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Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Science and Atheism
I am the enemy
I believe in science over hypocrisy
Let reason and tolerance be the catalyst
We fight these battles to survive and exist
-Crooked Lies by Intro5pect
Recently I was watching a video of a discussion between Dawkins and another scientist. When the inevitable topic of the relation between science and religion came up, a statement was put forth that science is not at odds with religion, but it does make atheism tenable (I did not watch for long enough to see if either Dawkins or his companion agreed with this statement).
Now, there are two ways I could interpret this statement about science, neither of which makes any sense to me.
The first interpretation interprets “atheism”, in this context, to be strong atheism – that is, the positive belief that there are no gods (or that a specific god does not exist). But this makes no sense – in order to make strong atheism more defensible, its opposite positive belief (the belief that there is some god) thereby becomes less defensible. That is, any argument for strong atheism is an argument against theism, by definition. Therefore it makes no sense to say that something can support strong atheism without making theism less tenable.
The second interpretation is interpreting atheism as being of the weak variety – that is, the lack of a belief in deities. Taken this way, science has provided support for the lack of belief in deities. But this doesn’t make any sense – how can you provide support for a lack of a belief? One might say that since science gives us natural explanations for things, it therefore supports the weak atheist view – it fills up the possible gaps where a god might be hiding.
There are two problems with this – first, a gap in knowledge is not evidence for a god, despite how many theist arguments rest on the idea that it is, and therefore a gap in knowledge is in no way a problem for a weak atheist stance. So filling up a gap doesn’t help the weak atheist position at all. Perhaps it could be said that, since in every gap a god is a possible explanation, closing gaps makes atheism more tenable, but this has the same problem as the first interpretation – we can’t make atheism more tenable without making theism less so.
This idea that scientific progress doesn’t make theism less likely reminds me heavily of Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”. This position has been criticized by many. It has also been supported by many (i.e. many science institutions which rely on public support and funding). While I doubt I can say anything enlightening on the issue, I might as well give my (predictable) two-cents on what I think the relation between scientific progress and theism is.
First, any conception of a personal god (most impersonal ones as well, but not necessarily pantheist gods or “mystic” gods) makes a fact claim about the natural world. If it didn’t, there would be no point talking about that god. Talking about any god that has no role in our universe is useless speculation. Eventually a theist will claim something like that their god is the source of morality. But this is a fact claim that can be investigated by science – we can see if we can come up with other explanations for morality (i.e. evolutionary explanations), create natural hypotheses, and test them. We can collect data that coheres better with the natural explanation than the god hypothesis, and this counts as evidence against the existence of a god who is the source of morality.
So specific scientific theories provide evidence that specific gods do not exist, and we can justifiably become strong atheists towards those gods. There will likely always be room for theists to wiggle around and make claims about where their god fits in, but at the very least science cuts down the set of possible gods.
Secondly, the success of science (and relative lack of success of revelation) for providing explanations for things is very strong evidence that the scientific method is simply a better way of obtaining information than revelation. As there is no physical evidence for any gods, revelation is really the only way one can claim to have knowledge of a god. As revelation has proven to be at the very least extremely dubious, we should demand physical, scientific evidence instead. In the absence of such evidence, we are justified in not believing in a god even with a lack of evidence against the existence of such a god.
Finally, the evidence that science has provided us with points very strongly to an impersonal universe. Our world is not the centre of the universe. Neither is our solar system. Our planet is one among many in an irrelevant corner of a single galaxy. Living things are not special – there is no “vital spark” that makes living things objectively different from non-living things. Living things are made out of “dead” parts. Among living things the human race isn’t special, metaphysically speaking (we certainly are special in certain ways) – we evolved just like any other species, and the mind is a product of the brain. The universe doesn’t treat humans any differently than other parts of the universe – a human falls, just like a rock falls. There is no reason, other than anthropocentric arrogance, to assume the universe was created just for us or that we are metaphysically special.
