God and science
Regular readers of M* may know there is an ongoing debate between the pro-evolution crowd and some of us who are skeptics. To sum up: I am skeptical of macro evolution but willing to accept it may have happened with a Creator’s guiding hand. But for the meantime color me doubtful. Others, including our brilliant Clark Goble, and a supporting cast of scientists at the fascinating web site Mormons and Evolution are politely but insistently critical of doubters like myself. Clark, for example, has said repeatedly that evolution is “settled science.”
Well, I have some new thoughts to add to the debate, and I wanted to post them here. I’d like some input from our scientific friends (who consistently amaze me with the depth of their knowledge).
The following argument is made by John Pratt, the science editor at Meridian magazine. Here’s the entire article by Brother Pratt. I disagree with many points made by Brother Pratt, but I think this argument is incontrovertible. Perhaps Clark and Jeffrey, Jared, Mike and Christian can come up with believable counter-arguments. We shall see.
Q5. If science only concerns what is observable, and if God remains hidden, then would there be a proper place for God in scientific journals? Isn’t the real reason that God is not mentioned in scientific journals because he has no place there, rather than a result of a Satanic conspiracy to keep him out?
A5. As an example of how God might fit into scientific articles, consider articles about the origin of life on earth. There could be a whole array of scientific hypotheses put forward, all of which could lead to scientific tests, especially in the field of genetics. For example, there could be a theory that a) atoms just came together by themselves, forming all plant and animal life with no need for a Creator; b) same as a) but directed by a Creator; c) same as b) with the requirement added that spirits are needed for life; d) all instructions for life were encoded by the Creator into the first single cell, which was then left on its own to evolve into all plants and animals; e) several separate kinds of plants and animals were created, which are not related to each other at all, but rather share similar “good design” features; f) the various kinds of plant and animal life were transplanted to the earth; g) the real creation was all done in the spirit world where DNA codes were written, and the physical creation consisted of planting seeds, watering them, etc.; and h) God’s creations are never “left alone” but God is actively involved with all of his creatures.
This list could obviously be extended, but the point here is that only theory a) is allowed in scientific journals today because it is “unscientific” to mention God. Thus we are only allowed to discuss and teach in science classes the one theory that God has told us explicitly is guaranteed to be false, namely that God was not involved at all.
What will scientific journals be like after the Savior returns, and the Millennium is fully underway? Will we not still have schools where youth are taught science? Will they still learn Kepler’s laws of astronomy and Newton’s laws of physics? Will they study genetics and be taught how to understand the DNA code of life? I think so. But what about theory a) above, the atheistic theory of organic evolution, the only one taught in most schools today? Will it be taught any more at all? Will it still be forbidden to speak of the Creator in science classes? Of course not.
Re-reading this, I think John Pratt makes some excellent points. A refusal by the scientific world to accept God in any of its respected experiments these days makes for incomplete studies and false science. As any student of the history of science will know, Sir Isaac Newton and even Einstein accepted the existence of a Creator. Isn’t scientific study incomplete without this factor?
Another and related question for our scientific observers: Do they honestly believe that the study of science in a Millennial world will be the same as it is now? Obviously, this is pure speculation, but isn’t it safe to say scientific study will be very different then?
And, lastly, if science classes are incomplete without factoring in the “God factor” in their experiments, isn’t there room for at least bringing that up in evolution or astronomy classes?
You think Pratt makes some excellent points? Whoa. I think Pratt is the most embarrassing thing about Meridian and that they ought fire him as soon as is possible.
BTW - LDS Science Review discussed this article of Pratt’s last month.
My answer to the above is though that while I don’t think God is intrinsically “hidden” to science, science can put forth tests that might explain without requiring God. If it works, then why is God necessary? You have a theory that makes successful predictions, is falsifiable, and is simple. Contrast this with ID which doesn’t make successful predictions, isn’t falsifiable, and isn’t simple.
Certainly the opportunities for science once we have angels and the like around are tremendous. But that doesn’t mean that what science says isn’t knowable.
I’d also say that the issue is less whether God was involved than how he was involved - something Pratt doesn’t touch upon.
One thing I’d add is that science is always incomplete. Indeed this is at the heart of science being science. And sometimes that incompleteness results in errors. But that doesn’t make science false.
Just to add, if the argument is that God ought be brought up in cosmology and evolution discussions to be fair, since it is what isn’t included, then by exactly the same reasoning everything excluded has the same right to be included and mentioned.
I don’t think we want to go down that path.
