The deification of science

[Gilbert_Keith]

As I see it, the deification of science since Darwin has resulted chiefly from the rising popularity of atheism. Atheism did not rise and become rampant until well after the triumph of Protestantism in Europe. Atheism was an inevitable consequence of the disunity of Christian thought spread by the multiplying of denominations. When you look back to find atheists before Luther, there are few, and most of them are in hiding.

If atheism is true, more and more sciencen not God, would seem to the atheist to be the locus of omnipotence and omniscience. Atheists try to advance their cause by way of Occam’s Razor (first articulated by a Franciscan priest and never intended to be used against God). Atheists have decided that the Razor is a convenient way to cut God out of the total picture and puzzle of reality. It’s easier to get along without God, since it would take rather a herculean effort to fathom His place in the scheme of things, and then learn to conform our lives to God’s plan. There is, then, a fundamental laziness in atheism, even though it goes to the trouble of deifying science. The first tangible evidence of that laziness …?

The atheist gets to sleep in Sunday mornings for the rest of his life.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

The second tangible evidence of that laziness …?

The atheist does not have to trouble himself about his actions having eternal consequences … especially for his immortal soul.

 

[valient_Lucy]

Someone has accused me of deifying science (in another thread which this was deleted
because that discussion of off topic… I will not contest that accusation, but I will ask one thing concerning this issue:

Would one regard science being deified if one adheres to the theory of evolution instead of believe that God created some creatures discretely in contrast to them being descended from a universial common ancestor?

Why should one abandon empiricism and embrace so-called divine revelation? He also noticed that I think that science will eventually show that God is unneccessary in the natural world and that science will make God disappear. I will not contest this, as while I was studying biochemistry in my own free time (mainly from Lubert Stryer’s Biochemistry fifth edition) and reading peer-reviewed articles about the in vitro evolution of nucleic acid enzymes (see my signature for an example of a nucleic acid enzyme and my user name ), I realized that life simply is molecules; life is a self-sustaining system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. I also appreciated the ability of Darwinian evolution to generate novel structures (again my signature is an example of this as the molecule is able to act as an RNA polymerase). To me, this I think this shows that God intervening in nature is unneccessary.

Also he criticized me for getting upset when someone insults (he used quotation marks under
“insults”) some scientists. I only get upset because people wrongly accuse them of being
dogmatic (see: creationontheweb.com/content/view/4537)

As far as I am concerned, Professor Joyce does not believe in a personal God (I don’t know about Professor Bartel though) and he most certainly does not believe in anything dogmatically. To the contrary, he advocates skepticism in science as opposed to dogmatism. Would anyone want to challenge this?

Well, what is the deification of science? I am not address this question to any one particular person though? How am I (or scientists in general) guilty of this?

Since I haven’t really been privy to the entire conversation, it’s hard for me to say exactly what he meant by this. I do think that some of it could be the confusion of science with a person’s philisophical interpretation of science. For example, you said that you felt that science would eventually make God unnecessary and would make God dissapear. That is a philisophical interpretation based on science, but it is not science. I think what many people refer to as the deification of science is the confusion that many people have with these philisophical interpretations with science itself, in other words, when people start passing off these opinions as science. People who say things such as “science proves there is no God,” actually are betraying science. Science is interested in determining how the natural world works. It is no more interested in God than it is in Jane Austen. Any extrapolation about the nature of God, or lack of God, based on scientific evidence is not science, but rather philosphy or religion.

 

[ribozyme]

Good question. This is where a lot of people would say ‘Proof that there’s an immaterial soul!’, but I’m not going to go that far. I do think that the nature of life itself - not to mention the conscious experience, certainly of humans - is an interesting mystery. I’ve been reading up on it a lot lately, everything from the Dennett attitude of ‘Consciousness is essentially meaningless and doesn’t effectively exist’ to old-school dualists in the line of Swedenborg and his modern variations. Hence my reading into quantum consciousness. I don’t believe in any of the explanations of consciousness I’ve thus far read. It’s hard to be definitely persuasive on the topic.

I’ll advance this much, though. Nowadays, the theories about the universe are getting, to me, crazier and crazier. Many-worlds interpretations in quantum physics. The nature of decoherence and the twin-slit experiment itself is certainly weird. Postulates of eternal universes. It’s hard to determine what’s reasonable anymore. Maybe there’s a reason for that!

I am just curious, but could you give me your criticism of Daniel Dennett’s explanation of consciousness, as I am not familar with philosophy of the mind topics or Dennett’s work. However, I heard that he is a well-respected philosopher. I wonder how does one explain consciousness, quilia, and free will. Well, I think in a deterministic universe, they all just illusions produced by the interactions of matter. I am not sure if this is correct though.

I would like to add one thing… I previously made a flawed argument against the concept of consciousness caused by an immaterial existence. My argument relies on the fact that changes in the anatomy and chemistry of the brain affect cognitive ability (for example in the case of Down syndrome and Alzheimers disease). However, this does not prove anything, all it demonstrates is that there is a corrolation between neural anatomy, and consciousness. It does not prove that consciousness is caused by brain chemistry alone. Well, I came to this epiphany while looking up David Hume though, who introduced two problems in the epistemology of empiricism: causality and induction. Neither can be proved using empiricism alone. We have to assume causality and induction to conduct science.

 

[Nullasalus]

I am just curious, but could you give me your criticism of Daniel Dennett’s explanation of consciousness, as I am not familar with philosophy of the mind topics or Dennett’s work. However, I heard that he is a well-respected philosopher. I wonder how does one explain consciousness, quilia, and free will. Well, I think in a deterministic universe, they all just illusions produced by the interactions of matter. I am not sure if this is correct though.

I would like to add one thing… I previously made a flawed argument against the concept of consciousness caused by an immaterial existence. My argument relies on the fact that changes in the anatomy and chemistry of the brain affect cognitive ability (for example in the case of Down syndrome and Alzheimers disease). However, this does not prove anything, all it demonstrates is that there is a corrolation between neural anatomy, and consciousness. It does not prove that consciousness is caused by brain chemistry alone. Well, I came to this epiphany while looking up David Hume though, who introduced two problems in the epistemology of empiricism: causality and induction. Neither can be proved using empiricism alone. We have to assume causality and induction to conduct science.

I haven’t read Dennett’s books, only summations of his arguments - which, I think, are summed up as consciousness being epiphenomenal. It doesn’t really exist, it’s an illusion generated by various brain processes going on at once. We’re all zombies! Or something to that effect. It’s actually a pretty natural result if you’re going the strict materialist/determinist route, as you’ve already noticed. I’m not familiar enough with the specific arguments he makes to give a criticism, other than if consciousness is illusory, it’s one heck of a complicated and seemingly purposeless illusion. And a general noting that our understanding of basic thought is still in its infancy. I think Chalmers may have a more direct critique of Dennett’s position - again, I’m not directly familiar.

And yes, your second epiphany makes sense. It’s a difficult thing to sufficiently ‘nail down’ in any sense of the word - and frankly, even if we’ve come a long way in the study of the brain, I’d argue we’ve barely moved an inch when it comes to the deeper questions of thought, consciousness, and so on. It’s a subject which requires a lot of stumbling around in the dark due to the subjective nature. If it’s even describable, for all I know consciousness may require ‘new physics’ to really decipher.

Fascinating stuff, though. Then again, I always loved scientific mysteries. Especially when it’s an issue of consciousness - something everyone does, but (at this point) essentially no one knows how it’s really ‘done’.