Truth and Meaning, Science and Theology

In the Christian world there is much discussion about what the Scientific Theory of Evolution represents to theology:  a challenge, a denial, disproof of God, bad science, truth, or an alternative way of seeing the universe.  For my part having read a fair amount of literature on the topic I place myself in the realm of scientific theism or theistic science.  I believe in God but I do not read the Bible as a scientific text.   I think of science and theology looking at the origins of humanity in the same way that I think of a botanist or chemist considering a rose as versus a poet or lover.   The scientists can give us an exact and absolutely true analysis of creation from a materialist point of view.  However, their truthful analysis does not tell us at all what a rose means to people, or that a rose can have great symbolic meaning, or that there can be a truth behind how the rose is used (a sign of love, appreciation, victory, remembrance), or that beauty itself has value.

As for those Orthodox who like to point out that the Patristic writers tended to read Genesis 1-3 rather literally, I also point out they were not materialistic scientists like we have today.  If we want to read the Patristic fathers as scientists then we have to embrace the science that everything in the universe is composed of fire, water, air and earth and that the human body consists of the four humors, for that is exactly what the Patristic writers believed scientifically – they accepted uncritically the ideas of science, all derived from pagan sources, as absolute truth.  I have to think that they would have equally accepted the ideas of modern science as uncritically because they weren’t writing as scientists but as theologians.

The limits of modern science – since it is based in atheistic materialism – have been noted by many different writers.   One such comment I read recently comes from Mark Schwehn  in his book  EXILES FROM EDEN subtitled “Religion and the Academic Vocation in America.”    Schwehn writes:

“The natural sciences can teach us what we must do if we wish to master life technically, but they cannot and hence should not consider the question of whether it ultimately makes sense to do so.  Jurisprudence can teach us which legal rule or procedure is best for attaining a given purpose but it cannot and should not consider whether there should be such purposes and procedures.  The historical and cultural sciences teach us to understand and interpret literary and social phenomenon but they dare not ask whether any given phenomena is worthwhile.  In sum academicians may clarify values but they dare not promulgate them within the walls of the academy.  They may teach you that if you believe x you must believe y and that if you want a given end you must also want certain inevitable means to it but they may never engage in ultimate questions of meaning without violating their vocational obligations.” 

Human reason can carry us only so far in gaining an understanding of the universe.  At some point pure facts and pure reason fail us in that they cannot convey with absolute certainty meaning, value, right and wrong, or good and bad.  Then humans have to turn their reason to other considerations in how to measure and evaluate the universe.   Some embrace religion.  Of course some then confuse religion with science.  They are not he same thing and do not give us the same sense of true, good and right.   DNA is factual and true but cannot be measured in and of itself in terms of right or wrong, good or evil.  Genetic engineering on the other hand raises questions about the meaning of life, good and evil, right and wrong for now we are using the facts for purposes and these purposes and uses are not mere facts and are not value neutral.  They have implications for all of life, for the future of humanity, for who survives and who doesn’t, for who rules and who is made subject, of who is valued and who isn’t. 

For me the bottom line is that God is true whether or not the Theory of Evolution is true.  Evolution cannot undo the truth about God.   Conversely if Evolution is true it is true whether or not there is a God.  God’s existence cannot undo the truth about the created world.   Science can tell us many things about what we can do in this world, but it cannot tell us whether or not we should do them.  That requires understanding the meaning of life and the truth about good and evil, right or wrong.   We cannot learn that solely from science.

Theodoret on Science and Abortion

This is the 4th blog in a series offering some quotes from the 5th Century Christian Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus who was also famous for writing extensive Scripture commentaries.   The first blog was Theodoret of Cyrus on Interpreting Scriptures, the second blog was Theodoret on Literalism and the third was Theodoret on Ancestral Sin.      The quotes are from  Robert C. Hill’s translation of THEODORET OF CYRUS: THE QUESTIONS ON THE OCTATEUCH   Vol 1 GENESIS AND EXODUS  .

I am always intrigued by the ways in which the Patristic writers used the scientific knowledge of their day as they endeavored to understand the Scriptures and as they formed their theology.   For example Theodoret understands that darkness is really nothing more than shadow something which St. Macrina also had commented on according to her brother St. Gregory back in the 4th Century when she postulated the darkness of night occurred because the sun had rotated to the other side of the earth and so night was really the earth’s own shadow.   Theodoret writes:

“Thus, we have precise knowledge of the necessity of darkness.  And it is simple to grasp the truth that it is not a substance of some kind but only an accident, being a shadow cast by heaven and earth.  This is why it vanishes when the light appears.  Light, on the other hand, is and subsists as a substance; after setting, it rises, and after departing, it returns.  In other words, just as our body is a substance, but the shadow created by the body is an accident, not a substance, so heaven and earth, the largest bodies, are substances of different kinds, but the shadow caused by them in the absence of light is called ‘darkness,’ and once the light enters, the darkness disappears.   …  A house with no windows is full of darkness, but when a lamp is brought in, it lights up – not that darkness has moved off elsewhere, for, being insubstantial, it does not subsist.  Rather, it is completely dissolved with the coming of the light.  After all, a shadow is caused by the roof, the floor, and the walls, and is dissipated by the beams of light.  We see this occurring every day.  When the light recedes, the shadow cast by heaven and earth brings darkness, and when the light rises again, the darkness is dissipated.”  (p 23)

