Thursday, November 19, 2009

Science and Religion

"Scientific Tradition: Methodology–
"In it’s laudable insistence upon experience, accurate observation and verifiability, science has placed great emphasis upon measurement. To measure something is to experience it in a certain dimension *see Flatland!*, a dimension in which we can make observations of great accuracy which are repeatable by others. The use of measurement has enabled science to make enormous strides in the understanding of the material universe. But by virtue of its success, measurement has become a kind of scientific idol. The result is an attitude on the part of many scientist of not only skepticism but outright rejection of what cannot be measured. It is as if they were to say, "What we cannot measure, we cannot know; there is no point in worrying about what we cannot know; therefore, what cannot be measured is unimportant and unworthy of our observation." Because of this attitude many scientists exclude from their serious consideration all matters that are–or seem to be–intangible. Including, of course, the matter of God." (Pg 226, The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck)
"This beginning possibility of unification of religion and science is the most significant and exciting happening in our intellectual life today. But it is only just beginning. For the most part both the religious and the scientific remain in self-imposed narrow frames of reference, each still largely blinded by its own particular type of tunnel vision. Examine, for instance, the behavior of both in regard to the questions of miracles. Even the idea of a miracle is anathema to most scientists. Over the past four hundred years or so science has elucidated a number of "natural laws", such as "Two objects attract each other in proportion to their mass and in inverse proportion to the distance between them" or "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed." But having been successful in discovering natural laws, scientists in their world view have made an idol out of the concept of natural law, just as they made an idol out of the notion of measurement. The result is that any event that cannot be explained by currently understood natural law is assumed to be unreal by the scientific establishment. In regard to methodology, science has tended to say, "What is very difficult to study doesn’t merit study." And in regard to natural law, science tends to say, "What is very difficult to understand doesn’t exist." (The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, pg 228)

1 comment:

  1. My dad commented: Your point about measurement is interesting. The same science that idolizes measurement also ascribes to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and recognizes the related Hawthorne Effect. Both of these state that you cannot know or measure something precisely. The first has to do with measuring the location and the momentum of something (you cannot know both precisely at the same time) and the second states that the act of observing (measuring) something effects the object being observed. Basically, if science were to carry these to a logical conclusion, they would realize that the expected exactness of scientific knowledge is not possible, therefore, the ensuing doubt and uncertainty leaves open the possible existence of that which cannot be explained scientifically.

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