Clark, just as an explanation: I think Pratt makes some excellent points in this particular argument, which I attached here. In general, he has some pretty far-out stuff, and frankly I don’t know what to make of a lot of it. I disagree strongly with you last statement: “I’d also say that the issue is less whether God was involved than how he was involved - something Pratt doesn’t touch upon.” If you re-read the above, that is exactly what he is asking for. In other words, he is asking us to consider God as one possibility and build experiments around that. If we were to do that, we would get a lot closer to scientific truth.
Clark, I don’t agree with your #2. I am not asking for everything to be brought up. In a more complete view of science, the idea of a creator must be considered as one possibility to get a full picture of how the universe was created and how we were created. If you ignore that possibility, you are not getting a full picture or a true picture. Or do you think Newton and Einstein had it wrong?
I’m going to call a few of Dr. Pratt’s bluffs.
Dr. Pratt conveniently neglected to elaborate on this. What scientific tests would confirm or falsify his hypotheses?
None of my science teachers, high school or college, LDS or non, mentioned the theory that “God was not involved at all.” How could they have omitted this if it’s the only theory that they’re allowed to teach?
Has Dr. Pratt tried to publish a paper that argues for a scientific model of God? If so, what was the response? If not, then on what basis does he claim that such theories are categorically prohibited?
What do you mean by Einstein or Einstein had it wrong? Einstein’s view of God was Spinozist. i.e. it wasn’t God the way we think of it. The universe was God working according to deterministic laws. Newton was more of a neoPlatonist.
As I said, I don’t mind people putting forth creation as a hypothesis. Then it has to be tested. And there, it fails.
Here, here, Clark. Pratt claimes that:
Last I checked these have failed. Miserably.
Now, I’ll be the first to claim the fallibility of science, my disertation repudiated 100 years worth of conventional wisdom (mostly becasue there is not a huge amount of interest in the field). The thing is, though, that the errors were repudiated by science, not wishful thinking. If evolution is repudiated, it will not be by wishful thinking. Though, now evolution is quite a formidable scientific theory.
Perhaps what is Satanic is not the conspiricy to remove God from science, but the conspiricy to have Faith in the wrong thing.
Clark, we’re back to the same old argument. You believe creation fails as a hypothesis. I guess it depends on your definition of creation (I don’t believe in the six-day creation theory, as you know). There is no way to test the creation I believe in — it is based on faith. There is also no way to test the evolution you believe in — it is also based on faith with a lot of scientists in today’s world to back it up and repeat the mantra again and again that is is proven. But by the rules of science (is it observable? can it be repeated?) it is impossible to prove scientifically.
So many good post going on right now and so little time. Let me read everything and I’ll be back to comment.
Geoff, you said, “There is no way to test the creation I believe in — it is based on faith.”
Isn’t this the exact opposite of Dr. Pratt’s thesis?
But by the rules of science (is it observable? can it be repeated?) it is impossible to prove scientifically.
I guess I would ask you what evidence there is to suggest your creationism. There is quite a bit of evidence to support evolution. And though we don’t have time in our lifetimes to observe the history of the universe, we do have the evidence left by evolution and the tools to use evolution for our knowledge and benifit. We can observe species with rapid life cycles change with time. What is there to support your hypothesis, Geoff B.?
The best way to correct Pratt’s argument is to say that IN AS MUCH as God is hidden (and that’s a whole lot) then He is not included in science. This is what exactly what science teaches. Scientists don’t have a vendetta against God as an actual cause or being, only as an explanation. “God did it” makes for a terrible explanation for it can be applied to anything, therefore amounting to nothing at all. It is in the restrictions and regulations that order arises, both in the nature science studies as well as in science itself. Only by invoking what can be observable, replicable and falsifiable has any progress been made. Since God and His acts fall outside this category, He is simply not in science. Notice, science isn’t against God, it simply ignores Him since that hypothesis doesn’t contribute anything.
I’d also like to second Clark’s thoughts about Pratt. He makes Mormonism seem far more antagonistic toward science and intellectualism in general than it really is. He portrays Mormonism as if all Mormons should be young earth creationists, thus making a laughing stock out of the church. One thinks of the line from Mean Girls: “And on the third day God created the triple pump action rifle so man could fight the dinosaurs…. and the homosexuals…. AMEN!”
I’m sure science during the second coming will be different for the very reason that Pratt seems to be challenging modern science. Namely, God and His acts will at that time be accesable for observation, replication and falsification.
Sorry about the typoes.