Theodoret using simply observation is able to figure out that the darkness of a room is simply that the walls and ceiling are casting shadows in the room – darkness is thus just the absence of light.  Not a bad observation for a 5th Century pre-scientific man.   He also speculates about why God would have created inedible plants – might seem like a waste.

“Why did God ordain the growth of inedible plants?   …   God foresaw the development of disease in the human race which, as a result of its sins, was to receive the sentence of death.  So he ordered the earth to produce not only edible plants but also those that would repel sickness.  Those versed in medical science could give you more detailed information about plants that, while seeming harmful, actually cure disease.  When mixed with others, they have curative properties and promote good health.”   (pp 33-35)

Everything serves a purpose in the world which emerged as a result of God’s creative activity.  Theodoret acknowledges the medical science of his day saying it knows how to make use of inedible plants for medicinal purposes.   He accepts that there is a knowledge not found in the Scriptures or in religion which is invaluable to humanity, namely medical science.   Even though such science was also associated with paganism in his day he was not afraid to use the knowledge of science and to recommend it to his flock.     He also used the common medical knowledge of his day concerning the body being composed of the four humors whose imbalance in classical thought was blamed for disease and the four elements which were said to make up all material things in the universe – fire, water, earth and air.

“Life would be impossible without these fluids, and by these the body is watered and flourishes, requiring, as it does, gall, blood, and both kinds of bile.   As it needs these to grow, it is through them that it also deteriorates; excess or deficiency in any on of the aforementioned causes the dissolution of the living creature.    …. Fire, for example …. Is one of the four basic elements of which everything is composed, and mortal nature cannot survive without it.”  (p. 43)

 I make reference to Theodoret’s use of science because in today’s world some Christians fear scientific truth thinking it disproves Genesis or biblical literalism.   Theodoret for his part accepted the scientific  theory of his day and made use of it in his writings not worrying about trying to reconcile it with Scripture.  Truth is truth no matter what its source.  Christians do not have to fear science but like Theodoret can recognize that science might offer truth not found in the bible.  It makes me think that he would likely have accepted DNA, genetics and other ideas found in the science of our day had he lived in the modern world.

Lastly I point out a quote from Theodoret about when life begins. 

 

Fetus at 6 months

“What is the meaning of ‘with human features’?  (Ex 21:22)

It is the general opinion that life is communicated to the fetus when its body is full formed in the womb.  Thus, right after forming Adam’s body, the Creator breathed life into him.  So, in the case of a pregnant woman who suffers miscarriage in the course of a fight, the lawgiver ordains that if the infant comes out with human features – that is, fully formed—the case is to be considered murder, and the guilty party must pay with his own life.  But if it comes out before it is fully formed, the case is not be to considered murder, since the miscarriage occurred before the animation of the child.”   (p 301)

 

 Unlike many Orthodox Ethicists today, Theodoret does not believe life begins with conception.   He sees human life animating the fetus only at some later time – the sign of the fetus being human is that it has all of the features (fully formed) of the human.   He bases this on his interpretation of the Septuagint version he was reading of Exodus 21:22 which discusses whether injuring a pregnant women which results in a miscarriage is murder or not.     It is hard to know whether he based his thinking on purely Christian principles or whether he relied on the Theology of his day.  He offers his commentary saying it is the “general opinion” which seems to imply that it is the common thought of Christians of his day.   He is speaking as a bishop and in other places in the text he is careful to distinguish between his personal opinions and those which are truly Orthodox. 

What has science to do with religion?

“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from ‘the porch of Solomon.’…. Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition!….With our faith, we desire no further belief.”    Tertullian (d. ca  220AD)

The relationship of Athens (philosophy, rationalism) to Jerusalem (God’s revelation) is a question that emerges in almost every generation of Christians because Christianity actively engages the culture and the time in which it is incarnate.   Church fathers answered the question about Athens and Jerusalem in various ways, but all affirmed the reliability of God’s revelation while assessing humanly derived knowledge with various degrees of approval and disapproval.  St. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr and others really did think all truth is Christian truth and so Christians should embrace truth whoever proclaims it or however it was derived.  St. Augustine and others warned against opposing reason with revelation surmising that such an opposition can end badly for the Christians when reason cannot be refuted.

One modern manifestation of the question is the relationship of science with religion, specifically the relationship between evolution and creation.   The debates between evolutionists and creationists has spawned a variety of opinions from those attempting to reconcile faith and reason to those convinced science and religion have no common ground whatsoever thus agreeing with Tertullian’s rhetorical assessment.

