Should science be secular?

[jdwood983]

As a Catholic scientist, it very often seems like it already is secular. A small number of my professors reject the notion of God, but most accept God & Christianity as Truths.

I believe that science only exemplifies God and His works. Science and Religion should go hand in hand, those that claim otherwise understand neither.

 

[LTSpike]

Any ideas?

Why don’t you think about what you are asking and ask it more clearly if you want real answers? In my opinion, the question doesn’t really make any sense. What are you actually asking? Are you talking about the nature of experimentation? Are you talking about research ethics? How are you defining science in the context of this question? Most scientists, like most of the population of the world at large, believe in God - are you asking about scientist’s beliefs? Rephrase and try asking again.

 

[LTSpike]

On the other hand, science knows that E=mc2, that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the ratio of 2:1; that Force = Mass x Acceleration; and so on. Science knows this because of the hundreds of repeatable, documented experiments that produced consistent results,

I’d be very careful about claiming what science “knows.” Thousands of years ago, people believed that physics had discovered everything there was to know, and have made this mistake many times since then too. Shockingly, although this is a common theme throughout history, people still make this mistake. 150 years ago, people “knew” Newton’s Laws correctly described all motion, but Einstein and others showed this was far from the case. To assume we “know” anything but an approximation under certain conditions is most unwise. After all, even F=ma is only strictly ‘true’ in a limited class of reference frames, but it’s a very useful approximation. Claiming you know more than you do rarely works out… Also, keep in mind that no matter how many millions of experiments seem to support a claim, only one is required to refute it. I’m not saying that you’re fundamentally wrong in your arguments, but I would caution you in your wording not to claim more than you should. In a sense, faith is a great part of science as well. After all, almost all scientists believe in conservation of energy, but since not every possible experiment has been run with 100% reliability and 0% error, it would be a stretch to say we “know” it. There is a overwhelming preponderance of evidence in its favor, and most of us use it as if it were true because its a very good bet it is, but to go so far as to claim you “know” it to be true is not precisely correct.

 

[LTSpike]

It’s a somewhat paradoxical observation that in order to maintain a belief in something to a certainty, the believer needs constant or at least periodical reinforcement of that belief.

I find this somewhat offensive in its willful ignorance. What nonsense - is this a personal ‘observation’ or did you lift this from some spiteful, agnostic author? The only thing paradoxical about this is that such silliness would be called an ‘observation’ at all.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I find this somewhat offensive in its willful ignorance. What nonsense - is this a personal ‘observation’ or did you lift this from some spiteful, agnostic author? The only thing paradoxical about this is that such silliness would be called an ‘observation’ at all.

I don’t need to constantly read about gravity to know it exists. If I had to, would that mean I needed to in order to know it does?

 

[Umvard]

I just read an excellent book called The Last Superstition by Edward Feser about this: Basically, God can truly be know through the light of reason. That is from rational thought by philosophy, not “faith alone”. The so called “empirical analysis of science,” which presupposes the final causes of Aristotle, attempts to explain everything without regard to any purpose whatsoever (or at least the proponents lamely pretend they are not ascribing to a purpose). It is materialism. Which is in reality bad philosophy. If you want philosophy, start at Aristotle and move on to Aquinas.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I’d be very careful about claiming what science “knows.” Thousands of years ago, people believed that physics had discovered everything there was to know, and have made this mistake many times since then too. Shockingly, although this is a common theme throughout history, people still make this mistake. 150 years ago, people “knew” Newton’s Laws correctly described all motion, but Einstein and others showed this was far from the case. To assume we “know” anything but an approximation under certain conditions is most unwise. After all, even F=ma is only strictly ‘true’ in a limited class of reference frames, but it’s a very useful approximation. Claiming you know more than you do rarely works out… Also, keep in mind that no matter how many millions of experiments seem to support a claim, only one is required to refute it. I’m not saying that you’re fundamentally wrong in your arguments, but I would caution you in your wording not to claim more than you should. In a sense, faith is a great part of science as well. After all, almost all scientists believe in conservation of energy, but since not every possible experiment has been run with 100% reliability and 0% error, it would be a stretch to say we “know” it. There is a overwhelming preponderance of evidence in its favor, and most of us use it as if it were true because its a very good bet it is, but to go so far as to claim you “know” it to be true is not precisely correct.

