Lawrence K is a good speaker. That’s a topic where it’s got to be hard to decide what to put in your talk and how much you should explain each part of it, but he did a good job.
Since Dawkins did the introduction, I thought it might be to put up one of his science talks too. The only talk I found for his “The Ancestor’s Tale” is this one from C-Span Book TV which, unfortunately, is not embeddable. But here is the link:
To be fair, so much more specialized ground to cover, so much easier to mess up. Anyone here actually go beyond Physics 105?
—DiB
I’m so glad you watched it and enjoyed it, DBL! One thing I love about Lawrence is his consistency: in addition to religion, he’s also very critical of scientific theories that can’t be backed by observation.
I’ll be sure to check out the Dawkins talk.
@Jerry Have you read any of his books?
I believe that science — not atheism — is the opposite of religion. Religion is an activity that searches for answers about material existence. Science is also an activity that searches for answers about material existence, which comes to an opposite conclusion.
Oh whoops! Did I accidentally get on Reddit?? :P
BBC doc on Richard Feynman:
Only in America is our sexiest physicist also our very best one.
Science is also an activity that searches for answers about material existence, which comes to an opposite conclusion.
“In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points….Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies — which was neither planned nor sought — constitutes in itself a significant argument in favour of the theory.” – Pope John Paul II, 1996
“Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. “Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.” – Pope John Paul II, 1981
When one of the most conservative Popes in what may be the most conservative religious institution says that evolution is compatible with Catholicism and that the Bible is not a literal retelling of the origin of the planet then it is hard to believe that science and religion are truly enemies. Religious literalism/fundamentalism may well be the opposite of science, but religion as a whole is not incompatible with science because they have different objects of study. Atheism is not a pre-requisite for being a successful scientist.
Thanks, Hellshocked! I have no idea why people continue to insist that all religious thought is directly opposed to scientific discovery.
Jerry, Feynman was certainly an interesting character. I’ll watch that BBC show.
Hellshocked and DFFOL, aren’t you turning this thread into Riss’s religion thread?
But anyway, a few thought about the scientific project and evolution in particular. Science consists not just of the results achieved, but also of the particular methods used to get those results, and those methods are strictly secular. Physics has identified a small set of forces; chemistry doesn’t depend on anything at odds with this physics; biology doesn’t depend on anything at odds with physics and chemistry. And so forth. This has been spectacularly successful.
Part of the theory of evolution is that all the various life forms now on earth (or in the past) have a common ancestry and achieved all this variety by splitting apart and changing over time. But another part of the theory is how these splits occurred, i.e. speciation, and also how the changes over time occurred, which is natural selection (and a few other processes). A very important part of the theory is that this is all non-teleological. Evolution holds that all the great variety of life can be explained by mechanisms that never invoke goals or purpose. So you never have to claim that an organism evolved a feature because it needed it or would find it useful, nor do you ever have to claim that the overall arc of life was steered in any direction. The underlying variation is strictly random, and the selecting processes are strictly physical.
The “intelligent design” gang is trying to find instances of things that cannot be accounted for in this goalless manner. It’s easy to find things that have not been explained, but they have utterly failed to find something that cannot. But a thorough demonstration that evolution is intrinsically teleological would be a radical upset in the field were it ever to happen.
So while the pope might accept the idea of common ancestry, I suspect that he does not actually accept the mechanism by which it happened since that is at odds with other things that he seems to believe.
I suspect that he does not actually accept the mechanism by which it happened since that is at odds with other things that he seems to believe.
So he was just kidding when he talked about how true it was?
If you really think that all religion is at odds with science then you’re seriously misunderstanding religion.
EDIT: I’m talking about the majority of religious thought, not the intelligent design gang.
Hellshocked and DFFOL, aren’t you turning this thread into Riss’s religion thread?
I’ve never been to that thread so I honestly wouldn’t know. The basis for the creation of this one, from what I gathered, seems to be: I have aped the title of Risselada’s “An Open Spirituality / Religion / Theology Forum” because I believe that science — not atheism — is the opposite of religion. Religion is an activity that searches for answers about material existence. Science is also an activity that searches for answers about material existence, which comes to an opposite conclusion. Atheism is a passivity that asks no questions and demands no answers. which is what I was responding to.
But anyway, a few thought about the scientific project and evolution in particular. Science consists not just of the results achieved, but also of the particular methods used to get those results, and those methods are strictly secular. Physics has identified a small set of forces; chemistry doesn’t depend on anything at odds with this physics; biology doesn’t depend on anything at odds with physics and chemistry. And so forth. This has been spectacularly successful.