Michael Dowd, author of THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION, describes himself as an evolution evangelist.  A former biblically literalist creationist, he came in his life time to accept the evidence of science and advocates for all believers to accept what scientists in overwhelming numbers embrace – the truth of evolution.    His publicists asked if I would read his book and comment on it. 

On a basic level one might say Dowd embraces a form of  process theology whereby our understanding of the universe as shaped by new scientific discoveries has changed our understanding of God and His revelation.  Dowd believes science is in fact broadening our knowledge of God’s revelation.    Genesis for example in his thinking represents a one time story looking at the world from the perspective of the ancient world through the eyes of one tribe.  It is a fixed story that doesn’t change with new knowledge; it tells us where we came from.  Science on the other hand, according to Dowd, looks at the world from the point of view of the ever changing present and thus looks back at the vast past of the universe and stares into the face of the future.    From Dowd’s perspective reading Genesis in a traditional way limits our understanding of humans to a tribal point of view – the us vs. them thinking of the Israelites for example.  He argues that the revelation which science has engendered is that we  think of the entire world and all its people as belonging to God, thus science reveals to us the true extent of God’s revelation as Lord of the universe and not just Lord of a tribe or a religion.   DNA more than Genesis reveals the common humanity of all people.

Science, so argues Dowd, sees the universe as an open text book which we are still learning how to read.  He argues that just as at one time all believers were absolutely convinced that the sun orbited the earth, an idea totally disproved by science, so too all the scientific evidence is there for evolution, though some believers won’t accept the fact because they think on this issue science must conform to a literal reading of the bible.  He thinks it but a matter of time before the truth of evolution is as accepted as the earth orbiting the sun.

Theologically Dowd has moved away from traditional Christianity to an eclectic view of religion and though he defends his Christian faith, he embraces some idea of a new revelation in which Christianity is but a small part as is any other belief system that might exist.  He is firm that evolution is true and then reads all religions and all history as being part of the real revelation which evolution alone gives us.   He is certain what he believes about science and he presents a decently argued thesis “that the marriage of science and religion will transform your life and our world.”   He points out quite succinctly some of the shortcomings of traditional religious thinking when confronted by what science has revealed about humanity and the world.   However in his view science swallows up religion – they don’t exactly co-exist though he does allow somehow for a notion that one can embrace the revelation of science while keeping “the best” of one’s quaint but antiquated beliefs.  He embraces a notion of revelation which brings science and religion together with a totally new horizon.  I was reminded of the line from the Akathist “Glory to God for all Things” about how scientists and poets are the new prophets speaking to us about what God is doing.   To accept Dowd one would have to abandon any notion of the mystery of the incarnation and how God totally changes the nature of His relationship to creation.    His ideas are very rational, but much harder to match with a notion of mystery and how a god who can be comprehended by human reason is any God at all, for in the end even God gets swallowed up by science and must be re-visioned in a way comprehensible to rational thinking and science.   Dowd sees the end of the science-religion antagonism occuring because science gives us a new understanding of revelation and of God.

Evolution from Creation to New Creation (1)

This is the continuation of my blog series which began with Journey into the Unknown:  Science and Religion, and then continued in Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (1).   The immediately preceding blog to this blog was    Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2).    

In this blog I will be looking at ideas presented by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett in their book EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION AND CONVERGENCE.   My goal is not to do a book report or critique of their ideas but rather to comment on how their ideas have influenced my own thinking on the relationship between science and religion especially in relationship to arguments surrounding creation and evolution.   As a believer in God, there are some difficult questions which evolution raises.   Like these authors my position is probably best described as one of theistic science.  I do not think I have to choose between science or religion as I think they are describing creation in very different terms.   For example a chemist, a biologist and a poet might each describe a rose in totally different terms, not once acknowledging what the others wrote, and yet what each said might be perfectly true.   We can describe a human purely in terms of his/her chemical composition – humans are largely composed of the four elements oxygen, carbon hydrogen, and nitrogen (by mass these 4 elements make up almost 97% of a human).  Yet, for many of us no matter how scientifically accurate and factually true that description is, it would come nowhere close to describing what it means to be human. 

One of the main contentions of Peters and Hewlett is that most of the problems which evolution presents to Christianity are really not because of science but because of philosophical ideology masquerading as science.