“For example, there could be a theory that a) atoms just came together by themselves, forming all plant and animal life with no need for a Creator”
Wow, this Pratt is one embarrassing intellectual lightweight, n’est-ce pas? (although you could say the same of many of our leaders on this subject). But to be fair, he’s probably another victim of the ridiculous limits Nibleyites place on their concept of the Almighty. My G-d is the creator of everything: space, time, everything else. As an almighty being he is independent of his creation, including time. Part of G-d’s creation is the elements, and if they happen to spontaneously combine to form life w/o any later intervention on His part, G-d still created life, just not in the way Pratt’s primitive mind envisions. In a nut shell, while I believe in evolution, it doesn’t explain creation, doesn’t even come close. What evolution does is explain a very necessary mechanism by which species, which go extinct all the time, are replaced so that life overall continues.
The one thing I’ve never understood is why so many get so bent out of shape about evolution. It was an ancient idea, common in many stories and myth. Darwin comes along and contributes a mechanism that explains it, natural selection, and then the excrement hits the fan. Why?
Links:
Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research
A testable hypothesis devloped using this method:
Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?
Also of interest:
A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis
by john Davidson
Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life
by Hubert P. Yockey
Searching Large Spaces: Displacement and the No Free Lunch Regress
by William Dembsi
Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence
by William Dembski
http://www.designinference.com/
Anon,
I don’t see how belief in Darwinism precludes coming up with they hypothesis that centrioles are molecular turbines or how belief in ID leads to that hypothesis. A Darwinian could easily think, “Wow, centrioles kinda look like little turbines, I bet that’s how the polar ejection force works.” Whether they look like turbines because they were designed that way or because of the natural selection of genes whose products happened to assemble in that form is beside the point. The question cell biologists ask is “how does it work?” not, “how did it come to be so?”
Further, I hope you have something better than the centrioles-as-turbines hypothesis to tout as a triumph for ID-based scientific reasoning, ‘cuz it’s a stinker of a hypothesis. Sure, the hypothesis is testable, but testability isn’t the only criterion for a good hypothesis. It also has to not be dumb. The centrioles-as-turbines hypothesis is dumb. Maybe I shouldn’t say dumb. I’ll say this: there is no reason to believe that centrioles act as turbines.
In every astronomy class I took that discussed cosmology and theoretical models of the universe the big bang was always discussed. For those unfamiliar with the idea it goes like this: There was a major event, then there was radioactivity, then as things cooled down it became sub atomic particles, which became hydrogen, which coalesced into stars, that burned the hydrogen into more complex atoms, which coalesced into molecules, that became planets and stars and the house that Jack built. Inevitably someone always asked, “What was there before?” The professors would always say “We don’t know.” Those that have a belief in God answer in their minds “God was before.” Those that don’t have a belief in God accept the answer “We don’t know.” Part A from the example is something that would only occur in a class where the debate on whether or not to include God is raging, and the teacher is against it. If the debate wasn’t raging the teacher would feel no need to fill in “Atoms came together forming plant and animal life” with rhetoric specifically excluding God. I’m perfectly alright with science classes not mentioning God by name, because those that have a belief will put God where the textbooks say “we don’t know.” Those that don’t believe aren’t taking science classes to learn about God, and will not be receptive to hearing about it in that manner.
As far as science classes in the millenium, I think they will be different in two ways, First when someone asks a question the teacher will never have to say “we don’t know.” And second instead of just saying how planets, stars, plants, and animals came to be how they are, we will also hear how we can make them ourselves, like a cooking class.
Geoff (#8): There is also no way to test the evolution you believe in — it is also based on faith with a lot of scientists in today’s world to back it up and repeat the mantra again and again that is is proven.
I disagree with this quite strongly. The problem occurs only if you take “test” to entail a deductive test. I don’t. Indeed I think most useful tests are anything but simple and deductive.
I’d second Justin’s comments in #11. I think there is considerable evidence for evolution and no evidence (except some silence ala the God of the gaps) for ID and even less for Creationism. (Meaning by the later a particular theory of how God created the universe)
Andermom (#16), there actually are quite a few scientific theories attempting to understand what was before. Linde universes, which I mentioned, are one. M-Theory (sort of a superset of string theory) makes many claims in this regard. There is also a conflict between the experimentalists and the theoreticians over the nature of the big bang. So a lot of science does go on relative to these things.
Andermom, I think knowledge won’t be quite that easy to gain in the millenium. I don’t think everything will suddenly become easy to learn. I also don’t know if we will be that interested in learning some of the things we care about now. I also think we will still need to say “I don’t know”. Why else would we be told that during the millenium whatsoever we ask for will be granted? Why would we need to ask if we knew everything already? We will still need to ask and learn and grow and there will undoubtedly still be eons and eons of growth and probations that will need to go through to fully comprehend all that God does.
