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Category/Topic - General Political & Social Issues/Darwinism, science, and God Initial Topic started by WHS - Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 9:23 am |
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Post by WHS Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 9:23 am Darwin's 200 birthday has occasioned a spate of articles on Darwinism and people's beliefs. A Gallup survey released on February 11 reported that less than 40% of Americans believe in evolution. A lot of the controversy boils down to semantics and comparing apples and oranges. Science essentially presents models for understanding natural phenomena which explain these phenomena to the best of our ability at a particular time, commensurate with our abilities and knowledge at that time. These models are based on highly defined symbolic logic to the maximum extent possible. That is to say, they are expressed mathematically to this extent. The hard sciences such as physics are much more tightly defined and subject to experimental verification in this sense. Hence, something like Einstein's theory of gravity is very tightly defined and verifiable within these limits. Soft science such as evolution is not so exactly defined. There are deep differences in the very methodology of the science of Darwinism vs. physics. The scientific method itself as implemented in Darwinism differs from that which is implemented in the hard sciences. So, the first thing we need to do is teach and understand this, instead of lumping all science into one type. Secondly, science cannot answer questions concerning first causes and the ultimate questions. And it cannot answer the one word question: Why? Yet, there is a strong tendency on the part of scientists, who tend to be secularists, to ignore these basic limitations of science. Science is not TRUTH. It is a method of understanding, to the limits of the present model. It is always, by definition, incomplete as a representation of truth. Its very nature ensures this. And the average person knows this intuitively, while scientists often essentially ignore this at great peril to their credibility. Science itself has no one definition. Nor does the scientific method. There are different types of science. Some science can be tested through experiments and the boundaries of what is knowable established within very tight limits, the theory of gravity, for example. But even then, we have no real idea of why it does what it does. To teach science as a substitute for truth is a large part of the problem. The arrogance of the purely scientific point of view is the core of the problem when it is implicitly included as a part of our study of science. When held up as the method by which one should pursue truth, science is as much of a belief system as is Christianity or any other religion. It tries mightily to avoid admitting this, but at bottom, it does not explain why we are here or how we got here without a first axiom based on a belief in its own brand of the concept of infinity. Belief in God is also a belief in infinity... but of a different sort. Belief in God does not preclude the use of science for what it is... modeling physical phenomena to the best of our abilty in order to better be able to predict, control, and understand the physical world within the limits of our ability. But we must realize that "scientific truth" is not real. It is a MODEL. As long as the present approach is maintained by science and its priests, people are going to resist science because they know better than to believe that science is the limit of our ability to discern truth. Truth transcends matter, and even science itself is finding this out. The deeper it probes the material realm, the more that matter turns vaporous and essentially becomes a geometrical phenomenon. Many beliefs of religious people may be ignorant from science's point of view, but it is just as ignorant from the religious point of view to apparently ignore the reality of the fact that both points of view depend on a belief in their own particular brand of infinity, and also to believe that there is no truth beyond science's ability to address. Until science completely addresses these arguments, there will be no peace, and science will be distrusted. Science must openly admit that God might exist and that the universe may have been "created," for it has no better answers except as based on its own brand of infinity. Science cannot address God's existence or explain the origin of the universe in any provable manner. And, once it is truly understood what science's limitations are, it will take its natural place as a tool, and not as a route to the truth. |