What Science Needs Faith, Hope and Love | Evolution Matters

“Science, or scientific thought, is incompatible with religious belief,” writes British philosopher John Worrall.¹ For thinkers like Worrall, the battle between science and religion is a stark reality. As the 19th century polymath John Williams Draper famously said, “The History of Science is not a mere record of discoveries; it is an account of the conflict between two contending governments, the vast power of human intelligence on the one hand, and the oppression of common faith and human interests on the other.”² In this conflict, science is the winner; faith, the defeated.

That is the view of those who advocate “science,” the claim that science provides a superior—or special—method of acquiring knowledge. In this view, science is the only discipline that boasts a systematic approach, extensive validation, extensive use of technology, unparalleled capacity for consensus building, and a clear record of historical progress. The secret to these virtues, of course, is a strength-based approach. When used extensively, this method supports a type of secular belief:

Empiricism is the way
Science, of course
Secularism, life

But contrary to this belief, science itself it is unscientific. It turns out that science depends on faith, hope and love – virtues beyond natural conditions that are mostly found in the life of religion and faith.

Two Science Foundations

Before examining why this is so, a brief distinction is in order. Like politicians, scientists come in two forms: strong and moderate. In general, hard science is the view that the true statements of well-established scientific theories are the only beliefs suitable for reasonable and informed adults. This sounds enticing: it offers the promise of fully encrypted truths with strong credentials and protected by scientific intent.

The only downside is that the view is fake. Indeed, it has the weakness of self-destruction: the statement that “the true statements of proven scientific theories are the only beliefs suitable for reasonable and knowledgeable adults” is itself. not claim in any well-established scientific theory. In fact, it is not a science at all. I am a which commands argue about what a reasonable and knowledgeable adult should believe, not a explanation (or model) of the physical world. Robust scientism is an epistemological statement that pretends to be a physical truth. Thus the view fails to pass its standard of rationality. It falls on its sword.

What about moderate science? Basically, this view means that science is a special way of knowing. Some areas of research, like theology, sometimes stumble upon insight, but science is the best, the most logical, the most rational. If one has to choose between what the geneticist confirms and what the priest chooses, it is better to go with the scientist.

What can one say about moderate science? Ironically, even this calm view contradicts science itself. Because when we analyze this question, we see that science depends on faith, hope and love. Let’s check how.

Faith Guides Judgment

First, faith. In science, the commitment to faith is widespread, in that scientists trust in norms (or ways of thinking) that go beyond empirical data. Faith is especially important in so-called “exact science,” which attempts to understand the deeper (or past) nature of the natural world beyond our direct and unaided experience.

To see this, consider the famous “under-intention” problem. In real science, theories always go beyond data. (If they didn’t, it would just be a description of the data.) But since theories go beyond data, empirical facts by themselves can’t determine what a theory is. which is true. Many of theory is consistent with the facts. (Therefore, the facts “determine which hypothesis is correct.) So how do scientists find the correct one? They turn to strong things like simplicity, elegance, coherence, productivity, unifying power, autonomy, scope of explanation, predictability, etc. Realists believe that a theory that has the right mix and balance of these facts is true.

For example, this is why scientists believe that the sun is at the center of our solar system and not the earth. Advanced geocentric models fit physical facts like heliocentrism. But geocentricism relies on theoretical elements, such as epicycles within epicycles. The heliocentric design does not need these features, making it much simpler and smoother.

Again, both models describe (or predict) facts; they are in good condition. Scientists love heliocentrism because of it powerless details. In real science, these facts are not only irrelevant; it is the hot truth, which guides scientists to the correct interpretation of reality. Moreover, the justification of these points does not lie in the physical world, for these points rule how scientists understand the physical world. Scientists accept them as an act of superstitious faith. Without this faith, real science withers.

Hope Builds Success

What about hope? In a sense, hope is confidence and hope for the future. In real science, trust is very important. Consider one example: almost all scientists believe that a given experimental result, repeated many times in the past, will hold tomorrow under the same experimental conditions. But for what reasons?