I’m sure this isn’t helpful, but my science teacher explained in 7th grade that most people in America believe that God created the earth and everything/everyone on it. Scientists believe that man evolved from more primative life forms and that we can all be traced back to protiens that evolved into SSOs, then multi celled organisms, then fish, then amphibians, then reptiles and so on. These are all statements of fact because they discuss opinions.
As for evolution being “settled” why then are there so many theories of evolution that disprove the other theories? Why are the statistical probabilities unreasonable. Why do we see examples of intra-species evolution but almost no evidence of inter-species evolution? While there may be some minor evidence among bacterium, there is hardly any evidence and certainly not on the scale suggested by the enormous time it would take for evolution to occur.
Just asking.
Why doesn’t the existence of a watch prove the existence of a watch maker? According to a couple articles Pulsars produce some kind of artificial signal. Something that repeats or has a pattern. Isn’t this evidence of ID? If stars have evidence of being created, clearly the universe was created by intelligent design.
Heli, there certainly are different particular evolutionary theories, but the basics of evolution which is what is debated are settled. So the variations are merely taking basic evolution as a given and debating about the particular forms evolution took.
As for whether we “see” inter-species evolution. We do. There are actually several examples. The problem is that this takes time. But one could argue that the fossil record provides quite a few examples as well. Once again, if you demand deductive reasoning to count as “seeing” then you won’t find the fossil record sufficient. I’d merely point out that “deductive seeing” is not necessary in science. Indeed science tends to be about indirect knowing. This misunderstanding about science is unfortunately heavily propagated by anti-evolutionists.
Clark (#1) said, “Then why is God necessary?”
That question troubles me. The Bible says God is necessary. Twenty-six times in Genesis one, we are told what God did “in the beginning.” Do the scriptures falsely give God credit for things He didn’t do? Was Moses not speaking about the God we LDS think of?
will (#5) said,
Did your science teachers mention God’s involvement in evolution? If your school teachers taught evolution without mentioning God’s involvement, then they taught a process in which “God was not involved.” I’m not necessarily a Pratt fan, mind you, but shouldn’t we give a man credit when he makes a valid point?
Some people believe evolution explains the origin of species—with God’s involvement. However, it is presently taboo to teach that in most science classes. Isn’t that correct? And isn’t that what Pratt meant when he said we are only allowed to discuss and teach in science classes the origin theory that excludes God?
John Pratt asks (in Geoff’s original post),
Perhaps we should first ask, What will science itself be be like after the Savior returns, and the Millennium is fully underway? This will be a wonderful time in the history of the earth. Scientists will have the opportunity to study the earth as it was before the fall of Adam, and some scientific theories will be drastically overhauled when it becomes clear that there was no death during the pre-fall stage of earth’s existence.
Gary (#21) we have to distinguish the natural laws and processes God made use of and whether God was involved in bringing about this particular state of affairs. Evolution is seeking after the processes. Now if one believes that God doesn’t use natural laws and principles to bring about his ends, then that’s not a big issue. But if the evidence points that life doesn’t happen in unexpected ways but can be explained via natural law, then I don’t think it is any more necessary to invoke God than it is necessary to invoke God and angels to explain the movement of the planets.
Do you think a discussion of Newton’s laws of mechanics ought also discuss God? There’s even more justification there since at least Newton did think God was involved. Me, I think God makes use of natural law: things like the force of gravity.
Too funny. You are nothing if not consistent, Gary. You may want to consider various NDBF-themed epitaphs.
Clark (#24),
Can you tell me what gravity is? Scientists can describe gravity’s effect, but do not know why it works that way. We not have a definitive answer for the question, What is gravity? (see the statement “Science at this time really does not know what exactly gravity is” found here, and the statement “What is gravity? We don’t really know” found here.)
Regarding what does “explain the movement of the planets,” President John Taylor made this observation:
If God did merely “make use of natural law,” as you assert, those laws would replace God as the supreme power in the universe and God himself would be inferior to natural law, just a super engineer.
Please refer to a more lengthy discussion of these issues here.
My goodness. To those non-scientists out there, please educate yourselves in science. Enroll in an introductory biology course at your nearby community college. Your criticisms and objections are without understanding. I think it is fine to take issue with things, propose alternatives, etc., if you have some idea what you are talking about. Geoff says he is open to hearing what the scientists out there have to say. I praise you for that, but please do some personal study on your own first. You may have done some, but not nearly enough. I’d be satisfied with an introductory biology course taken within the last 10 years and some basic understanding of scientific principles such as parsimony, falsifiablity, experiment, and the philosophy of science.
