The part I liked the most was when he started showing how scientists had gone into teh field with a specific intent to attack religion, and he also showed how scientists from all over opposed the Big Bang solely on the basis that it opened the door to religion.
Anyway, what follows is chapter fourteen of his book - I transcribed it last night because the internet was down, I couldn't sleep, and I was bored. I knew I wouldn't be on the forum for another couple of weeks, so I decided you guys could mull over this and offer some feedback while I'm gone:
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The Methodological Atheism of Science
"There is no such thing as philosophy-free science" - Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea
It is time to highlight a serious problem with our understanding of modern science. The problem is not with modern science itself, but rather with a faulty view of science: the idea that science is a complete framework for understanding man and the universe, so unscientific claims should be automatically rejected. Although this way of approaching knowledge is put forward as the very epitome of rationality, I want to show that it is profoundly irrational. It would be like trying to understand a murder solely through the laws of physics and chemistry. However indispensible those laws in figuring out which gun was used, we have to look elsewhere to discover other crucial elements like why the killer did it. In this chapter we will see why the attempt to explain everything scientifically is inadequate and even unreasonable. Atheists who pursue this approach are ultimately an embarrassment to science.
Scientists like to think of themselves as reasonable people. They fancy themselves ready to follow the path of evidence no matter where it takes them. Indeed in no other field do people go around congratulating themselves so much on how rational they are, how strictly their conclusions conform to testing and experience, and how biases and prejudices are routinely removed through the process of empirical verification and peer criticism. Carl Sagan's boast is typical: "At the heart of science is... an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive." Such is the prestige of science in our culture that these claims are widely accepted.
Yet the actual behavior of some scientists can be manifestly unreasonable. Leading scientists will sometimes embrace a conclusion even when the evidence for it is weak. These savants become indignant when an unsupported conclusion is questioned, and they even accuse their critics of being enemies of science. On other occassions, scientists show their unwillingness to accept conclusions even when a great deal of evidence points to them. In fact, they denounce the reasonable position and prefer to align themselves with unreasonable alternatices that are clearly less plausible.
Several years ago eminent science writer John Maddox published an article in Nature titled "Down with the Big Bang." This is strange language for a scientist to use. Clearly the Big Bang happened, but Maddox gives the impression that he wishes it hadn't. He is not alone. Earlier I quoted astronomer Arthur Eddington's description of the Big Bang as "repugnant." Eddington confessed his desire to find "a genuine loophole" in order to "allow evolution an infinite time to get started." So one reason for resisting the Big Bang is to make room for the theory of evolution.
There are others. Physicist Stephen Hawking explains why a large number of scientists were attracted to the steady state theory of the origin of the universe: "There were therefore a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a big bang...Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention." The same point is made bt Steven Weinberg. Some cosmologists endorse theories because they "nicely avoid the problem of Genesis."
What exactly is this problem? Astronomer and physicist Lee Smolin writes that is the universe started at a point in time, this "leaves the door open for a return of religion." This prospect has Smolin aghast. "Must all of our scientific understanding of the world really come down to a mythological story in which nothing exists...save some disembodied intelligence, who, desiring to start a world, chooses the initial conditions and then wills matter into being?" Smolin adds, "It seems to me that the only possible name for such an observer is God, and that the theory is to be criticized as being unlikely on these grounds."
Here we have scientists who do not seem to be acting like scientists. Why is it necessary to object to findings in modern physics in order to give evolution time to get going? Why is it important to avoid the "problem of Genesis" or to shrink away from any theory that suggests a divine hand in the universe? If the evidence points in the direction of a creator, why not go with it?
Douglas Erwin, a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution, gives part of the answer: "One of the rules of science is, no miracles allowed," he told the New York Times. "That's a fundamental presumption of what we do." Biologist Barry Palevitz makes the same point. "The supernatural," he writes, "is automatically off-limits as an explanation of the natural world."
Erwin and Palevitz are absolutely correct that there is a ban on miracles and the supernatural in modern scientific exploration of the universe. Yet their statements raise the deeper questions: why are miracles and the supernatural ruled out of bounds at the outset? If a space shuttle were to produce photographs of never-before-seen solar bodies that bore the sign YAHWEH MADE THIS, would the scientific community still refuse to acknowledge the existence of a supernatural
creator?
Yes, it would. And the reason is both simple and surprising: modern science was designed to exclude a designer. So dogmatic is modern science in its operating procedures that today all evidence of God is a priori rejected by science. Even empirical evidence of the kind normally admissible in science is refused a hearing. It doesn't matter how strong or reliable the evidence is; scientists, acting in their professional capacity, are obliged to ignore it. The position of modern science is not that no miracles are possible but rather that no miracles are allowed.
