The Science Delusion. 10 dogmas of modern science

[Al_Moritz]

For my larger take on the issue, here it is:

As I see it, there is a natural and a supernatural order.

In the supernatural order, God intervenes frequently. We have divine revelation to the Jews and later the gentiles, we have God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, we have the sacraments, above all the Holy Eucharist in which God is physically with us at all times in the most loving and selfless manner possible, and we have the special creation of an immaterial rational soul for each human individually. God interacts with the human soul and has a relationship with us.

In the natural order, God appears to intervene rarely, at least in a measurable way. This is even logically necessary, otherwise we would not know what to expect from our physical world. Imagine stepping into an airplane without predictable laws of nature … Physical miracles are rare, and God set up the universe to develop on its own – as some would say, God made the world make itself. We have a seamless line from physical evolution of the universe after the Big Bang through chemical evolution resulting in the origin of life to biological evolution resulting in higher species and our bodies and brains (again, the immaterial soul is part of the supernatural order, and by definition cannot fall within the realm of physical evolution).

Even though God appears to intervene rarely in the natural order, He is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ (‘has to be believed’) article of the Catholic Church. In that sense, God is constantly active in the natural order as well, even though not in an obvious ‘interventionist’ manner. This excludes a deist view.

It is actually ID people who appear to have a deistic view of God – they disregard the view of classical theology of God as the sustainer of everything and instead believe that God only “acts” when He demonstrably “intervenes”. Therefore, to escape the putative consequences of their false theology, they need to show for themselves that God “intervenes as much as possible”, also in the physical world.

 

[Catolico65]

Thanks, hopefully I pass my candidacy examination in a couple of weeks . I agree with what you have said here. But the funny thing is that I think that the scientists that are muddying the waters as you have said aren’t aware that they are doing so. I don’t doubt that they are genuine materialists, but to say that science proves that materialism is true is begging the question since science can only answer material questions.

I think society would benefit tremendously from having formal logic, rational thinking, and philosophy taught somewhere in a person’s educational experience. Most people I know either have no experience with it or such a biased experience that they’ve rejected it out of hand. I don’t really blame them for rejecting philosophy though since when it is taught classical/medieval philosophy is summarily rejected simply because it is “antiquated” and the modern forms of philosophy tend to lead to all kinds of silliness that is understandably not appealing to most people.

I wish you the best of luck for your exam.

Regarding philosophy, I have never formally studied it and in fact had to look up materialism. I’m a graduate engineer gravitating toward teaching math and physics at the university level hence my observations about the importance of delineating between opinion and peer reviewed theory.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I am both a practicing Catholic and a scientist (a biochemist).

As far as the 10 ‘dogmas’ of science are concerned, I agree with most of them. Yes, the world is largely mechanical, while on the microscale quantum mechanics introduces some indeterminism which

If you are implying here that this implies that there is no efficient causality causing quanta phenomena, I would strongly disagree. Quoting both Aristotle and Aquinas, " …whatever is moved is moved by another…" Just because we cannot " see " the cause does not mean it isn’t there. After all, we can hardly " see " the quanta phenomena themselves. Nor can we see gravity, but we know it is there. We cannot see magnetic energy, but we know it is there.

And yes, evolution works; increase of complexity would of course not be possible by random genetic mutations alone, but the combination of these with gene duplications makes it possible indeed (read wikipedia on gene duplication). Evolution deniers are simply scientifically uninformed or misinformed. Heredity is material, what else would it be?

I know this is the field of your special interest but I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t bring it up, since it is a forbidden topic here. Many of us would love to respond but can’t for fear the thread might be closed. It isn’t fair to the O.P. to threaten the thread that way. .

The one dogma I take the most issue with is that “nature in purposeless”.

I think the O.P. means that certain empericists suggest that nature is purposeless. We know that is not true of all science or all scientists.

I agree with you whole heatedly about everything else .

Linus2nd

 

[Al_Moritz]

If you are implying here that this implies that there is no efficient causality causing quanta phenomena, I would strongly disagree. Quoting both Aristotle and Aquinas, " …whatever is moved is moved by another…" Just because we cannot " see " the cause does not mean it isn’t there. After all, we can hardly " see " the quanta phenomena themselves. Nor can we see gravity, but we know it is there. We cannot see magnetic energy, but we know it is there.