I am not trying to be rude. It is just exasperating to read these attacks on science that demonstrate nearly complete ignorance on the subject. It is similar to the feelings you get when someone attacks the church with arguments that are completely without merit or understanding. Like the rumor that late 19th century Mormon men kidnapped French women and took them back to Utah through underground tunnels. The argument might make sense to an uneducated person, but to an educated person the idea is so without merit that he hardly knows where to begin to correct the lack of understanding. So, please, go take some classes.
Enochville, I have taken some college-level science courses and read a fair amount on biology, cosmology and the like. I don’t think general attacks on commenters, ie that we have no idea what we are talking about, are very useful. Can you give us specific cases and address specifically the arguments that have been made? I am openly calling for a discussion, so why not discuss the issues at hand?
Clark, I would like to take this opportunity to address your comment #1 above regarding the discussion at LDS Science Review on John Pratt’s assertions.
First, let’s do an exercise. Let’s say that you were in John Pratt’s position and had just made an assertion, for example, that Richard Bushman’s RSR book was interesting and worth reading. Now, let’s say that another web site read your article, and posted it and spent nine comments talking about how Clark Goble was a complete idiot who was destroying the Church and providing anti-Mormon fodder without ever addressing Clark Goble’s primary assertion, which was that RSR was interesting and worth reading. That is basically what LDS Science does to John Pratt (and, btw, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the people at LDS Science as well, so I was disappointed to read this thread). Note that I am addressing the comments, not the original post, which actually does address some of the substance of his article, but somehow misses the primary assertion of John Pratt’s article.
The primary assertion is that Satan does exist and that he is interested in using science to fulfill his purposes. This seems rather uncontroversial to me. I happen to believe that Satan does exist. Why does Heavenly Father allow him to exist? To provide “opposition in all things.” Would Satan completely ignore science or would he twist science like he twists everything else? It would seem very likely the “father of all lies” would try to introduce lies, innuendo, exaggerations, incomplete research, falsified data, etc, into the world of science, just as he does in all other fields.
What would Satan’s primary targets be? It seems that because Satan is primarily interested in destroying faith in God and Jesus Christ that he would attack the fields of science that most touch on the existence of a Creator. Biology and cosmology are just two of those fields. He would build up theories that allow scientists to discount the presence of God.
Note: I am not saying that we shouldn’t study these fields or that all people who support evolution are dupes of Satan or anything of the sort. I am using basic logic, which says: a)Satan does exist b)he has a purpose, which is to provide opposition c)he will be active in attacking science as he has in other fields and d)the most likely fields of attack are those that allow him to decrease faith in God.
If you’re going to take on this argument, you need to attack one of the legs of the logic tree, such as saying a)Satan doesn’t exist or b)he is not interested in providing opposition, etc. Attacking John Pratt (or me) for making an argument will not convince anybody.
Again, let me make sure I am not misunderstood (which seems to happen a lot in blogging). I am not saying that scientists are dupes of Satan. I am not saying it is evil to study science (in fact, I believe just the opposite). I am not saying I agree with everything John Pratt writes (I happen to think some of his articles are pretty wacky). I am not saying the theory of evolution is evil (I happen to think there is a lot of truth there, I just am doubtful of its primary assertions and the logical jumps that scientists make to try to make it fit to reality.)
The primary issue is: is Satan not involved in science at all? If he is, wouldn’t he promote theories that decrease faith in God? I think those are assertions that should be addressed.
Enochville: Those were British women, not French women, who were transported in tunnels to the Kingdom of the Saints. Get your false calumnies straight!
Geoff B (#29), I find it just as likely that Satan could twist religion in such a way that people rest their faith on conceptions of God that are overly rigid and narrow so that when they are presented with evidence that appears contrary to their conception of God they lose faith entirely.
I agree with you that it is inappropriate (and maybe evil) for scientists to overreach and make assertions that aren’t warranted. It is appropriate and necessary, however, for scientists to assume no supernatural intervention as they try to figure out how stuff works.
Tom, good comment. You raise some interesting points.
Tom, a follow up (and this gets us back to the issue of materialism): how do you define “supernatural?” For centuries, scientists did not understand the makeup of the atom or understand forces such as gravity, radio waves, television, etc. These forces would have been considered “supernatural” to them. I happen to think that angels exist on a plane and/or frequency that we simply haven’t discovered yet, just as microwaves exist on a frequency that was not discovered hundreds of years ago. Is it scientific for scientists to assume that no new discoveries (such as another plane of existence) regarding our world will ever be made?
I’m pretty sure that the Adversery would try to influence every aspect of human existance. However, from the Mormon perspective, it seems that, especially the Temple instruction (noteably the pre-1990), suggest there is not scriptural warning against science, but there is substanital warning of the adversaries influence in other religious belief systems. All this controversy is the fruits of other religious systems.
