to be far more difficult. Such an integration would give a quantum theory of gravity. Even after a sustained effort lasting more than half a century, no renormalized quantum field theory of gravity has ever been produced. Renormalization means a theory that’s free of infinities at zero distance or infinite energy because 2 point particles can interact with each other at zero distance. A non renormalizable theory has no predictive value because it contains an infinite number of singular coefficients. https://www.quora.com/Does-quantum-mechanics-contradict-the-theory-of-relativity Unified field theory Excerpt: Gravity has yet to be successfully included in a theory of everything. Simply trying to combine the graviton with the strong and electroweak interactions runs into fundamental difficulties since the resulting theory is not renormalizable. Theoretical physicists have not yet formulated a widely accepted, consistent theory that combines general relativity and quantum mechanics. The incompatibility of the two theories remains an outstanding problem in the field of physics. Some theoretical physicists currently believe that a quantum theory of general relativity may require frameworks other than field theory itself, such as string theory or loop quantum gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory#Current_status Quantum Leaps – Jeremy Bernstein – October 19, 2018 Excerpt: Divergent series notwithstanding, quantum electrodynamics yielded results of remarkable accuracy. Consider the magnetic moment of the electron. This calculation, which has been calculated up to the fifth order in ?, agrees with experiment to ten parts in a billion. If one continued the calculation to higher and higher orders, at some point the series would begin to break down. There is no sign of that as yet. Why not carry out a similar program for gravitation? One can readily write down the Feynman graphs that represent the terms in the expansion. Yet there remains an irremediable difficulty. Every order reveals new types of infinities, and no finite number of renormalizations renders all the terms in the series finite. The theory is not renormalizable. https://inference-review.com/article/quantum-leaps Jeremy Bernstein is professor emeritus of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
This mathematically‘infinite’ divide to there ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ should have, somewhat, been foreseen. Godel’s incompleteness theorem implies exactly that. There simply never will be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’. As Hawking himself conceded, “Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything”
“Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”.” – Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)
In fact, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended to physics and is not just some abstract mathematical limit that prevents there from ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ but is now shown to be, in actuality, a defining feature of reality: In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics – December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, “We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s,” added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. “So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.” http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
Simply put, despite how much mathematicians and physicists may believe that there simply must be a single mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that exist out there somewhere, there, in fact, never will be a single mathematical theory of everything that links the microscopic world of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world of General Relativity. All hope is not lost though,,,,
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
,,, All hope is not lost though, basically and succinctly, allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), by rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics then that provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. Here are a few posts where I lay out and defend some of the evidence for that claim:
November 2019 - despite the fact that virtually everyone, including the vast majority of Christians, now hold that the Copernican Principle is unquestionably true, the fact of the matter is that the Copernican Principle is now empirically shown, (via quantum mechanics and general relativity, etc..), to be a completely false assumption. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/so-then-maybe-we-are-privileged-observers/#comment-688855 (February 19, 2019) To support Isabel Piczek’s claim that the Shroud of Turin does indeed reveal a true ‘event horizon’, the following study states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’,,, Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with, the shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/experiment-quantum-particles-can-violate-the-mathematical-pigeonhole-principle/#comment-673178
bornagain77_{December 16, 2019
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Let me go against the main gist of this thread that seems to basically state that 'the ultimate truth can never be reached by science'.
E.G. “As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe.”
Even Laszlo seemed to agree with E.G.'s overall sentiment
E.G.: “As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe.” Laszlo: This was precisely Karl Popper’s view. Theories are evaluated by how thoroughly they answer difficult observations. The more the better. But no theory will ever provide ultimate truth because that is beyond the purview of science. No matter how well a theory is supported by observation, it is always possible that some new observation will be made and the theory replaced by a better one.
And indeed Popper's falsification criteria is a very powerful tool in science. And is one of the main reasons why we know that Darwinian evolution is not the 'truth' about how life originated and diversified on this planet. Darwinists simply refuse to accept any empirical observation that falsifies their theory and therefore Darwinian evolution simply fails to quantify as a testable science in the first place.