No, I don’t imply what you think I might, and I fully agree with you. From my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/cosmological-arguments-god.htm

There appears to be some confusion, however, as to whether the findings from quantum mechanics suggest a loosening of the bond between cause and effect. Such a loosening does not really take place. Yet what does happen in the realm of quantum processes, is that a cause does not have a deterministic effect anymore, but a probabilistic effect. That the bond between cause and effect is unbroken is proven by the fact that the statistical distribution of the effects can be represented by exact mathematical formulas.

This can be well illustrated by radioactive decay: The cause for radioactive decay is the instability of certain types of atom which triggers them to loose a particle, e.g. a beta-particle, and in the process to convert into another element. Yet radioactive decay is also a quantum process.

If you have an agglomeration of 32-Phosphorus (32-P) atoms, or an agglomeration of molecules containing 32-P atoms, it is impossible to tell which one of the 32-P atoms will decay next to give stable 32-Sulfur (32-S). However, it is known that the half-life of 32-P is 14.28 days, i.e. after this time half of the material has decayed to 32-S, regardless which precise molecules out of the agglomeration of atoms do the decaying. This holds for any quantity of 32-P that is more than unimaginably miniscule. Even a chemically barely detectable trace amount of 1 femtomol still has 600 million 32-P atoms. Obviously, this is still such a huge number that, statistically, also this tiny trace amount will always decay with a half-life of precisely 14.28 days. The cause for the decay is the instability of the 32-P nucleus, and the effect is always this precisely determinable half-life. Thus, there is a clear correlation between cause and effect, a probabilistically determined correlation. Certainly, on the local level of the lowest imaginable quantities, statistics cease to work, but the correlation between cause and effect is still there. Let us assume, hypothetically, that we have an agglomerate of just three 32-P atoms. One may decay in, let’s say, the next two minutes, one in 4 weeks, and another one in 10 months. Obviously, a statistically determined half-life of 14.28 days will only work on a global level of many atoms, but not on the local level of these three atoms. The effect is random – who can predict when exactly these three atoms will decay? Nobody can. But is the cause for the decay different from that for a larger agglomeration of 32-P atoms, for which a half-life of precisely 14.28 days could be determined? No, of course not. The cause is still the exact same instability of the 32-P nucleus.

Thus, the effect of decay is still tied to that cause, even though the factor of precise statistical determinability falls away. The cause is the same, regardless if the effect is that the decay takes place within 2 minutes, or after 10 months.

---

It should be clear from this that the concepts of ‘random effect’ and ‘cause-less effect’ are two very different things. ‘Random’ in science means ‘by chance’, ‘unpredictable’, ‘indeterministic’ but not ‘uncaused’.

I agree with you whole heatedly about everything else .

That is great to hear

 

[Aloysium]

. . . the concepts of ‘random effect’ and ‘cause-less effect’ are two very different things. ‘Random’ in science means ‘by chance’, ‘unpredictable’, ‘indeterministic’ but not** ‘uncaused’**. . .

“By chance” suggests no purpose.
So, life including ourselves, could be here by chance and at the same time caused by God, but this is not what we believe.
You may wish to clarify this.

 

[Al_Moritz]

“By chance” suggests no purpose.
So, life including ourselves, could be here by chance and at the same time caused by God, but this is not what we believe.
You may wish to clarify this.

No, “by chance” does not a priori suggest no purpose. God can work through random processes that He designed as such.

From the Church document Communion and Stewardship, paragraph 62:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).

 

[yppop]

No, “by chance” does not a priori suggest no purpose. God can work through random processes that He designed as such.

From the Church document Communion and Stewardship, paragraph 62:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).

Al
I agree! Had God not made reality contingent, we wouldn’t have free will.
Yppop

 

[Aloysium]

No, “by chance” does not a priori suggest no purpose. God can work through random processes that He designed as such. . . .

I’m sorry but your saying that “by chance” does not suggests “no purpose” is your particular definition. This is not how people would use that term.
Something happening by chance suggests lack of control, lack of cause, luck. Accidents happen by chance. One wins the lottery by chance. One says, “it is only by chance that I survived.”

I would definitely agree God can work through apparent random processes. He can roll dice, which He has created, when His intent is to get a number between two and twelve.

What I am saying is that life on earth did not happen by chance. Atoms did not organize themselves to form complex organic molecules by chance. It is not chance that animals act instinctively and have feelings. There is no luck involved in the fact that I can think, feel, experience love and beauty, that I can know God.

