A friend of mine directed me, via the Facebook, to this article, which is about the problem with looking at science as a religion.
I have a lot of problems with this article–so many problems that, despite the fact that Karl Giberson has indeed referred to quite a lot of people, the net result is that he doesn’t really appear to know at all what he’s talking about.
It’s crazy, though. I mean, he mentions that he’s got a PhD in Physics, right? That means that he’s a scientist, and therefore what he’s saying is scientific. Right? Or, wait–what’s the rule with science? Is the rule that everything a scientist says is rational, or is it that a person is only behaving like a scientist when they’re saying rational things?
I just want to get off my chest what bothers me about the first paragraph. Giberson seems to have a problem with this Meyers guy for how he indiscriminately
“excoriates those he views as hostile to science, a pantheon of straw men and women that includes theologians, journalists and churchgoers.”
This is something of immense frustration to me, when an author criticizes someone for using a straw man argument by creating a straw man argument. PZ Myers is not representative of science or scientists. I don’t even know who he is, and I wouldn’t have known who he was if this Giberson fellow hadn’t brought him up in the first place. I am in no way culpable for the zany antics of this character; using him as an example of the soul-damaging power of over-zealous science is specious at best, and malicious at worst.
Actually, the more I look at this article, the more fantastically retarded it becomes. Giberson actually says that certain of his remarks “got me condemned to whatever hell Myers believes in.” This is the same Myers that Giberson has just accused of being poisonously atheistic–meaning, obviously, that he doesn’t believe in hell. There is no Hell to which you can be condemned, Mr. Giberson, and the man to which you refer may be willing to judge the nature of your life on Earth, but makes no claims about the nature of your immortal soul. This is because he is not religious. You, Mr. Giberson, are purposefully misrepresenting Myers position in order to support your thesis! Stop! It makes you look like an idiot!
That’s enough of the nonsense; I want to actually get to the meat of the article. The essential points of Giberson’s arguments appear to be:
1) some (well, one, but let’s pretend he’s representative) scientists are as zealous about science as religious dogmatists are about religion.
2) science requires the belief in things that we want to believe (just like religion!), but is ultimately inferior to religion because
3) science does not obligate us to behave ethically, where religion does.
So, let’s look at this. Obviously, Mr. Giberson is right in saying that scientists should not be substituting faith for science, and he is accurately criticizing Peter Atkins for describing the origin of the universe in one particular way, (i.e., that it began formless and void, and by chance there was a fluctuation, and then POW! Universe) when Atkins knows that this theory is unproven and uncertain. He is less accurately criticizing Atkins for using Biblical language (and, I’m sure, Mr. Giberson knows it): the nature of the beginning of the universe beggars description by any ordinary function of language, and what physicists believe about it can basically be described only with math. This would make for a poor and not-especially-illuminating lecture, and physicists have been substituting metaphor for science in such conditions forever.
This is not the same thing as physicists believing their metaphors, I should add.
Or, what if it is? What if Peter Atkins really has abandoned his sense of inquiry when it comes to understanding the beginning of the universe? What if he has substituted faith for reason? What should we do? Well, Mr. Giberson appears upset by this idea. He appears to want something empirical and testable when we talk about the beginning of the universe. He appears to want to consign Atkins’ speculation to the trash, along with the eucharist that Mr. Myers pierced with a nail. Along with the pages of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion that Mr. Myers threw out.
Oops. I guess you’re actually on the same side as Myers here, aren’t you Mr. Giberson? Turns out, you both don’t want people to believe when they should be considering. I don’t know what this does to your point; is Atkins wrong, and Myers right? Or do you think Atkins is actually right, and he just needs to admit that he’s making stuff up and believing that it’s true? If it’s the latter, you’re in trouble, because showing that he believes it now isn’t the same thing as showing that he believes that it’s irrefutable, which is a key difference between the scientific and religious ontologies. That leads nicely in to…
Issue 2…science requires the belief in things we can’t know for sure. This is usually coupled with the belief that there are aspects of the universe that fall out of the purview of science, things that we can’t know through rationality, and with the criticism of people who say that “science can explain everything.”
I’m very tired of this argument because it is, quite frankly, stupid. Science, by definition, can explain all that which is explicable. Does it require that we believe certain things are true, when we don’t really know them? Of course. For now, anyway, until we figure them out. In the mean time, believing them lets us draw conclusions that we can usually test (I’ve never seen, for example, an electron; but I know that my television works, at least half the time, so science must have gotten something right).
As for the belief that science will eventually explain everything, well, that’s a little bit of an unscientific claim in the first place–it doesn’t matter that a scientist said it, the same way it doesn’t matter whether or not Einstein believed in God. Science offers three possible responses to any question:
“We know this answer, here is the explanation.”
“We don’t know this answer, let’s figure it out.”
“We don’t know this answer, and we’ll probably never be able to figure it out.”
Scientists are not bothered by the fact that there are some things that they will never know; making up answers to questions because uncertainty bothers us is what gives rise to religious thinking, and religion and science are mutually exclusive systems.
So, actually, no. Science is the opposite of faith, and if you run into a man who says that he is using science, and he says that a thing is unequivocally true despite the fact that he can’t prove it, that man is not using science. Even if he is a famous scientist. Even if he is Albert Einstein.
As for 3, well…I don’t want religion to answer ethical decisions for us. Even though Stephen Jay Gould apparently said that it should (well, maybe if Stephen Jay Gould said it, I don’t know…). Here is why:
Some men want to have sex with other men. Catholics consider the desire sinful, and require a man who thinks sexy thoughts about another man repent. Mormons consider the activity sinful, and require that a man who wants to have sex with another man repress his natural urges. The American Episcopal Church is apparently down with the homos, and will even let them get married.
Who is right? Well, no one, obviously. All of the religious laws are either a) a formalization of the natural, biological foundations of human morality, or b) a mythopoeic product of some other crazy thing. Every law that is a) will turn up in science anyway. Any law that is b) is just as likely to be wrong as it is to be right, and even if it’s right, is probably right for the wrong reasons, and should be ignored.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here, Mr. Giberson. You ask whether or not the fact that you believe that there is more to the universe than science, that there is an infinite, infinitely good and rational mind behind the universe makes you dangerous. You admit that you believe it because you want to believe it, but you don’t admit that it’s an illusion that you made up to make yourself feel better.
I think this does make you dangerous. And I think that this kind of thinking is, ultimately, flawed. I will explain why.
If, tomorrow, Jesus appeared to me among a flight of angels, and he resurrected the dead and healed lepers by laying on his hands, and four-faced cherubim sounded the shofar at his return, and he said to me, “Lo, I am the Son of God,” I would say:
“Huh. I guess those religious guys were right after all.”
If, tomorrow, Richard Dawkins showed you irrefutable mathematical proof that there could be no God as you understand him, what would you do?