“The problem in the evolution controversy is not biological science per se.  Rather, the philosophical or ideological inferences labeled ‘Darwinian’ that go far beyond the biological science are responsible for generating most of the controversy that evolutionary theory has precipitated.    …  To observe descent with modification in biological history and then to draw from this justification for social values and moral philosophy is a fallacious move.  We call it the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’”

Peters and Hewlett argue that some atheists and some scientists are trying to make a religion out of evolution.  (Which is an interesting twist on the atheistic argument that believers are trying to make science out of creationism).   The task for Christians in their opinion is to “to discriminate between evolution as a scientific research program and evolution as a religious ideology.”   This is very similar to what Intelligent Design adherents advocate, though Peters and Hewlett argue for an approach different from ID and certainly distance themselves completely from biblical creationism.  They both accept the tenets of evolution as being true.   They accept the evidence for speciation (Examples of speciation can be found at:  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)

“Is Darwinism merely an ideology that parades as a science?  No.  … Darwinian evolutionary biology qualifies as solid science because it generates progressive research – that is, hypotheses based upon its assumptions lead eventually to new knowledge about the natural world.” 

The problem for Peters and Hewlett is that many have hijacked the principles of scientific evolution for ideological purposes.

“If evolution would come to us in limited form as a scientific theory about biological origins, it could be calmly debated and readily absorbed into Christian theology.  But that’s not how it came packaged.  It came packaged as naturalistic philosophy, as a set of social values, as an arrogantly revolutionary way of life.”

If evolution is allowed to remain a true science and not be co-opted by philosophical ideologues, then Peters and Hewlett say that in evolution,“Scientists have been reading the Book of Nature and writing a book review to be read by students in our school systems.”

They see no reason for Christians to fear true science.  They conclude their book with this reminder:

“In the early editions of ORIGIN OF SPECIES, Darwin opened with a quotation from Francis Bacon admonishing us to read ‘the book of God’s word’ and also ‘the book of God’s works.’”

Next:  Evolution from Creation to New Creation (2).

Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (1)

This is the 2nd blog in this series which began with Journey into the Unknown:  Science and Religion.    In this blog I will look at Denis Alexander’s book CREATION OR EVOLUTION: DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?    which I had previously commented on back in March 2009 in my blog  Creation vs. Evolution: The Imaginary Divide.

Rather than simply write a review of Alexander’s book or to evaluate his theory on how science and Christianity can not only co-exist but co-operate with one another, I want to look in the next couple of blogs about some of the assumptions Alexander makes in concluding that we need not choose between creation and science (a conclusion with which I agree).   Some of the issues raised – those related to the Jewish rejection of Babylonian mythological creation stories –  I mentioned in a previous blog The Literal Value of Genesis.  I am going to look more at the theology he presents than the science, but his arguments rely a great deal on scientific fact to support his contentions.

One of the key factors which shapes the science vs. religion debate is the effect of the Enlightenment on how we understand truth.  (I’ve written about this in several past blogs, one of the longer pieces being:  Christianity and Science).  Alexander writes:

“Western readers, in particular, are not very practiced at reading ancient literature and have a tendency to interpret with a wooden literalism.  This is because scientific literature has become so dominant in our culture, influencing the way in which we instinctively read even those texts that come from a pre-scientific age.”

In other words, part of the fundamentalist debate against science and evolution is based in the fact that these Christians insist the bible must be read literally and as if it is science to be true.   The literalists are allowing science to define truth and arguing on scientific terms.  The Bible however was written in the pre-scientific age and while speaking of eternal truths is couched in the language, assumptions, knowledge and perspectives of the people inspired to write God’s revelation to humanity.   This is part of what inspiration means – God works in, through and with the humans He has chosen to reveal His plan and will. 

One interesting point Alexander (pp 154-155) makes about the Genesis creation story is that Genesis 1:2 says the earth was “formless and void”.    In this first chapter of Genesis this is where God’s creative process begins for the very thing God is going to do is to impose order on the chaos and to fill the emptiness with life.    As Alexander notes about the days of creation the formlessness is given order:  on day 1 – God separates light and dark, on  day 2 – God separates waters of the sea from waters of the sky, and on day 3 – God separates the sea from dry land which allows for the creation of plants.    On the world now formed and ordered, God fills the emptiness:  on day 4 – lights are made to rule day and night, on day 5 – birds and fishes are created to fill the sky and seas,  and on day 6 –  God creates animals and humans to fill the land .       Later in the book (p 263) Alexander mentions the Prophet  Jeremiah lamenting a reversal of the process of God filling the emptiness due to human sin.  The “Disobedience of God’s people is unraveling the beauty of the created order.”  Alexander sees this as the Biblical meta-story – the Bible was never intended to be a science text book, but by placing this world in the eternal plan of God gives all things on earth including life, death and evolution meaning.

I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void (same words as Genesis 1:2);

and to the heavens, and they had no light.

 I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.

I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.

I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD,

 before his fierce anger.   (Jeremiah 4:23-26, NRSV)

The creation story of Genesis is placing before us the story of humanity and the world in God’s terms.  It is not giving us an exact scientific framework for understanding creation.  If we miss that point, we misunderstand a great deal about the Scriptures of God.