One has to be careful how they use words. Randomness may be what is behind the colour of my eyes, skin and hair, but it has nothing to do with my being here. There is a clear purpose to the complexity that we observe in nature. No chance happening here.

:twocents: duly deposited

 

[Aloysium]

My response above may be exaggerated.
I do recognize that the tetrahedral structure of the carbon atom does make organic chemistry possible and had God not designed the foundations of matter in the way He did, life would not be possible.
I guess I was reacting to the term “by chance” (obviously), because it can be so easily misinterpreted.

 

[Al_Moritz]

I guess I was reacting to the term “by chance” (obviously), because it can be so easily misinterpreted.

Yes, I was talking about the scientific and philosophical meanings and implications of the term, not about its colloquial use (.e.g., meaning lack of cause, luck).

We are indeed not here by luck. If God rolled the dice, then only within a framework that would deliver results that were intended, one way or another. As you say, “He can roll dice, which He has created, when His intent is to get a number between two and twelve”.

Interestingly, there is the term ‘convergence’ in evolution (to which also Dawkins refers to point out that evolution is not chance in its overall outcome), which means that evolution always finds a way to produce certain things, e.g. eyes have evolved in the animal kingdom around 40 times independently. In other words, while there are many ways, which may be walked randomly, to get to a certain outcome, the outcome eventually will be produced.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It is actually ID people who appear to have a deistic view of God – they disregard the view of classical theology of God as the sustainer of everything and instead believe that God only “acts” when He demonstrably “intervenes”. Therefore, to escape the putative consequences of their false theology, they need to show for themselves that God “intervenes as much as possible”, also in the physical world.

I don’t follow this. It is not a false theology. Genesis itself tells us that the universe unfolded through in a manner directed by God. That would incluyde the fine tuning for the origin and evolution of life. The origin of life is particularly hard to explain without asserting an intelligent design behind the coming together of those elements that constituted the first living creature. God may well have intervened to bring those elements together. There is nothing in theology that makes such a claim false.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

No, I don’t imply what you think I might, and I fully agree with you. From my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/cosmological-arguments-god.htm

There appears to be some confusion, however, as to whether the findings from quantum mechanics suggest a loosening of the bond between cause and effect. Such a loosening does not really take place. Yet what does happen in the realm of quantum processes, is that a cause does not have a deterministic effect anymore, but a probabilistic effect. That the bond between cause and effect is unbroken is proven by the fact that the statistical distribution of the effects can be represented by exact mathematical formulas.

First of I want to thank you for the time and effort of your response. I did read your article ( but only the link to Feser, not the others). Your article must have created some reaction.

I understood the gist of it and agree to that extent ( except the " E " part ). Can’t say that I understand the difference between intelligently caused fine tuning and I.D. To me God created the laws of nature along with nature and designed the nature of each thing to operate according to his grand design ( with the exception of the actions the voluntary activity of intelligent beings, for which he has " back up " plans).

In regard to the " probability factor " in the causality of quanta activity, I would say that it represents probaibility only to our way of thinking. Since we must assume the ultimate particle that can be realistically called a thing ( whether it be an atom or something else ) has a nature, we must assume that this nature ( created by God ) functions in a definite and characteristic way, that is naturally. From God’s perspective, this would be according to the law of the being’s nature. And I don’t think God works from probabilities, I think, though I can’t prove it, that God is very definite about such things.

It should be clear from this that the concepts of ‘random effect’ and ‘cause-less effect’ are two very different things. ‘Random’ in science means ‘by chance’, ‘unpredictable’, ‘indeterministic’ but not ‘uncaused’

Well then, when they are speaking or writing they should make this clear. I know you mean that, I’m not so sure about a lot of others.

Have you seen the movie the Star of Bethlehem? Gives astronomical proof of the validity of Divine Revelation and the birth and death of Christ.
youtube.com/watch?v=zPHKg0M3mEo

Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I understood the gist of it and agree to that extent ( except the " E " part ). Can’t say that I understand the difference between intelligently caused fine tuning and I.D. To me God created the laws of nature along with nature and designed the nature of each thing to operate according to his grand design ( with the exception of the actions the voluntary activity of intelligent beings, for which he has " back up " plans).
Linus2nd

This is also what I cannot fathom about Al’s position.