Now, I am as much of an ecumenicist as the prophet, so I don’t want to assign Satanic motive to any seekers of God. I think such is not in harmony with our current directives in the Church.
J. Stapley, just a few words: Satan teaches “the philosophies of men mingled with scriptures.”
Indeed he does, but who is it that are teaching them? Especially in the older version.
I’m sad to be wading into this conversation late. I will comment a little more on Pratt’s article at my blog.
Pratt has proposed several hypotheses for the origin of life. The main problem is that most of them are not really testable, at least as far as I can tell, while others can probably be ruled out based on what we do know. This is not to say that none of them will be shown to be ultimately true, but how do you deal with a proposition that God is actively involved with all of his creatures?
Do you believe God ever favors a nation in battle? Imagine in a history class that every time a conquest was discussed and a list of reasons why a particular side was victorious was made, the teacher also had to list, “Or God either favored the victorious side or was angry with the losers.” Neither proposition could be formally ruled out, but is such a thing practical in any systematic sense? They would just be empty words thrown in to placate the religious.
As for the discussion on his previous article, I’m glad you (Geoff) differentiated between my post and the comments. I didn’t really deal with what Satan might be up to. Certainly I would say that he might inspire use of science for evil purpose. As far as the paradigms and philosphies that drive science, I don’t think it is a black and white issue. I think it is a matter of balance, just like many other principles of the gospel. There is a time and a place for faith, but also a time for skepticism. An extreme of either is unhealthy and I suspect that is where you find Satan, especially when these concepts are translated into our personal philosophies and behavior.
Carl Youngblood,
The individuals, like you and me, will still be able/have to say “we don’t know” but the teachers won’t. When you say “we’re told that whatever we ask for will be granted” that is exactly what I’m talking about. We’ll ask, and someone will be able to tell us. It might(or probably will) be a situation where it takes years of teaching to answer the question, but my point was *someone* will be able to answer the questions.
Geoff B (#33), If observations of physical phenomena give a scientist reason to believe that there is another plane of existence or what have you and if he or she can come up with a valid experimental approach to try and disprove the hypothesis and provide further reason to believe the hypothesis, then more power to him/her. But it all has to be based on physically observable phenomena, not faith. Afterall, the goal of science is not to discover all truth, but only to explain how stuff works in a physical sense.
So no, scientists should not assume that no new discoveries will be made. But they can’t assume something that they have no reason to believe based on their observations of physical phenomena.
I’m not much of a philosopher so I probably can’t give you a satisfying definition of supernatural. But the way I use it supernatural means something like this: that which defies the physical laws that govern our universe. It is not something that defies physical laws as we understand them.
In my mind, teachings of God don’t have much place in science class any more than they do in wood shop.
You want to talk about God? Go to philosophy class. You want to discuss world religions? Go to history class.
Science is the study of fact. Not truth. And I don’t think it should be interested in truth. If education is well-rounded, there is no need to worry about the seeming absense of God in science class. He won’t be absent because the participants will have Him in mind anyway, regardless of the textbook.
The movement to put God in the schools is little more than the product of spiritual insecurity. Those with weak and superficial ideas of God want the government to step in and do the job of strengthening their testimonies for them.
You want your kids to learn about God? Get off your lazy rear and do it yourself. It’s not the government’s job to play daddy, or bishop (and it will do a lousy job of both).
Note: I think that the fact that the Mormons generally do a rather good job of educating their kids about religion is a major reason that Mormons really don’t care whether evolution is taught or not in schools. It’s the religions that are failing to teach that are in an uproar.
Geoff B, thanks for bringing up this important subject. I responded in this post.
Gary, declining to address the role of God is not the same as teaching that God was not involved. Although folks like Pratt decry the purely secular approach, it’s fundamental to virtually all academic disciplines. History teachers don’t address God’s role in the Civil War. Math teachers don’t talk about whether God causes 1+1 to equal 2. English teachers don’t characterize certain literary passages as divinely inspired. The reasons for this should be obvious, as are the reasons for setting religious beliefs aside when teaching science.
John C Williams, who is best known for Pioneering the “Gene Selection” flavor of Darwinism, which Richard Dawkins made popular in his book “The Selfish Gene,” has since said:
That is why Dembski’s formalized mathematical information theory of Design Inference via complexity and specifity is so interesting and important. It has been linked above by Anon, but you should really check it out:
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.06.Specification.pdf
Look for instance at the SETI project. You saw the movie Contact. SETI seeks signals from outerspace from other intelligent beings. The project takes for granted that their are types of information or signals that exhibit qualities that indicate that they were created by an intelligent mind and not by a purely natural process and that we can indentify that difference. While SETI is marginal scientifically, it is good enough that Berkeley hosts the SETI at Home project (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ) that allows people to donate their CPU time to SETI.