I find myself in the rare position of having to defend theists here but atheists do not have a monopoly on the scientific method. As you said, it is secular which means religion never factors into it. Ever. The one is completely separate from the other. A person could be the most fundamentalist bastard around and if they avoided methodological errors and logical fallacies when following the scientific method then their results would be considered valid (until disproven). Science is science and religion is religion. Just because a person happens to hold religious beliefs does not necessarily mean he or she is going to equate the two or even blur the lines between them.
The “intelligent design” gang is trying to find instances of things that cannot be accounted for in this goalless manner. It’s easy to find things that have not been explained, but they have utterly failed to find something that cannot. A thorough demonstration that evolution is intrinsically teleological would be a radical upset in the field.
Intelligent design is a cynical attempt at legitimizing pseudo-science. It is not, to my knowledge, promoted by Catholics but by the most fundamentalist evangelical sectors.
So while the pope might accept the idea of common ancestry, I suspect that he does not actually accept the mechanism by which it happened since that is at odds with other things that he seems to believe.
That may well be true, though from what I recall that Pope said something about evolution being entirely compatible with Catholicism so long as it did not seek to explain the origin of the soul. In any case, what he himself believes or does not believe is beside the point. The point is that head of the Catholic Church, roughly 16 years ago mind you, not only said that the Bible’s description of the creation of the universe is not to be taken literally but actually used the term “independent studies” and mentioned that they “constitutes in itself a significant argument in favour of the theory (of evolution)” in official Catholic documents, thus making it the official stance of the Catholic Church. At the very least this is major progress and reveals just how far out on the fringes neo-creationists are.
Unless a person’s religious views are so literal and dogmatic that when faced with evidence to the contrary he or she opts to ignore the evidence instead of adjusting their belief (in which case they are not and never were a scientist regardless of what they do for a living) I don’t see why science would be the opposite of religion when one focuses on the realm of the physical and the other (theists would have to correct me if I’m wrong here) focuses on the realm of the spiritual.
@Hellshocked
As you said, it is secular which means religion never factors into it. Ever. The one is completely separate from the other. A person could be the most fundamentalist bastard around and if they avoided methodological errors and logical fallacies when following the scientific method then their results would be considered valid (until disproven). Science is science and religion is religion.
Um, no. The history of the last five hundred years shows that this is not true. For simplicity, we can use christianity for “religion” since similar things can be said about other religions. Five hundred years ago christianity made a lot of claims that modern science has shown to be false. And this process hasn’t ended, so we can expect science to continue to carve out more of what used to be considered religion.
Jerry Coyne has just posted a short piece (that is a review of a longer paper) on this very question
Can science test the supernatural? Yes
One of Coyne’s points:
Naturalism is not a presupposition of doing science, but a conclusion from doing science. That is, we learn about the natural world from assuming that divine intervention or influence does not occur, and that the “laws” of nature are all that exists. We do not learn anything about the universe from bringing in the added assumption of a god. In other words, naturalism wins because it works.
So take this question of a soul. A perfectly good scientific question is does a supposed soul make any difference to the chemical, biological, neurological, or behavioral activities of an animal that is claimed to have one (such as a human)? If, as we can quite reasonably expect, the answer continues to be no even as we learn vastly more about embryology, neurology, and the like, then we can conclude that whatever souls exists, they are of no consequence in the real world since they have no effects.
Religion has been and continues to be pushed off more and more of its claims about the world. Religious adherents can either persist in believing things that are wrong (many do) or they can retreat yet gain towards deism.
DBL said beautifully a lot that I would have, but I just want to add:
I never said that science is the enemy of Religion- just that it’s its opposite. Science doesn’t stake out allies and enemies- that’s what religion does. If the Pope now believes in evolution and modern cosmology, it’s because religion has moved towards science; science has never moved towards religion. The Catholic Church demands awesome props for preserving the scientific body of knowledge between the fall of Rome and the Italian Renaissance. But when it comes to science, that’s all it deserves.
@DFFOO
So he was just kidding when he talked about how true it was?
I’d be very surprised if the pope agreed that nothing happened along the way that cannot be explained in a strictly non-teleological fashion. (Ehh, sorry for layering the negatives. Would the pope agree that no teleology was needed to account for how it all came out? This is what the science claims.)