One of the difficulties Christians face in reading the scriptures and accepting the scientific account of the world’s history is why there is death in the world.  Christians in the Patristic age concluded death was the result of human sin, and thus God is not to blame for the mortality of His favored creatures.  It was not God’s plan for humans to die, but human choice inflicted death not only on humanity but also on all creation.  Many of these ideas are gleaned from St. Paul’s reading of Genesis, for the Old Testament itself makes virtually no reference to the effects of the fall of Adam and Eve on humanity (2 Esdras 3 does).  Alexander however notes:  “Nowhere in the Old Testament is there the slightest suggestion that the physical death of either animals or humans, after a reasonable span of years, is anything other than the normal pattern ordained by God for this earth.”   This is true of the current Jewish and Protestant scriptures.  However, the early Christians relied on the Septuagint version of the Jewish scriptures and in Wisdom 1:12-16 it is made clear that God did not make death and that it is the unrighteous who have summoned death into being.   The notion that humans would have lived eternally if there had been no sin is not spelled out in Genesis or in the Jewish canonical Scriptures.   In general the notion of the immortality of the soul is a more Hellenic idea than biblical one.  Certainly even in the New Testament the resurrection of Christ is nowhere connected with the immortality of the soul but rather with the resurrection of the body.  Alexander’s reading of the Scriptures brings him to this conclusion: “It is clear from these contexts that it is not death per se which is caused by sin, but rather premature death which is seen as specific punishment for specific sins.”

Next:  Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? (2)

Journey into the Unknown: Science and Religion

Physicist and author Brian Greene wrote an article in the May 2009 magazine WIRED entitled, “Journey into the Unknown: It’s the Questions, not the answers, that make science the ultimate adventure.”   In that article he captures what seems to me to be the very essence of science:  it is about exploring mystery without which science would come to an end.  He says science is not memorizing  facts, charts and equations, rather “science is the journey.”  His definition of science is how I normally conceive science, and not only science but theology as well.  Greene writes:

Science is about immersing ourselves in piercing uncertainty while struggling with the deepest of mysteries. It is the ultimate adventure. Against staggering odds, a species that has walked upright for only a few million years is trying to unravel puzzles that are billions of years in the making. How did the universe begin? How was life initiated? How did consciousness emerge? Einstein captured it best when he wrote, “the years of anxious searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express.” That’s what science is about.

For me it is also what theology is about for not only do we exist in a universe which we can explore and endeavor to discover its hidden truths, the universe also exists in God who has chosen to reveal Himself in and through the universe which He made.  Science and religion are both quests – science into the macro-cosmos and the microcosmic universe, and theology into the depths of the soul of humans as well as into the eternal life of the Triune God.  Greene says,

Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.

The wrestling with mystery, not the ascension to resolution, defines who we are.

We all are in search of understanding what it means to be human, whether we consider the human to be created by the Divine or a purely material product of random natural forces.   Theology too is about trying to move us from what is known (the physical, material universe) into the unknown (the mysteries of God).   For many religion is nothing more than repeating ancient formuli:  “God said it. I believe it.  That settles it.”  I on the other hand along with so many others have experienced in theology a great sojourn often taking the answers to discover what is the right question?

Because I conceive science and theology the way that I do, I look to both science and theology to enrich my understanding of what it is to be human.  I see no need for the two to be in opposition to each other -  if they are seeking to find answers to the universal questions of humanity, they are going about it in different ways and making very different assumptions.  I don’t see any basic reason for science and religion to be in opposition to each other for they are both different ways of knowing the universe AND what they conceive of as ultimate reality are totally distinct.  In science ultimate reality is the material universe while in religion ultimate reality lies in God the creator of the material universe and who is not coterminous with this universe.  Our ability to know God may in some way be limited by our being part of the material universe, but we humans also have the roots of our being in God.

Taking these things into consideration I do not feel the threat or pressure from the arguments conducted between some scientists and some religious people who see God and science as being in opposition over such issues as evolution or the age of the universe.  While I have been interested in the writings of Intelligent Design folk in trying to bridge the gap between science and religion, I have not become convinced that have found the way to build the bridge.

I read two books earlier this year  which explore the relationship between science and religion on the issues of creation and evolution which I will comment on is this series of blogs.  The books are Denis Alexander’s CREATION OR EVOLUTION: DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?  and Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett’s EVOLUTION FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: CONFLICT, CONVERSATION, AND CONVERGENCE.   Both books do a good job of using scientific fact and information and Christian theology to look at science, intelligent design and theology.  They propose slightly different solutions for how to hold science and religion together but both believe they are compatible.   The effort to insist that science and religion are in fact compatible is one that appeals to my own interests.  I have read at times Jerry Coyne’s blog Why Evolution is True and note his frequent criticisms of religious people who attack science and also his well expressed doubt that religious efforts (such as intelligent design) to find compatibility with science do so only by co-opting science and requiring that science abandon its own principles and logic. 

Next:  Creation or Evolution: Do We have to Choose?