I believe in science over hypocrisy
Let reason and tolerance be the catalyst
We fight these battles to survive and exist
-Crooked Lies by Intro5pect
Recently I was watching a video of a discussion between Dawkins and another scientist. When the inevitable topic of the relation between science and religion came up, a statement was put forth that science is not at odds with religion, but it does make atheism tenable (I did not watch for long enough to see if either Dawkins or his companion agreed with this statement).
Now, there are two ways I could interpret this statement about science, neither of which makes any sense to me.
The first interpretation interprets “atheism”, in this context, to be strong atheism – that is, the positive belief that there are no gods (or that a specific god does not exist). But this makes no sense – in order to make strong atheism more defensible, its opposite positive belief (the belief that there is some god) thereby becomes less defensible. That is, any argument for strong atheism is an argument against theism, by definition. Therefore it makes no sense to say that something can support strong atheism without making theism less tenable.
The second interpretation is interpreting atheism as being of the weak variety – that is, the lack of a belief in deities. Taken this way, science has provided support for the lack of belief in deities. But this doesn’t make any sense – how can you provide support for a lack of a belief? One might say that since science gives us natural explanations for things, it therefore supports the weak atheist view – it fills up the possible gaps where a god might be hiding.
There are two problems with this – first, a gap in knowledge is not evidence for a god, despite how many theist arguments rest on the idea that it is, and therefore a gap in knowledge is in no way a problem for a weak atheist stance. So filling up a gap doesn’t help the weak atheist position at all. Perhaps it could be said that, since in every gap a god is a possible explanation, closing gaps makes atheism more tenable, but this has the same problem as the first interpretation – we can’t make atheism more tenable without making theism less so.
This idea that scientific progress doesn’t make theism less likely reminds me heavily of Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”. This position has been criticized by many. It has also been supported by many (i.e. many science institutions which rely on public support and funding). While I doubt I can say anything enlightening on the issue, I might as well give my (predictable) two-cents on what I think the relation between scientific progress and theism is.
First, any conception of a personal god (most impersonal ones as well, but not necessarily pantheist gods or “mystic” gods) makes a fact claim about the natural world. If it didn’t, there would be no point talking about that god. Talking about any god that has no role in our universe is useless speculation. Eventually a theist will claim something like that their god is the source of morality. But this is a fact claim that can be investigated by science – we can see if we can come up with other explanations for morality (i.e. evolutionary explanations), create natural hypotheses, and test them. We can collect data that coheres better with the natural explanation than the god hypothesis, and this counts as evidence against the existence of a god who is the source of morality.
So specific scientific theories provide evidence that specific gods do not exist, and we can justifiably become strong atheists towards those gods. There will likely always be room for theists to wiggle around and make claims about where their god fits in, but at the very least science cuts down the set of possible gods.
Secondly, the success of science (and relative lack of success of revelation) for providing explanations for things is very strong evidence that the scientific method is simply a better way of obtaining information than revelation. As there is no physical evidence for any gods, revelation is really the only way one can claim to have knowledge of a god. As revelation has proven to be at the very least extremely dubious, we should demand physical, scientific evidence instead. In the absence of such evidence, we are justified in not believing in a god even with a lack of evidence against the existence of such a god.
Finally, the evidence that science has provided us with points very strongly to an impersonal universe. Our world is not the centre of the universe. Neither is our solar system. Our planet is one among many in an irrelevant corner of a single galaxy. Living things are not special – there is no “vital spark” that makes living things objectively different from non-living things. Living things are made out of “dead” parts. Among living things the human race isn’t special, metaphysically speaking (we certainly are special in certain ways) – we evolved just like any other species, and the mind is a product of the brain. The universe doesn’t treat humans any differently than other parts of the universe – a human falls, just like a rock falls. There is no reason, other than anthropocentric arrogance, to assume the universe was created just for us or that we are metaphysically special.
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