I think it all mostly depends on what your perception of “God” is. If you believe in a God that’s emotional and intensely involved in everything that occurs in the world (which it seems most atheists assume is the God that most religious people believe in), that’s hugely different from thinking that God is more or less content to watch things unfold and occasionally intervene now and then, and that’s hugely different from thinking that natural law IS God and that God IS natural law and that God is an inherent aspect of everything that happens, even things that happen randomly and no-teleologically. Guess which one I think! :)
Five hundred years ago christianity made a lot of claims that modern science has shown to be false.
Ummm… five hundred years ago science made a lot of claims that modern science has shown to be false.
@DFFOO
Ummm… five hundred years ago science made a lot of claims that modern science has shown to be false.
Well, yes, and that is exactly the point really. Science has developed effective techniques to acquire and refine knowledge and religion has not. Science does not venerate received opinion, instead everything needs empirical scrutiny. There is an ongoing cycle of searching for evidence to test existing ideas and also searching for better ideas that can more successfully account for all the evidence. The process is very aggressive.
…and that’s hugely different from thinking that natural law IS God and that God IS natural law and that God is an inherent aspect of everything that happens, even things that happen randomly and no-teleologically. Guess which one I think! :)
Well, I noted above that those who persist in religious belief can always retreat into some kind of deism. I suppose it is better that sticking to intercessory religion.
>>Hellshocked and DFFOL, aren’t you turning this thread into Riss’s religion thread?<<
Jerry designed the thread to make that inevitable. Science is a wonderful and fascinating endeavor, but it is in no way the opposite of religion. Science has nothing to do with religion as one traffics in what can be observed and the other in what cannot be. Neither works with the same tools or the same language. Criticizing religion through science makes about as much sense a criticizing a book for its poor cinematography (same applies to folks who think their religion somehow disproves science.)
This thread would have been much more interesting if it were a pure celebration of science and not used as yet another outburst against people who choose to have faith in their lives.
Only in Hungary are our best Combinatorialists also our sexiest Mathematicians. They call god the “supreme fascist” who hides all beautiful theorems and their equally beautiful proofs in a secret book, and also hides Erdős’s socks.
Ummm… five hundred years ago science made a lot of claims that modern science has shown to be false.
This is not true. Science posits theories, and then sets out to disprove them. It make take several hundred years to actually disprove them, but when it does, it rejects the theory immediately. There is no equivalence with religious claims.
This thread would have been much more interesting if it were a pure celebration of science and not used as yet another outburst against people who choose to have faith in their lives.
Bollocks. I’m guessing you haven’t watched any of the videos in this thread, which are pure celebrations of science. For example, I’m about to learn all about Erdos.
Why did I think this thread, upon reading its title, was actually about science and had nothing to do with anything else? Surprise! I was wrong.
I took physics in high school. One teacher was a hairy handed introvert who knew nothing about teaching. The other was fantastically giving and funny and went out of his way to make sure even the non-science people could view physics as fun.
Can this, perhaps, be a thread more along the lines of my second teacher’s way? (and can we, for atom’s sake, get the hell away from religion already)???
This is not true. Science posits theories, and then sets out to disprove them. It make take several hundred years to actually disprove them, but when it does, it rejects the theory immediately. There is no equivalence with religious claims.
Except for everyone but the most fundamentalist nutjobs no longer believing the earth was created in 7 days, that it is only a few thousand years old, that there were never any dinosaurs, that someone blew air into two mud dolls and brought them to life thus spawning the human race and so on and so forth….
As has been said several times before, science and religion are two separate things that are not mutually exclusive because they exist in completely different planes and thus should never intersect If someone claims that the earth is the center of the universe and uses a religious belief as evidence then they are bringing religion where it does not exist and their belief should be scientifically debunked. If someone chooses to believe that there is such a thing as a human soul and it is immaterial then that is a metaphysical claim that can neither be proven nor disproven by science because it exists completely outside of reality (or, theists might claim, physical reality).
This thread would have been much more interesting if it were a pure celebration of science and not used as yet another outburst against people who choose to have faith in their lives.
While the initial post was curiously passive aggressive it was hardly an outburst and I don’t think anyone’s beliefs have been bashed (those who have ‘em correct me if I’m wrong). I made my first post because I noticed how potentially inflammatory it is to even imply that atheists have a monopoly on science. I’m certain quite a few contemporary scientists (not to mention historical figures) hold some sort of religious belief that somehow coexists with their naturalist approach to the universe. My being an atheist does not make me better or worse than a theist nor does being a theist by definition preclude one from being a scientist. I wasn’t looking to derail the thread. I never even expected a response.