Science as a Verb not a Noun

“Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth.” (Dennis Overbye)

I have an interest in science for the same reason I have an interest in religion:  the search for truth.  And though since the time of the Enlightenment some in science and religion have been in a culture war regarding truth, I don’t see science and religion as being enemies since both are most interested in truth.  Of course there are differences in how truth is perceived – whether it is waiting to be discovered or has already been revealed, whether it is an understanding that emerges from humans interpreting the ‘knowns’ or is a given to which we submit ourselves.  Some in Christianity argue that when it comes to truth, it is always a movement from darkness into the light, others show that the movement toward God for humans is always moving from the known to the unknown.

I much appreciated Dennis Overbye’s NY TIMES 26 January 2009 essay Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy precisely because it addressed some of the issues in the science vs. religion/faith vs. reason culture wars.

Einstein said he never got any ethical values from his scientific work, a thought which Overbye too readily dismisses, for he tends to portray science as a values neutral but benevolent force as it goes about understanding the universe.  However can one really doubt that science deals with increasingly powerful technology that has the ability to change the present and shape the future – for good or for ill.

Overbye does believe science has a set of values associated with it, and indeed they are values beloved in the Enlightenment’s democratic, pragmatic world. 

Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. These are the unabashedly pragmatic working principles that guide the buzzing, testing, poking, probing, argumentative, gossiping, gadgety, joking, dreaming and tendentious cloud of activity – the writer and biologist Lewis Thomas once likened it to an anthill – that is slowly and thoroughly penetrating every nook and cranny of the world.

Nobody appeared in a cloud of smoke and taught scientists these virtues. This behavior simply evolved because it worked.

Those last words from Overbye are partly what makes science so intellectually appealing to many – science really is a human product, the result of human work and effort, and not the result of grace or revelation from an unseen and unpredictable deity.  Science sees itself as having wrested from a universe reluctant to reveal its secrets every bit of knowledge it has obtained by penetrating into every corner of the universe.  This of course is also what makes religionists uneasy about science – it is no respecter of the universe, nothing is treated with reverence, but rather the material world is meant to be prodded, broken down, torn apart, ripped open (Francis Bacon saw this effort as necessary to rid the world of the false ideas of philosophical superstition).  However it seems it is not only the material universe which gets no reverence in this, but God  as well.

Overbye sees the pragmatic goodness in what science has accomplished (“the most successful human activity of all time”), and he links the values of science to democracy:

“It is no coincidence that these are the same qualities that make for democracy and that they arose as a collective behavior about the same time that parliamentary democracies were appearing. If there is anything democracy requires and thrives on, it is the willingness to embrace debate and respect one another and the freedom to shun received wisdom. Science and democracy have always been twins.”

He points out that systems of thought which are ideologically driven find science a threat and see the need to subdue science and scientists to make them conform their thinking to the party line.   Thus he thinks science is a good tool against political tyranny, or the oppressive rule of a minority, or the majority.   Science, so he argues, has no leader and no grand plan, and thus apparently marches on in a random evolutionary fashion with survival of the fittest ideas surviving the natural selection of the scientific method (but not according to the whimsical dictates of democratic majority rule – this is where the twins of science and democracy part company).  His is an idealistic thought, for science has been controlled at times  - by politicians and ideologues, and like today there are ‘genetic engineers’ who would if they could not only shape but control the future of science according to their own agendas.

Citizen Scientists, Amateur Astronomers and the Power of the Web

In my blog Post-modernism:  A Challenge to Science? I raised a question about the claim that we are transitioning as a society from a Modernism to Post-Modernism way of seeing the world.  Before the Age of Modernism Western thinking was characterized by a belief that there is an objective way of seeing the world – thus there are right and wrong ways of seeing things.  The religious debates between Catholicism and Protestantism were embedded in a thinking that said one side had to be right and the other wrong.  The same kind of thinking occurred in the debates between science and religion that raged during and after the 18^th Century Enlightenment.   The thinking was very black and white, either or. 

The claim is that the move to Post-modernism is a paradigm shift along the lines of Thomas Kuhn’s writings.  Post-modernism is a worldview which challenges notions of right and wrong because it does not accept there is anything like an objective point of view.  Thus right and wrong is always determined from some point of view but no one can establish that their point of view is more correct than some other point of view.  Thus in Post-modern thinking we each experience a collision of points of view, but anyone of them is as valid as any other point of view.  Thus good and evil are often mixed and varied in post-modern art, media or entertainment.  Characters are presented as being a mixture of good and bad, doing good for bad reasons or doing bad which has good effect for some.  I often think if you saw the movie CRASH you may not know what post-modernism is but you have seen the movie.  The lives of the characters intersect and crisscross in unplanned yet constant ways; they literally bump into each other without having any sense of their connections to one another.  Only the movie viewer, outside of the frame of reference of these character’s lives, has any sense of how their lives are related, additionally the movie viewer sees each character in all their moral ambiguity. 