Dembski has proposed his theory of Complex Specified Information as theory that provides a formal way in which we can identify information that is likely produced by intelligence and not natural processes. Such a theory could be employed by the SETI project to formally show what kind of signal would indicate extra terrestrial intelligence. But Dembski’s theory can also be used to show that the information in genes is complex and specified in a way that indicates intelligent design.
Evolutionary Biologists are still ignoring the vital difference between the phsyical structure of DNA (the medium) and the gene (the message). Naturalistic Evolution must account for the creation of the information contained in the DNA. I don’t think that it does.
2 Nephi 2:13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
Gary,
The Starchild page that states “we don’t really know” what gravity is immediately contradicts itself by saying “Gravity is a force of attraction that exists between any two masses, any two bodies, any two particles…the force of gravity is proportional to the product of the two masses (m1 and m2), and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (r) between their centers of mass.” It’s like saying we don’t really know what electricity is, but here are the equations that describe electromagnetism and the right-hand rule for the effects of moving charged particles. If you can describe, calculate and predict it, it’s not “magic”. Please don’t use a simplified explanation intended for children to imply it’s all “a mystery”. We can describe exactly how gravity works, and conduct experiments to confirm it. Gravitational effects can be observed in real-time, not hypothesized over millions of years. True, physicists have not yet managed to include gravity in a Grand Unifying Theory, as they have done with electromagnetism and the weak force, but I would not use that statement to draw a parallel between physics/gravity and evolution/creation issues.
Wow! I’ve missed a lot. Here is a comment I posted over at Christian’s response to this post:
I think attributing to science the promotion, even indirect, of atheism is quite unfair. True science is non-theistic, but this is because God’s actions don’t seem to be at all observable. How is this science’s fault? The other way in which science may be considered atheistic is that their conclusions are different from what is taught in religion, but again this is not science’s fault. If religious claims don’t match up with the evidence found then it’s religions fault not the scientists’.
Some controversies should be taught in class yes, but in grad school classes. The biggest problem with the ID movement is that they think that science should become like law school complete with debates, votes, equal time for all theories and so on. This is not science AT ALL. Science is proceeds not by defending by argumentation a theory, but by formulating testable hypotheses and by such confirming (not proving) or falsifying your hypothesis. Thus the genuis of science lies not in individuals, but in method. If the IDers want to be respected as scientists then this is what they need to do, not sending armies of lawyers across the country to promote debates and votes as to what is good science.
If something is controversial in science, they usually don’t teach it, least of all in high school. If something controversial is taught it is almost alwasy done so with proper qualifiers, but such instances, again, are quite rare. The proper place for the “controversies” is grad school and those who are well enough informed to have something intelligent to contribute to the controversy.
Hmmm, very interesting thoughts in this thread…should spend more time studying them, but in response to #29, and the following comments:
“Note: I am not saying that we shouldn’t study these fields or that all people who support evolution are dupes of Satan or anything of the sort. I am using basic logic, which says: a)Satan does exist b)he has a purpose, which is to provide opposition c)he will be active in attacking science as he has in other fields and d)the most likely fields of attack are those that allow him to decrease faith in God.”
I think that if this is your assertion, then b) has to be changed because he does not simply provide oppostion, but his purpose is to ’seek that all men might be miserable like unto himself (2Nephi2:27)’. I do not think that he thinks that he is ‘providing an opposition as his purpose’ and in fact i don’t even think that cares about this, his main purpose is to provide us with thoughts that if excercised will make us miserable. Perhaps he meets God’s requirement that we have ‘opposition in all things’, but I do not assert that this is his purpose in any way.
I am good with the other 3 assertions though, a, b, and c! Perhaps a little change to c) as well that he does not decrease our faith, we do that by our following the dictates of our own conscience given the faith in the information we have. Satan is simply an enabler to that end.
Geoff in 8:
“There is also no way to test the evolution you believe in”
This is about as wrong as it could ever be. There are so many lines of testable evidence which intersect at the truthfulness of evolution that the fact of evolution has not been a question for some time now. Of course scientists still argue the mechanisms and paths of evolution but this is not the same thing at all.
When Darwin proposed his theory of evolution by natural selection, his ideas could have been falsified by a demonstration that: the earth wasn’t very old, there were no particular patterns in the distribution of taxa, the fossils were scattered in a relatively random way, DNA sequences didn’t match with predicted evolutionary paths, mathematical evolutionary models didn’t even come close to modeling genes pools, evolutionary algorithms weren’t able to produce what in retrospect appeared to be “irreducible complexity” in computer simulation and so forth. All of these things we PREDICTED based upon evolution and where later brilliantly confirmed.