He calls ID false theology. As if God could not and would not and does not intervene in the affairs of the world just by his daily maintanance of the universe. As you say, if he can intervene with “back-up” plans for us, why could he not intervene with “back-up” plans for the first living creature. Was that not a special event in the course of universal history for which some intervention might be justified, just as the Incarnation was a back-up plan to intervene in the course of human destiny?

 

[tonyrey]

This is also what I cannot fathom about Al’s position.

He calls ID false theology. As if God could not and would not and does not intervene in the affairs of the world just by his daily maintenance of the universe. As you say, if he can intervene with “back-up” plans for us, why could he not intervene with “back-up” plans for the first living creature. Was that not a special event in the course of universal history for which some intervention might be justified, just as the Incarnation was a back-up plan to intervene in the course of human destiny?

Those who reject ID are deists rather than theists.

Non-intervention implies nonchalance towards nonentities!

 

[balto]

This is also what I cannot fathom about Al’s position.

He calls ID false theology. As if God could not and would not and does not intervene in the affairs of the world just by his daily maintanance of the universe. As you say, if he can intervene with “back-up” plans for us, why could he not intervene with “back-up” plans for the first living creature. Was that not a special event in the course of universal history for which some intervention might be justified, just as the Incarnation was a back-up plan to intervene in the course of human destiny?

I think the point he is trying to make is that under typical ID assumptions, it’s assumed that the universe functions as a machine and that God kind of steps in to direct the machine in the proper direction when it’s going astray. It’s kind of similar to the deist conception of God where He is a divine watchmaker, only He intervenes periodically to fix the watch when it malfunctions. Compare that to the classical theistic perception which states that God has constantly been sustaining and directing the universe. He doesn’t need “backup” plans because He’s been continuously directing everything to their final ends. I think this is what you are thinking of but the way the ID argument is framed makes it seem like God lets the universe “do its own thing” and periodically stops by to debug it.

 

[balto]

Interestingly, there is the term ‘convergence’ in evolution (to which also Dawkins refers to point out that evolution is not chance in its overall outcome), which means that evolution always finds a way to produce certain things, e.g. eyes have evolved in the animal kingdom around 40 times independently. In other words, while there are many ways, which may be walked randomly, to get to a certain outcome, the outcome eventually will be produced.

Yes, I think this is the view that’s most reconcilable with the classical theist’s view IMO. The fact that randomness is a major element at the smallest scale doesn’t mean the overall end product is random. Incidentally there are a number of computer optimization heuristics that are based on the same principle: use small, randomly-determined incremental moves to perturb a state of the solution, accept all beneficial moves and sometimes accept bad moves with a decreasing tolerance until convergence is reached. The final solution is a designed outcome even though randomness was dominating at the lowest levels.

 

[Skeptic92]

Those who reject ID are deists rather than theists.

Non-intervention implies nonchalance towards nonentities!

This position entails contradiction, there is a reason Thomistic philosophers do not support intelligent design: it’s false. If Intelligent design were to be true, it would entail a change in the will of God, hence changeability which is contrary to the divine nature as absolute simplicity and the divine Impassibility as attested in the Fathers.

Those who support intelligent design are following a framework that is by nature inherently self-contradictory, and ignore the vastly superior cosmological & teleological arguments that do not entail this contradiction.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Very good posts, Balto.

 

[tonyrey]

This position entails contradiction, there is a reason Thomistic philosophers do not support intelligent design: it’s false. If Intelligent design were to be true, it would entail a change in the will of God, hence changeability which is contrary to the divine nature as absolute simplicity and the divine Impassibility as attested in the Fathers.

Those who support intelligent design are following a framework that is by nature inherently self-contradictory, and ignore the vastly superior cosmological & teleological arguments that do not entail this contradiction.

It remains a fact that those who reject Design are deists rather than theists.

How could a loving Father possibly follow a policy of non-intervention?

Why did Jesus ask us to pray for our daily bread?

13"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 14:13

 

[tonyrey]

This position entails contradiction, there is a reason Thomistic philosophers do not support intelligent design: it’s false. If Intelligent design were to be true, it would entail a change in the will of God, hence changeability which is contrary to the divine nature as absolute simplicity and the divine Impassibility as attested in the Fathers.

“In Him we live, move and have our being”.

God does not change but He causes change. He is not static and mechanistic but dynamic and creative. Otherwise the Incarnation - which is an example of direct intervention - would not have occurred.