If indeed we are moving into a paradigmatic shift as a culture, this should somehow be visible not only in theology or literature but also in science – our way of seeing the world, if it is really changing will change even the way we understand science.   To some extent the rise of quantum mechanics has challenged a scientific view that there is only one way to see and understand the universe.  The universe has proven itself to be stranger than imagined, to have elements of uncertainty in it (there are things we cannot know), to behave in counterintuitive ways, to anticipate what the scientific observer is thinking or doing, to act more like an organism than like inanimate matter.

And yet science has also in some of its thinking held tenaciously to that pre-Modernist worldview that there is only one way of seeing the world and all facts must somehow fit this one way.  In a certain sense science wants to give the image that it is a monolith which cannot be cracked as it has an infallible way of seeing the world.

This is why I found Biologist Aaron Hirst’s Opinion piece in the 21 January 2009 NY TIMES entitled A New Kind of Big Science  to be interesting.  Hirst says that science has been moving ever toward a centralization where fewer people control the information and research done.  But he is troubled by this direction where scientific truth is controlled by the few.  “Centralization is a way to extend scientists’ reach.  But of course, there are also some drawbacks. There’s something disturbingly hierarchical about the new architecture of the scientific community”.

A concern over the “disturbingly hierarchical” sounds very much like the challenge that Post-modernism sounds to religion and philosophy.  It says there is not just one way of seeing the world, and that the many other possible ways should be encouraged.  Hirst sees a new way of doing science emerging:

There is another way to extend our scientific reach, and I believe it can also restore some of what is lost in the process of centralization. It has been called Citizen Science, and it involves the enlistment of large numbers of relatively untrained individuals in the collection of scientific data.

Hirst suggests that rather than “science” controlling all scientific research, that by encouraging all citizens to participate in science – say for example in biology that new data and information can be gathered by any citizen scientist.  Rather than gathering only that data which fits a current theory or which is part of well funded research, if many citizens were gathering biological data on anything and everything – people just observing and recording what they observe – new ideas might emerge from this ‘unexpected data.’   It may be that the data will begin to show patterns where scientists weren’t even thinking of looking, or it might add to knowledge or challenge existing theories.  This decentralized form of science would fit well into the world of knowledge which the World Wide Web is making available and possible to everyone with access to the Web.   It is a form of thinking encouraged by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom in THE STARFISH AND THE SPIDER: THE UNSTOPPABLE POWER OF LEARLESS ORGANIZATIONS.   It unleashes the power of the Web – no longer would research have to be guided by the well funded few, for anyone could begin to look for data and at the data being recorded by the citizen scientists to look for patterns never before noticed in order to interpret the data.   Thus information and knowledge would not be centralized and controlled by the few but would be the property of humankind, accessible to all.    And scientific research would be freed from depending on the pre-approved and favored theories of the select few, for the data would be available for all to consider, and these citizen scientists and amateur sleuths would have their own shot at making discoveries – as has happened often in astronomy where amateur astronomers train their telescope at the skies and record things never before noticed, to some extent because no centralized scientific authority is telling them how to think, where to look, what to look at, or how to interpret what they see.

Why “Facts” Support Beliefs rather than Change Them

I found Sharon Begley’s article On Second Thought  in the 12 January 2009 edition of NEWSWEEK to be an interesting confirmation of some ideas that I have posted in my recent blogs on science, evolution and post-modernism.   Science which supposedly is based in a scientific method which constantly tests and refines its theories is controlled by scientists who like all human beings find change in thinking – even change that is based in fact and proofs – to be most difficult to accept.

But it’s fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore “facts” to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm topples only when the last of its powerful adherents dies.

When it comes to behavior, scientists behave like the humans which they are.  Psychological counselors who deal every day with patients in grief and depression are not able to avoid the stages of grief nor the onslaught of depression despite “knowing all about it” professionally.  Doctors too who treat diseases daily do succumb to the diseases they have so successfully treated in their patients. 

People who have committed themselves to a set of beliefs muster together all the arguments in favor of their way of thinking and convince themselves that they cannot be wrong.   But this feature of human thinking – the self curing of cognitive dissonance by remembering only those things we agree with and ignoring those facts that oppose our world view – is just as true of scientists who want to believe about themselves that their thinking is based purely on facts and proof, not on “beliefs.”  That is what Sharon Begley discovered in her reading – scientists rarely truly change their minds based on the facts, but rather adhere to their chosen ideas, and tend to disregard and downplay facts that challenge their chosen way of seeing the world. 

So it is.  Despite all the notions that scientists base all of their thinking on facts and proof, the reality is they cannot escape their own biology and they suffer the same resistance to change, prejudices, incapacity to deal with cognitive dissonance that all humans experience.   And if they have political, religious or atheistic proclivities, they will tend to see the world as fitting into their set of beliefs.  One has to believe in miracles in order to see something as a miracle; one also has to believe in atheistic evolution to see complete randomness to natural selection. 