Heli in 19:
In response to the Paley’s watch argument the scientist simply maintains that we believe that an intelligent designer built the watch and this because that is the only way we have ever observed watches coming into existence. Similarly, the only way we have ever seen a remarkably well designed animal come into existence was not by some intelligent designer but by birth from its parents. Who created the frog? Its parents, not some elusive designer. And this goes all the way back until the creation of a very simple replicator of some sort. Paley’s watch argument lost ALL of its steam with Darwin.
I think the saddest of all responses to the evolution/creation debate is that God simply hasn’t revealed it yet but will when we are ready. What? You mean God wants us to be bickering like this or some really uncontroversial evidence? Does he want people like Gary and other Young Earth Creationists to look that stupid to everybody else? Why in the world would He wait until later to give us this knowledge? It’s not like we haven’t studied the issue. It’s not like we couldn’t use such help.
Seth R. - YES, exactly (everyone go back and read Seth’s post again - #40). I’ve never understood the urgent need on behalf of some to have their spiritual beliefs validated by secular institutions.
I have never ever understood this argument and philosophy very well as to why men are so enthrolled with the concept of proving scientifically that there is a God, or that there is a creator, or that something was created by some external force or whether it has evolved through time?
What would it change if we allowed finite mortal thinking to bring a God/Creator our of ‘His/Her hiding place’? Wouldn’t it just make things worse for us because we would be forced to receive the consequences we are not ready for! Is not God, if he/she exists by some assertion, a scientist him/herself which makes him/her understand all these principles anyways and thus again not forcing him out of his hiding place. Are not all the assertions made about God’s very existence a convoluted way of trying to force God out of his hiding place? If you read any of the accounts of God appearing unto men, is it because of science? NOPE! Because of Faith, that is assuming that God exists of course!
Perhaps a new assertion is that God does not appear because of Science, but because of faith, but wait that is not that new at all, but is an age-old fact that we simply try and prove over and over again by mingling the philosophies of men with scripture. Not that this a bad thing, but perhaps a wasteful thing sometimes! Joseph Smith made his “assertions” about God based upon what he saw, and not what he could prove through quantum physical laws of how Gods travel through space and time continuums containing worlds without number just to get to a small grove of trees on a small, yet significant plant to Them, to witness to a 14 year old boy that he should simply join none of the churches of the time! That was faith not science at work, but again if it all happened and to which we will try and assert until we finally know.
Are not assertions about God simply speculations about what we hope he will reveal to us or which we think he is not capable of revealing to us or that He has understanding about? If Satan knows these things and can use them in negative ways, then if the assertion is true that God does exist, then I would hazard a guess that He knows them better and for that reason has seen no need to reveal them to us in any great God, or man, -made details…yet?!? Just another assertion, of course!
What if science, in all of it’s finiteness, actually proved that there was an infinite creator, and that ‘Intelligent Design’ was an actual reality based upon a Creator with a body as tangible as man’s? What if science proved the exact opposite of this, that there is no God? Then what, can we answer that? Those are 2 much more interesting questions really! I would assert that the scriptures would be proven true in either case — and how scarry is that really!?!?
(#48) Jeffrey “I think the saddest of all responses to the evolution/creation debate is that God simply hasn’t revealed it yet but will when we are ready. What? You mean God wants us to be bickering like this or some really uncontroversial evidence? Does he want people like Gary and other Young Earth Creationists to look that stupid to everybody else? Why in the world would He wait until later to give us this knowledge? It’s not like we haven’t studied the issue. It’s not like we couldn’t use such” help.
I don’t think God really cares. I don’t think my salvation or anyone else’s depends on finding out the truth of evolution. If evolution is fact (which I believe it is to a certain degree) that’s fine, if not–oh well.
Tim,
I agree w/ you, but try telling that to BKP or Gary.
Tim,
Right, but God doesn’t care only about our salvation does He? He also cares about us knowing the truth and not having contention among us. To say that God does care to help out in this matter isn’t a very inspiring answer.
Jeffrey,
What would you like God to do? Would you like him to tell His prophet the answer, or you? There is much contention over which church is the true church–and I believe he has revealed to us the answer. But not everyone believes this to be true. Show me a truth the Lord has revealed for the SOLE PURPOSE of ending contention. He doesn’t reveal truth to end contention–he reveals truth as it pertains to our salvation.
Moses 1:39:
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.