The beauty of science, is that there is no dogma to violate or prevent new evidence from updating old thought. Constantly striving to understand the universe we live in can not be done with a long list of areas one is not given permission to access.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The Holy Spirit and our Guardian Angels are actively involved in science.

How else would I know what to study for the final exam in Thermodynamics or how else would I know what kind of theory to postulate or hypothesis to write?

How else would I know how to design and set up my data collection system and how else would I know how to arrange the collected data so that it was transparent and useful and usable for everyone.

My goodness, without Divine Guidance, we would all be blind.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I just read an excellent book called The Last Superstition by Edward Feser about this: Basically, God can truly be know through the light of reason. That is from rational though by philosophy, not “faith alone”. The so called “empirical analysis” which presupposes the final causes of Aristotle and attempts to explain everything from a purposeless “scientific” world-view which is actually materialism in disguise. Which is in reality bad philosophy. If you want philosophy, start at Aristotle and move on to Aquinas.

Purposeless? While that may be your opinion, I am sure you won’t be taking that position if you happen to end up needing a medicine that is currently being developed right now.
My life is not purposeless without a eternal heaven to believe in. In fact, each of my hours or days left count all the more.

 

[Umvard]

No, you misunderstand: I was speaking in philosophical terms. I wasn’t proposing that science is purposeless, because it isn’t, I was speaking of the philosophy that generally accompanies it that it somehow dismisses the rationality of religion and real philosophy and the Scholasticism of Aquinas. I really don’t know how to explain it if you don’t understand philosophical terminology.

 

[Umvard]

The beauty of science, is that there is no dogma to violate or prevent new evidence from updating old thought. Constantly striving to understand the universe we live in can not be done with a long list of areas one is not given permission to access.

Actually, scientific analysis produces knowledge, not wisdom. The “beauty of science” you are endorsing is an ill-sighted attempt of explain the human mind and the entire universe from a purely material perspective. The rational mind will never be explained by science.

Additionally, nothing science discovers in any way refutes religious belief. It is truly the Atheists and others who attempt to impose dogmatic acceptance of their unfounded anti-religion claims. Like I said, Scholasticism is where its at. It is grounded in metaphysical proofs and reason, not hypothesis. Similar to mathematical truths, it is not a matter of more evidence being required to accept a theory, it either is true or is not true.

 

[StrawberryJam]

No, you misunderstand: I was speaking in philosophical terms. I wasn’t proposing that science is purposeless, because it isn’t, I was speaking of the philosophy that generally accompanies it that it somehow dismisses the rationality of religion and real philosophy and the Scholasticism of Aquinas. I really don’t know how to explain it if you don’t understand philosophical terminology.

I’m far to happy to debate anyone today. Real philosophy exposes special pleadings. I’ll continue on with my ‘purposeless’ life now thank you.

 

[wanstronian]

I’d be very careful about claiming what science “knows.” Thousands of years ago, people believed that physics had discovered everything there was to know, and have made this mistake many times since then too. Shockingly, although this is a common theme throughout history, people still make this mistake. 150 years ago, people “knew” Newton’s Laws correctly described all motion, but Einstein and others showed this was far from the case. To assume we “know” anything but an approximation under certain conditions is most unwise. After all, even F=ma is only strictly ‘true’ in a limited class of reference frames, but it’s a very useful approximation. Claiming you know more than you do rarely works out… Also, keep in mind that no matter how many millions of experiments seem to support a claim, only one is required to refute it. I’m not saying that you’re fundamentally wrong in your arguments, but I would caution you in your wording not to claim more than you should. In a sense, faith is a great part of science as well. After all, almost all scientists believe in conservation of energy, but since not every possible experiment has been run with 100% reliability and 0% error, it would be a stretch to say we “know” it. There is a overwhelming preponderance of evidence in its favor, and most of us use it as if it were true because its a very good bet it is, but to go so far as to claim you “know” it to be true is not precisely correct.