Clearly, scientists cannot appeal to hard evidence about the future. They are not present in the future, therefore, they have no proof of proof about it. Furthermore, they cannot appeal to past cases in which future predictions have come true. There is no proof of evidence that the previous charges are relevant to of today predictions about the future.

In fact, scientists’ hopes for the future go beyond empirical data; their actions today hope for tomorrow. They just hope that nature is stable over time. Without this hope, scientists would have to do more experiments every day. (“Whew! It worked this time.”) Progress would cease. Hope, like faith, underpins successful science.

Love Illuminates Truth & Beauty

The greatest of them is love. In particular, to love truth and beauty. Taking the latter first, beauty is something that is praised by many people and has a strong influence that has often lit the way to fix ideas. Even in modern physics – perhaps the quintessential science – aesthetic intuition has played an important role. “[T]Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg writes, “Physicists have been guided by their sense of beauty not only in developing new ideas but also in judging the validity of existing ideas.” related to the body once they are created.”³

For example, Weinberg notes that “for forty years general relativity was universally accepted as the correct theory of gravity despite its weak evidence, because the theory was so good .”⁴ No wonder the physicist Paul Dirac said, “A mathematically good theory is more likely to be correct than a bad one that fits some experimental data.”⁵ Beauty is true glory: beauty is true virtue. Great scientists love beauty. This love guides them to the truth, even in situations where the evidence appears to be lacking.

The second thing that scientists love is the truth itself. In order for scientists to study the natural world successfully, they must actively seek the truth. Indeed, like the rest of us, they have a rational obligation to believe true statements (and avoid believing false statements) about the natural world. One can use logic, facts, and the “scientific method” to find the truth, but these things alone do not. need respect the truth. A biological theory of death? The periodic table? Water such as H₂O? These are intellectual pursuits unless scientists (and all of us) should follow the evidence where it leads. Without a true bond, discovery loses its power to command consent. Something beyond the data – love and respect for the truth – makes these discoveries worth believing.

So science is a work of faith, hope and love. Unlike science, science is not a special way of knowing. Instead, science draws its blood from the same core as life and religious faith. Not only Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Faraday, Maxell and many other pioneers considered faith and science compatible.

The Last Source

Two final points should be noted at the end. First of all, faith, hope and love of science are not just explanations invented or created by people, because they honestly lead scientists to the correct knowledge of the issues. outside the truth.

Second, it is a matter of saying that our ability to do real science arose from the irrational process of evolution. Among other things, our abilities far exceed anything necessary for survival and reproduction, which is the only compelling evolutionary theory that ends up being good.⁶ On the contrary, the fact that true science requires faith, hope, and love—and that, remarkably, we can meet this requirement—is easily compatible with the view that God made our minds to know the world. natural.⁷

In general, these two elements suggest that it is the source of faith, hope and love pass private and physical spaces. The famous biologist Edwin Chargaff saw this high point when he said, “If [a scientist] he has never seen, at least a few times in his life, this chill running down his spine, this face to face with a huge, invisible face that his breath makes him cry, he is not a scientist.”⁸

Finally, science advocates do not understand the nature of science. If they looked deeply, they could see that the education of the lower things depends on the higher things.

This article has been reprinted from Salvo Magazine by permission of the author.

Details

1. John Worrall, “Science Criticizes Religion,” p Contemporary Controversies in the Philosophy of Religione.g. Michael Peterson and Raymond VanArragon (Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 60.
2. From the foreword by John Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, 25th ed. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Thrubner & Co. Ltd., 1910).
3. Steven Weinberg, Final Fantasy Dreams (Vintage Books, 1992), 90.
4. Ibid., 107.
5. R. Corby Hovis and Helge Kragh, “PAM Dirac and the Beauty of Physics,” Scientific Americanstrength. 268, no. 5 (May 1993), 104.
6. See also Alvin Plantinga, Exactly the Conflict That Is (Oxford Univ. Press, 2011).
7. Cf. Del Ratzsch, “Humanity in Their Hearts: Where Science and Religion Intertwine,” in The Believing Primatee.g. Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 209-245.
8. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili, Why God Will Not Leave (Ballantine, 2001), 154.