I found "Taking Science on Faith," a recent op-ed in the NY Times really annoying. Paul Davies, a cosmologist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University (U of A's rival!) argues in that column that science is ultimately faith-based just like religion. All of scientists' research endeavors, Davies says, are based on a faith that the universe is an ordered place, and is "governed by immutable... mathematical laws of unspecified origin." Without the belief that such order exists to be discovered, he argues, one could not be a scientist.
I strongly disagree with Davies' implicit characterization of the mathematical laws of physics, on which he bases much of his argument. Perhaps the problem is with the literal way he seems to understand the word "law." In a social context, social activity unfolds according to some pre-existing set of laws, with the result of social order. For example, I drive my car on the right side of the road in the U.S.A. because it is the law to do so, and I stop at red lights, because of the law, and as a result, I've never been in any messy, disordered car crashes. Thank goodness for the law. But in physics, the mathematical relationships we call laws are simply descriptions of the order we observe existing in nature all around us. The heavenly bodies form and gravitate the way that they do, and mathematics is just a convenient shorthand to describe their motions in a concise and general fashion. Davies takes an essentialist viewpoint of science, in which mathematical laws somehow precede the invention of the universe and at which point they are "plugged in" to the universal machine to make it run.
Believing in order does not require a leap of faith on the part of the scientist. Order is an observational fact, which rigorous science describes in a unified framework we colloquially call "laws". Perhaps most importantly, it certainly doesn't require any leaps of faith to appreciate the majesty and beauty of nature around us, and to be amazed by existence.
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He sounds like a douchebag, Suz! Or at least, a douchey argument. The particular item in this category that most pisses me off is when people say things like "Evolution is just a theory, and creationism is another theory! We should teach them both!" Now, I agree that we have to teach biology students about creationism...but only because I think it is important to teach them that the United States can be a strange, strange place where people want to teach schoolchildren than deities made people out of clay 5,000 years ago as if that were literal truth. (I also get annoyed with Creationists who argue that it's offensive to teach that man came from monkeys. First, it's an annoying oversimplification-slash-inaccuracy to say that we "came from monkeys." Obv. we came from a freaking COMMON ANCESTOR with monkeys! Not FROM THE MONKEYS themselves. And second, like coming from the DIRT on the GROUND is less offensive than coming from cute widdle monkeys?!?!) But clearly the statement that evolution is "just a theory" is a complete (and almost willful) misunderstanding of the word "theory" as it is used in scientific contexts, not unlike this dude's misunderstanding of the word "law." So this is all by way of saying, Creationists are to Sarah as this dude is to Suz. The end.
(Whoops.) Actually, I meant to be describing a distinction much more subtle than the issue of creationists not understanding the meaning of the word "theory" in a scientific context. I wouldn't called Davies' argument "douchey." There is a philosophical divide between scientists who see their work as *discovering* the pre-existing mathematical equations governing the order in the universe (Davies essentialist P.O.V.) and those who feel our work *describes* the order we observe (my P.O.V.). Which is right really is more of a matter of opinion (wheras the creationists obviously misconstrue the scientific process). In fact I had a spirited debate this morning in my Perturbations class with my esteemed Professor, a guy who has distinguished himself thoughout his career by creating (or discovering) mathematical equations that describe order in nature, and who disagrees with me.
Aside: said Professor is pushing to get Davies to come give a lecture in my department on this very topic! Release the hounds!
Suz,
I share your irritation. Davies makes a huge intellectually lazy, logic jump right here:
"This process will require its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.
Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. "
Just because observable phenomena suggest that there are "meta-laws of the multiverse," which we cannot observe because we are confined to our universe, doesn't equate religious faith with scientists conceding that there are certain phenomena that we may never be able to explain.
we are also approaching something like this in other areas, e.g. as particle physics research requires particle accelerators that demand so much energy, that we may eventually not be able to afford further research of that sort. (but I'm sure Suz knows this already.) Let's hope CERN delivers what it promises.
Please allow me to put more wood on this fire.
First of all "Everything I say is a lie." So beware of trying to parse, interrupt or otherwise make sense of my comments.
Most define "insanity" as expecting different outcomes from repeated identical behavior. So sanity must have something to do with orderly expectations.
At the micro-level quantum mechanics tells us the behavior of individual particles is essentially random.
At the macro-level thermodynamics tells us the trend toward complete randomness is inexorable.
Relatively tells us we can't even experience each other at the same time, in fact there is no "same time" except the very beginning instant!
Of the total "known" mass-energy of the Universe our models have only identified theories for 4%.
Forget about how man evolved from dirt or monkeys, but rather answer how consciousness arises from meat, or even, what is consciousness?
Once humankind became burdened with consciousness, God appeared to help us cope with the randomness and seemingly meaninglessness of existence. To help maintain sanity, a belief in order.
Whether God invented us or we invented God really doesn't matter since either case is equally miraculous and mysterious.
We did invent science to increase sanity in the sense that our vocabulary of predictable and repeatable results would increase as a consequence.
If "faith" is belief without direct evidence and science is a belief in order, then science is not based, like religion, on faith because human sanity and consciousness are direct evidence of order.
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