All of this may seem surprising, in view of how science developed out of the theological premises and institutions of Christianity. Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle and others all saw a deep compatibility between science and religion. In the past century and a half however, science seems to have cast aside its earlier resupposition that the universe reflects the rationality of God. Now scientists typically admit the orderliness of nature but refuse to consider the source of tht orderliness. One reason for teh shift is the increasing secularization of teh intelligentsia since the mid-nineteenth century, a process described by Christian Smith in his book The Secular Revolution.
Another is the discovery that unexplained mysteries of the universe, once attributed to God, can now be given scientific explanations. "the Darwinian revolution," Ernst Mayr writes, "was not merely the replacement of a worldview in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant explantory principle by a new worldview in which there was no room for supernatural forces." Consequently, science has become an entirely seculr enterprise, and this - oddly enough - creates problems for science. By narrowly focusing on a certain type of explanation, modern science is cutting itself from the truths not amenable to that type of explanation.
We have seen how some leading physicists refuse to admit strong evidence about the origins of the universe to avoid having to consider creator. Now let us consider how some distinguished biologists are willing to embrace weak evidence to corroborate evolution and eliminate the need for a divine being superintending the process. Biologist Frank Harold knows how complex are teh workings of even the simplest cells, because he wrote a book about it. He also knows evolution presumes the existence of fully formed cells with the power to replicate themselves. So what is teh origin of teh cell? "Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process." How does Harold know this? "This is not a statement of demosntrable fact," he concedes, "but an assumption." An assumption supported by what? Harold is not afraid to answer, "It is not supported by any direct evidence, nor s it likely to be, but it is consistent with what evidence we do have."
Actually, I've found someone who doesn't share Harold's assumption: Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Crick, like Harold, recognizes that the origin of life seems almost a miracle, given the intricate machinery of teh cell and given how quickly life appeared on the earth after the planet's formation. Crick cannot agree with Harold, Dawkins and others who blithely posit that some combination of chemicals must have proved the right one. So Crick offers a different theory: space aliens must have brought life to earth from another planet! This theory is seriously put forth in Crick's book Life Itself.
John Maddox recognizes that science knows little about the relationship between brain circuits and human consciousness. Yet he asserts, "An explanation of the mind, like that of the brain, must ultimately be an explanation in terms of the way that neurons functions. After all, there is nothing else on which to rest an explanation." Nicholas Humphrey goes even further: "Our startng assumption as scientists ought to be that on some level consciousness has to be an illusion." Most people might find this a remarkable conclusion, but not Humphrey; it is his "starting assumption."
Writing in The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins admits that there are significant gaps in the fossil record. Then his argument takes a strange turn. If we take Darwinian evolution seriously, "The gaps, far from being annoying imperfections or awkward embarrassments, turn out to be exactly what we should positively expect." In other words, the absense of evidence is itself proof that the theory is correct. This s so bizzare that it makes one wonder what the presence of evidence might do to this theory. Would a complete fossil record without gaps be evidence against Darwinian evolution, as we hear that Dawkins and his fellow biologists "exactly" and "positively" expect that such evidence should not be present?
Dawkins finally puts his cards on teh table by saying, "The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaning the existence of organized complexity. Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available." This is a revealing admission. Steven Pinker makes pretty much the same point: "Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this plnet even if there were no evidence for it." My point is not to deny that there is good evidence for evolution. There is, but it is not as good as you would be led to believe by the champions of Darwinism, That's because the champions of Darwinism are completely blind to weaknesses in the theory. They cannot even imagine that it is not true.
This is a level of dogmatism that would embarrass any theist. Even the strongest religious believer can imagine the possibility that there is no God. So how can these self-styled champions of reason adopt an approach that is so utterly closed-minded? It is the product of a philosophical commitment many of them have without being aware that they have it. Dawkins and the others seem naïvely to think that they are apostles of reason who are merely following the evidence. The reason they are deluded about their philosophical commitment is that it is hidden inside the scientific approach itself.
Modern science seems to be based on an unwaivering commitment to naturalism and materialism. Naturalism is the doctrine that nture is all there is. According to naturalism, there are neither miracles nor supernatural forces. Therefore reports of the supernatural can only be interpreted naturalistically. Materialism is the belief that material reality is the only reality. There is no seperately existing mental or spiritual reality. Of course, people are conscious and have thoughts and perhaps even spiritul experiences, but this can be understood as only the workings of the neurons in their material brains. The mental and spiritual are presumed to be mere epiphenomena of the material.
Now these philosophical doctrines - naturalism and materialism - have never been proven. In fact, they cannot be proven because it s impossible to demonstrate that immaterial reality does not exist. Naturalism and materialism are not scientific conclusions; rather, they are scientific premises. They are not discovered in nature but imposed upon nature. In short, they are articles of faith. Here is Harvard Biologist Richard Lewontin:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment - a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori commitment to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
And you thought I was making this stuff up!