The effort of any species to survive can be seen as the creative of natural selection, or an innate – a designed – effort on the part of all living things to continue into a future they cannot know exists.  Species of the tiniest living things work forward – toward a future goal, survival.    Isn’t this a form of teleology?  The species in fact may have no influence let alone control over the environment in which they exist, and yet they work to replicate and survive, and in fact to some extent their whole purpose for existence is to perpetuate the species into that future they can neither see nor control. But scientists like the subatomic particles they observe in quantum experiments also can see the universe in one way rather than another, and the object they are observing will behave according to what they were looking to see.  Is evolutionary behavior random or purposeful?  Is survival teleologic or chance?  Depends what you are looking for and depends what you believe.

Truth is Truth and Other Myths

One of the amazing things about science is its ability to constantly test its “dogmas” and a willingness to change some of its most “sacredly” held views about life or the universe.   Of course since scientists are human, science has its own resistance to change, even in the face of factual evidence, but because it doesn’t have a closed canon of scripture which it must defend, science does not have a revealed truth, but only a discovered truth.   Since new discoveries are being made continually, “truth” in science is always up for debate.   So we find Kenneth Chang writing in the 1 December 2008 NY TIMES  that A New Picture of the Early Earth has emerged – ideas of held by geologists as “true” a mere 20 years ago are being replaced by new conclusions drawn from new data.

the common thinking until recently was that life could not have emerged on Earth until … about 3.85 billion years ago. …

That is no longer thought to be true.

“We thought we knew something we didn’t,” said T. Mark Harrison, a professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. In hindsight the evidence was just not there. And new evidence has suggested a new view of the early Earth.

Here we see how science views “truth.”  Truth is something discovered by scientists AND it is an interpretation of those discoveries.  “Truth” is thus testable and mutable. The facts can change, and the interpretation of facts can change as well.  Thus in science it is acceptable to conclude that something that once was thought to be true later be disproved and a new idea of truth emerges.  Thus Dr. Harrison can say with scientific comfort, “we thought we knew something we didn’t.”

Religion has a slightly different view of “truth.”  For the major Western religions, truth is something revealed to us by God, not something we discover by human means.  And truth is embedded in Scripture and the Scriptures are closed – cannot be altered or added to.  What can change though is our understanding of the Scriptures.   For example both Christians and Jews read the Tanakh/Old Testament, but interpret those scriptures in decidedly different ways with Christians accepting that Jesus is the key to unlocking the truth of the scriptures.

Dr. Harrison, as a scientist can readily admit that the new evidence means what scientists taught as truth has been shown to be incorrect.  The new evidence now available  is “‘completely inconsistent with this myth we made up,’ Dr. Harrison said.”

Notice how easily Harrison as a scientist can say that what they taught as truth turns out to be a myth scientists made up.  In science all “truth” is an interpretation of the known evidence; and, for something to be true it must be testable, experimentally provable or disprovable.  For science, Truth is not some sacred revelation which must always be accepted.   Thus if science bothers to look at the book of Genesis as science, it uses its own measure of truth to test any claims of Genesis as science and no “truth” discovered there is ever off limits to further testing or disproof.   If a claim cannot be tested in some fashion, it cannot claim to be “truth.”  Science does not approach the Scripture as “truth” in the same way a believer might.   And to be honest, scientific truth is mostly a threat to “biblical truth” only if one tries to read the Bible literally or as science.   Biblical literalists and Creation scientists are threatened by the word “myth”, scientists are not, and neither are those who recognize the Bible as a source of truth but not as science. 

Science has an innate ability to question its own theories and ideas, and even to declare as myth things it once held to be truth.  Science thus sees the world differently than does religious faith.  Christians understand Scripture to be a sacred revelation – revealing God and the meaning of life, not necessarily offering “truth” as science defines it or dissects it.

Believers might find some comfort in scientist admitting their ideas of “truth” change and are changing – science as the invincible truth that will disprove the revealed truths of faith is shown to be far more tenuous than it cares to admit.  Biblical literalists and Creation scientists need also note that the admission that what science taught 20 years ago about the formation of planet earth is myth, does not translate into a support for Creation Science.  For what the scientists have come to realize is that the conditions for life on earth stretch back in time even further than was imagined, giving even more time for the process of evolution to work its way to the present.   . “‘This means the door is open for a long, slow chemical evolution,’ Dr. Mojzsis said. ‘The stage was set for life probably 4.4 billion years ago, but I don’t know if the actors were present.‘”   If what science now believes to be true holds up under scientific scrutiny, the chance of evolution having occurred becomes more credible.  For the believer it only means that we might be given a glimpse into what chemical and biological processes God put into effect to bring life into existence.   The fact is that once God created matter, He fashioned the universe using that matter and limited His Divine Power to work with and within the laws of nature which He created to carry out His Divine Plan.