Good point; I was going for impact, but you’re right. I should have said that science has performed multiple peer-reviewed, independent experiments which all conclude that [insert scientific theory here] is true and consistently and accurately predict the outcome of other experiments.

One of the strengths of science, of course, is that future experiments may refine or even debunk existing theories. Another advantage of science over religion.

 

[Anselm33]

Speaking as a scientist (physicist–57 years in the field), I would say that the methods and procedures of science are entirely different from those of theology. Science is empirical and all science must be tested by reproducible experiments of one kind or another, unlike how one’s belief in God, Jesus Christ, the Trinity…is based. Even though one believes that the universe is rational and founded on principles that can be interpreted (for the most part) by mathematics, that belief is not necessarily a religious one. Nevertheless, for many of us (including myself), faith in science and an ordered universe does entail a religious faith . To quote Galileo (as near as I can remember) “The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” … To practice science, we do not need religious faith; to understand why science works, we do.

“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19a)

 

[StrawberryJam]

Speaking as a scientist (physicist–57 years in the field), I would say that the methods and procedures of science are entirely different from those of theology. Science is empirical and all science must be tested by reproducible experiments of one kind or another, unlike how one’s belief in God, Jesus Christ, the Trinity…is based. Even though one believes that the universe is rational and founded on principles that can be interpreted (for the most part) by mathematics, that belief is not necessarily a religious one. Nevertheless, for many of us (including myself), faith in science and an ordered universe does entail a religious faith . To quote Galileo (as near as I can remember) “The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” … To practice science, we do not need religious faith; to understand why science works, we do.

“The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19a)

I wonder why Neil Tyson doesn’t agree with you?

 

[Anselm33]

I wonder why Neil Tyson doesn’t agree with you?

And I wonder why Owen Gingerich (amongst others), who is possibly a more renowned astronomer and scientist than Neil Tyson, does agree with me.

 

[StrawberryJam]

And I wonder why Owen Gingerich (amongst others), who is possibly a more renowned astronomer and scientist than Neil Tyson, does agree with me.

Point taken. Did you grow up in a christian home if you don’t mind me asking such a personal question?

 

[Anselm33]

StrawberryJam;6876280]Point taken. Did you grow up in a christian home if you don’t mind me asking such a personal question?

No I don’t mind; I grew up as an agnostic (refused to be Bar Mitzvah’d at 13) and was baptized at 65 into the Catholic faith.

John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G-d…"

 

[StrawberryJam]

Anselm33:
No I don’t mind; I grew up as an agnostic (refused to be Bar Mitzvah’d at 13) and was baptized at 65 into the Catholic faith.

John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G-d…"

Good to know you Anselm,

Perhaps you have more of what you call grace than I. To be fair though, I am not even close to the age you were when you converted officially.

 

[d_erford]

The beauty of science, is that there is no dogma to violate or prevent new evidence from updating old thought. Constantly striving to understand the universe we live in can not be done with a long list of areas one is not given permission to access.

What areas lacking permission are you referring to? If you look at what the Catholic Church condemns regarding science (for example, embryonic stem cell research), you will see that the reasoning is most often based on respect for the life and dignity of a person. This same type of reasoning is why Nazi’s experimenting on Jewish prisoners in the name of science would be condemned. If you condemn that action as well, are you wrongfully limiting science because of a subjective moral judgment you have made regarding the action?

p.s. Whether an embryo is a person, etc, is a discussion for a different thread.

My life is not purposeless without a eternal heaven to believe in. In fact, each of my hours or days left count all the more.

I think it is erroneous to say that your hours and days left count all the more than someone who does believe in an eternal Heaven. Let’s explore your last sentence from our two viewpoints:

From a Christian viewpoint, our time left counts towards either eternal happiness or eternal damnation, not only for ourselves, but perhaps for others that we can help come to know God. In other words, our time here on earth not only has an immediate and temporary impact, but also has an eternal impact.

From an atheistic viewpoint, regardless of the magnitude of one’s positive or negative contributions, our time left most likely will only have a temporary effect (whether it lasts for a generation or until the end of the universe). In any case, it could never exceed the eternal impact mentioned above.