Is science, then, intrinsically atheistic? Here we must distinguish between two types of atheism. The first kind is procedural or methodological atheism. This means that scientists go about their official business by presuming that we live in a natural, material world. Within this domin, miracles are forbidden, not because they cannot happen, but because science is the search for natural explanations. So, too, the mind and the soul must be studied materially, not because they are purely material phenomenon, but because it is the job of science to examine only the material effects of immaterial things.
Science is indeed atheist in this procedural or narrow sense. And this is okay, because we don't want scientists who run into difficult problems to get out of them by saying, "You know, I'm not going to investigate this any longer. I'm just going to put it down as a miracle." History shows that the search for natural explanations can yield marvelous results. Physicist Paul Davies rightly notes that "however astonishing and inexplicable a particular occurrence may be, we can never be absolutely sure that at some distant time in the future a natural phenomenon will not be discovered to explain it." Of course there is no reason to believe anything based on the expectation of future scientific discoveries that have not yet occurred. Even so, there are very good operational benefits to letting the scientists do their jobs and examine the world in its ntural and material dimension.
There are many religious scientists who find no difficulty in working within this domain of procedural atheism and at the same time holding their religious beliefs. Biologist Francis Collins says that as a biologist he investigates natural explantions for teh origin of life while as a Christian he believs that there are also supernatural forces at work. "Science" he writes, "is not the only way of knowing." Astronomer Owen Gingerich writes, "Science works within a constrained framework in creating its brilliant picture of nature... This does not mean that the universe is actually godless, just that science within its own framework has no other way of working." Yet at the same time Gingerich believs that "reality goes much deeper" than the scinetific portrait of it. Gingerich argues that the theist view of " a universe where God can play an interactive role" is a valid perspective that goes "unnoticed by science" but at the same time is "not excluded by science."
Some people regard scientific and religious claims as nherently contradictory because they are unwitting captives to a second type of atheism, which we can call philosophical atheism. This s the dogma that material and natural reality is all that exists. Everything else must be illusory. Biologist Francis Crick admits that his commitment to materialism and his hostility to religion motivated him to enter his field. "I went into science because of these religious reasons, there's no doubt about that. I asked myself what were the things that appear inexplicable and are used to support religious beliefs." Then Crick sought to show that those things have a purely material foundation. In the same vein, physicist Steven Weinberg confesses that the hope of science will liberate people from religion, "is one of the things that in fact has driven me in my life."
The adversaries of religion, like Crick, Weinberg, Dawkins and Dennett, frequently conflate procedural atheism with philosophical atheism. They pretend that because God cannot be discovered through science, God cannot be discovered at all. Here s a classic statement from biologist WIll Provine: "Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever n nature. There are no gods and no designing forces rationally detectable." Provine makes it sound like this is one of modern science's great discoveries, wheras it is modern science's operating premise. Provine assumes without evidence that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge, and that it gives us true and full access to reality.
Are these assumptions valid? I wil examine the second one in a subsequent chapter. But consider the first premise, that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge. Physicist John Polkinghorne proides the following example. If you were to ask a scientist, "Why is that water boiling?" he or she would answer in terms of molecles and temperatures. But there is a second explanation: the water is boiling because I want a cup of tea. This secon explanation is a perfectly valid description of reality, yet it is ignored or avoided by the scientific account. The reason for this, mthematician Roger Penrose writes, is that science is incapable of answering questions about the nature or purpose of reality. Science merely tries to answer the question, "How does it behave?" So science does not even claim to be a full description of reality, only one aspect of reality.
Philosophical atheism is narrowly dogmatic because it closes itself off from knowledge that does not conform to materialism and naturalism. Only data that fit the theory are allowed into the theory. By contrast, the theist is much more open-minded and reasonable. The theist does not deny the validity of scientific reasoning. On the contrary, the theist is constantly reasoning in this way in work and life. The theist is entirely willing to acknolwedge material and ntural causes for events, but he also admits the possibility of other types of knowledge. Just because science cannot admit that the evidence of a Big Bang points to the existence of a creator doesn't mean that this is not a valid inference for us to make. Just because science cannot show that humn beings have a spiritual dimension that is not present in other living creatures doesn't mean that such a conclusion, derived from experience, is unreasonable or inadmissible.
Scientific truth is not the whole truth. It cannot make the case for naturalism or materialism, because it operates within naturalism and materialism. When we realize this, then philosophical atheism becomes much less plausible. They we can let science do its admirable job without worrying in the least that its procedural atheism provides any support for atheism generally.