Can this, perhaps, be a thread more along the lines of my second teacher’s way? (and can we, for atom’s sake, get the hell away from religion already)???
Religon was already in here based on the initial post. I didn’t bring it nor do I intend for it to stay. Like I said I never even expected a response.
Not blaming anyone, just pleading for a different course of action than stated in the OP.
Great idea for a thread, Jerry. I’m fascinated by physics—the understanding of our reality—can there be a more critical exploration? It affects everything from the formation of galaxies to the makeup of atoms.
Two resources that I highly recommend (both being accessible and very informative) are The Elegant Universe (largely concerned with String Theory but a nice primer on physics in general) and The Fabric of the Cosmos (which continues the conversation and extends it to talk about, among other things, what space actually is).
This is one of my pet topics, but I do have to say that how it relates to religious beliefs is probably my least favorite conversational thread about it, so I’m disappointed that’s where this thread has gone.
Hmm, how about astronomy? A lot of the important developments in the history of astronomy can be understood without needing an extensive background in maths and sciences.
If I watch a TV program on physics, I keep getting annoyed with the stupid CGI swirly flashy crap they put on the screen that has nothing to do with the topic. But with astronomy, you can actually provide appropriate visuals. You can show the planets, stars, galaxies, and you can show the telescopes that created those images. Earlier this week I caught a few minutes of a PBS program that seemed pretty good. The bit I saw was about how Edwin Hubble used the—at the time brand new—Mt. Wilson telescope to discover first, that the universe is much bigger than just our galaxy, and then second, that it was expanding. This lead to the Big Bang theory which was confirmed by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background nearly 40 years later using another newly invented kind of telescope. The program showed the glass photographic plate that was the most important in Hubble’s discovery that other galaxies are far outside our own. Later they showed a film clip of the radio astronomers sweeping the bird poop out of their telescope as they tried to cross off any conceivable alternative explanation for this radio signal that they didn’t expect or understand. I think TV programs are much better when they include these kind of details that show what the scientists were actually doing to be able to make their discoveries.
Two resources that I highly recommend (both being accessible and very informative) are The Elegant Universe
I agree, and it’s here:
I’m certain quite a few contemporary scientists (not to mention historical figures) hold some sort of religious belief that somehow coexists with their naturalist approach to the universe.
10%, to be exact.
About this whole “God Particle” thing…
“The biggest problem with all of this “God Particle” nonsense is that it’s a rather short-sighted way of announcing to the world that the particle physics community doesn’t need any more money, thanks.
Besides greed, there’s the simple fact that while discovering the Higgs means that we’re on the right track with this whole Standard Model, it is absolutely not the end of the story. What doesn’t the Higgs tell us?
- It doesn’t explain how gravity works.
- For that matter, it doesn’t really tell us much about how the strong force relates to the electroweak force — the – combination of electromagnetism and the weak force for which the Higgs is so useful.
- It doesn’t tell us what dark matter is — roughly 23% of the energy of the universe.
- It doesn’t tell us what dark energy is — another 72% of the universe.
- It doesn’t tell us why the electric charge is what it is, or an electron mass is what it is, or really, much at all about a huge number of physical constant.
- It doesn’t explain why we have certain symmetries in our universe and not others.
I guess what I’m saying is: more money, please."
Dave Goldberg is a Physics Professor at Drexel University. He apologizes for the interruption of your “Ask a Physicist” service, which will be restored once he completes his first draft of “The Universe in the Rearview Mirror,” a new book all about symmetry that will be published by Dutton in 2013. In the meanwhile, follow him on twitter, send an email, or get caught up with his first book
10%, to be exact.
Roughly 51% actually, according to this. At least in the US. If we discount the 13% that either don’t believe in evolution or believe that evolution was directed by a god as complete idiots then we are still left with 38% of US scientists believing in a god or higher power.
Jerry Johnson
My two intellectual passions in life are cinema and physics.
I have aped the title of Risselada’s “An Open Spirituality / Religion / Theology Forum” because I believe that science — not atheism — is the opposite of religion. Religion is an activity that searches for answers about material existence. Science is also an activity that searches for answers about material existence, which comes to an opposite conclusion. Atheism is a passivity that asks no questions and demands no answers.
Anyway, I thought a thread to share and challenge scientific activity might be educational and fun.
I will start off with a lecture by the theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss. It’s designed for the general public and is extremely entertaining and informative, and it seeks to answer from a scientific perspective the ultimate question that Religion always poses for the accused absence of God: how can something come from nothing?
Introduction by that atheist Richard Dawkins ;)