“If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble “Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus “outside empirical science” but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.” Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch (1967), “Evolutionary History and Population Biology,” Nature, 214:349-352, April 22, p. 352 Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory: https://uncommondescent.com/education/wealthy-scandinavian-benefactor-gives-us1-6-million-eqv-to-promote-id/#comment-687780
But anyways, aside from the fact that Darwinian evolution is more properly classified as a pseudoscience, even a religion for atheists, rather than it is being classified as a real and testable science, aside from that we do have several theories in science that have survived repeated attempts at falsification. These theories are Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Electrodynamics, General Relativity and Special Relativity. These theories have survived falsification and are confirmed to be true descriptions of reality to almost absurd levels of precision. For instance, the quantum mechanical assertion that reality does not exist if you are not observing it,,,
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. "Our study shows that 'just' giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics," Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. "You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism." http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
,, is confirmed to be true to “120 standard deviations”,,,
Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system - Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: "This represents a violation of (Leggett's) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results." The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model. The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf
The following references give us a glimpse of just how insanely precise the measurement of 120 standard deviations is for Leggett's Inequality,,,
Standard deviation Excerpt: In statistics, the standard deviation (SD) (represented by the Greek letter sigma, ?),,, Particle physics uses a standard of "5 sigma" for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Particle_physics SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? - June 23, 2013 Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case… https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/ssdd-a-22-sigma-event-is-consistent-with-the-physics-of-fair-coins/
Although the preceding is practically beyond human comprehension as to just how insanely precise that measurement actually is, General Relativity, Quantum Electrodynamics and Special Relativity have also survived repeated attempts at falsification and are also now verified to be true descriptions of “reality”, (whatever “reality” may now be given that Leggett’s Inequality has now falsified “realism” :) ), to almost absurd levels of precision,
The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science - May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/ "Recent experiments have confirmed, to within one part in one hundred million billion (10^17), that the speed of light does not change when an observer is in motion." Douglas Ell - "Counting To God" - pg. 41 - 2014
Moreover, aside from the fact, (since these theories have survived falsification and are confirmed to almost absurd levels of precision), that we can have a extreme level of confidence that these theories are true descriptions of reality, aside from that fact, I would also argue that the entire enterprise of science is predicated on the belief that “The Truth”, i.e. the ultimate truth about reality, can be reached by science. That is to say, the practice of science itself is not only a search for various truths about reality but is also, ultimately, primarily a search for ‘the truth’ about reality. The search for the ultimate truth about reality in science today takes the form of trying to find the hypothetical final mathematical ‘theory of everything’. Indeed much money and research has been dedicated to this endeavor. In its present form this search entails trying to mathematically unify general relativity and quantum field theory (QED), (which is the unification quantum mechanics and special relativity), into a single mathematical ‘theory of everything’. It is hoped that this hypothetical final ‘theory of everything’ will be ‘capable of describing all phenomena in the universe.’
Theory of everything Excerpt: a theoretical framework revealing a deeper underlying reality,,,, a single theory that, in principle, is capable of describing all phenomena in the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything
As the following article states, “The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed.”
Theories of the Universe: Quantum Mechanics vs. General Relativity Excerpt: The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed. In the 1960s and ’70s, the success of QED prompted other physicists to try an analogous approach to unifying the weak, the strong, and the gravitational forces. Out of these discoveries came another set of theories that merged the strong and weak forces called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD, and quantum electroweak theory, or simply the electroweak theory, which you’ve already been introduced to. If you examine the forces and particles that have been combined in the theories we just covered, you’ll notice that the obvious force missing is that of gravity (i.e. General Relativity). http://www.infoplease.com/cig/theories-universe/quantum-mechanics-vs-general-relativity.html Quantum field theory – History Excerpt: ,,, (Quantum field theory) QFT is an unavoidable consequence of the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with special relativity (Weinberg (1995)),,, The first achievement of quantum field theory, namely quantum electrodynamics (QED), is “still the paradigmatic example of a successful quantum field theory” (Weinberg (1995)). per wikipedia
bornagain77_{December 16, 2019
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@1 Ed George "As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe." This is true in that science is not able to determine whether something is true or not. Experiments that can be repeated over and over again provide a very high level of certainty and therefore, for all practical purposes, it can be said to validate or invalidate a hypothesis, but theoretically, it cannot prove anything to be true. This is actually a huge problem because there are probably many things that we currently believe to be true, but one day might very well be shown to be false. And we have no way of knowing. Just go back and read science textbooks from 5-10 years ago to see illustrations of this. No sooner has a new textbook been published than some new "fact" or aspect of "settled science" has been shown to be false. This is especially true when it comes to historical science where experiments, in the traditional sense, are not possible. The other very interesting and important word in the above statement is the word "best". How do we determine what is the "best" explanation? Sounds a bit subjective to me! But wait, aren't we supposed to be doing science here? How is it that subjectivity plays a role in science? I personally think that the "best" explanation for the origin of life is a supernatural one, but many would disagree with me. I know that does not qualify as a "scientific" explanation, but that doesn't mean it is any less valid. It makes far more sense than the silly ideas that scientists are forced to believe in or offer up for consideration. At any rate, there is no guarantee that the consensus or "best explanation" is true - when it comes to historical science especially - and that is a big problem with science.tjguy_{December 16, 2019
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I always scratch my head at why anyone thinks science "explains" anything. Science is a methodology that attempts to explain what it is we observers observe, and/or how we use math to define mathematical laws that describe, say, how an object will act under gravity. But has science "explained" what gravity is? Of course not. Maybe it describes how gravity works in relation to objects of mass, but this does not explain, at all, "why" it is so, or how it came to be, what it is "made of" why it exists, etc. They will make up a word like "gravaton", or the "force carrier", the Higgs Boson - but how does it carry force? Why does it carry force? Nobody knows. Any attempt to explain something past a certain point, ends up in a circular loop of reasoning....i.e. "Because it evolved that way" is no explanation, as first you have to fine what exactly that is. Unless one can show chemical and physical properties, that actually occurred to change something from one things into another, it is simply an idea that most take on faith. They figure it "must" be this way... but as we have learned, the mechanisms of Evolution were never understood, they were assumed to be true. And even new mechanisms like "Horizontal Gene Transfer" (HTG), remain unexplained (you could easily claim that it is re-used code that worked)... but sticking the word "evolution" in front or in back of phrases or words explains nothing as the word itself is so misunderstood... so terms like "convergent evolution" are meant to give them impression there is someone that understands what this means, why it happens, and how: but they don't. Another example...we know many plants, when hit by sunlight on one side, respond by sending a chemical "messenger" to the opposite side which causes more vertical growth, and thus bends the plant toward the sun. The reason it does this is obvious- it bends to get more sunlight... but how did this develop and why, nobody knows (especially evolution). If you ask a neo-Darwinist why a plant does this, they are forced to say, it was a fortunate "adaptation", one lucky break after another that made up an complete system to help a plant bend toward the light - I have a feeling if we could have seen the first deciduous plants that grew on the earth, they would already be bending toward the light, and the why is, because plants what more sunlight.. :)Tom Robbins_{December 15, 2019
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truth
also the truth That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
Synonyms of reality I would think that science only cares about that which is in accordance with facts and reality. But I understand why Acartia Eddie doesn't think that way.ET_{December 15, 2019
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Acartia Eddie:
As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth.
Except for the fact that science is the search for the truth. That's why we conduct investigations- to find the truth behind what it is we are investigating. "It is sometimes said that science has nothing to do with morality. This is wrong. Science is the search for truth, the effort to understand the world; it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality." Linus Pauling “But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding.”- Albert Einstein Clearly Acartia Eddie doesn't understand science.ET_{December 15, 2019
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As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe.
In order to be effective, it would require that one not deliberately and selectively avoid physical evidence as a means to protect one's personal preferences. You have demonstrated on these pages that you not heed that intellectual requirement. In fact, you cannot even speak the words of contrary evidence.Upright BiPed_{December 15, 2019
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"As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe." This was precisely Karl Popper's view. Theories are evaluated by how thoroughly they answer difficult observations. The more the better. But no theory will ever provide ultimate truth because that is beyond the purview of science. No matter how well a theory is supported by observation, it is always possible that some new observation will be made and the theory replaced by a better one.Laszlo_{December 15, 2019
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As noted earlier, the scientist who doesn’t believe in God faces much bigger problems: The fundamental one is whether anything is true in the sense that it needs to be true for science to be possible.
As has often been said, by people much smarter than me, science is not about the search for truth. It is about the search for the best explanation for what we observe.Ed George_{December 15, 2019
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