Trump and Harvard

[canpakes]

I have always thought of science as a method of inquiry. I don't understand how actual science is set against religion in this way. It seems to me to spring from ignorance and fear.

Is this just a byproduct of the human mind finding its greatest comfort in what it already seems to ‘know’?

For millennia, all people knew were religious theories, as taught to them by their parents and elders. Even after science started to ‘explain’ things from a few hundred years back, we still first teach our children about our familiar gods - and linking that to our identity - long before we expose them to scientific explanations. Crudely expressed … how comfortable they are at uprooting and replacing that first religious programming for some simple science ideas might then determine if they see science as incompatible with their core religious beliefs later, and that seems to be a root biological function than solely an intellectual one. Sort of like the difference betweeen BIOS and RAM, for lack of a better way to put it.

[Physics Guy]

Science is a method of inquiry, exactly. I'm not even sure it's any very specific method of inquiry, other than being hard-nosed. Physics is kind of the poster-child science, and physicists are generally nonplussed by discussions of scientific method. I think we all subscribe to Feynman's view that the scientific method of physics is, "no holds barred."

My definition of physics is that it is the study of the simple things. The things that everyone would obviously do, if they could, we can do, so we do. The things that other people have to try to do are at least as good as anything we could do, on their questions. Mostly they are much better things, for the questions they have to ask. The fact that physics has prestige as an inherently impressive subject is a measure of the limits of human intelligence.

In an ideal world I think that everyone would learn quite a lot of physics, to set a standard for how well it is possible to understand something. A lot of celebrated answers in other fields wouldn't even count as a well-posed question in physics. At the same time, in an ideal world every physicist would have to take some substantial humanities courses, to learn how hard it can be to see what the real questions are.

For a natural scientist to disparage the humanities is only a confession of ignorance. The methods of science are not magic powers that work for every important question. The fact that they work for any questions at all is an important fact, but they work for a dismayingly narrow class of questions.

[Gunnar]

Science is not a pagan faith. Science is not a religion.

There is faith in science. Once you read it in textbooks, science is settled, but in creating that knowledge, science needs faith. People have to spend years of their lives pursuing ideas in faith that the pursuit is worthwhile. The hypothesis might be wrong, but it has to be wrong for good reason, we have to learn something worthwhile, or I have wasted my life, and I've wasted years of smart young peoples' lives, making them do this stuff for their PhDs.

This is not the kind of faith that makes anyone confident, though. This is fear and trembling. We're going to look at reality and see. If we're wrong, we'll be wrong.

Some popular science writing tries to describe current research—as it should. Often, though, it exaggerates how confident we should be that the current hypothesis is on the right track. That's an easier story to tell.

When popular science instead describes well-accepted theories, however, it often fails badly to explain why we accept them. It can be hard to explain that. The sheer volume of information involved overwhelms us. Humans are not very smart, and the trains of thought that lead to reality are hard for meat brains to follow. So popular accounts often fall to the temptation to appeal to authority, and fail to tell the longer but more compelling story of why we really ought to believe these conclusions.

Popular science often is a religion. Actual science is not.

The impulse to reject the pseudo-religious authority of popular science is a good scientific impulse. You have to wait for the answer, though, and listen, and think. There really is a good answer.

To be a scientist you need, first of all, the hard-nosed scepticism of a used car buyer. Secondly, you need patience. You have to be willing to look and listen to a lot of stuff, and thresh it through, and not expect truth to be a conveniently packaged soundbite. Your jumped-up-monkey brain has pathetically small working memory. You are trying to follow God's thoughts, and God isn't YouTube. God makes things to work, not to be easy for you.

I respect and find great wisdom in that perspective. Thanks for posting that! Einstein famously said that "Science without faith is lame, religion without science is blind." I believe that faith is what motivates people to justify and act on their convictions, whether right or wrong, and that without it we would likely never accomplish anything significant, whether good or bad, but it needs to be tempered and subordinated by science and objective evidence, not the other way around. Subordinating science and objective evidence to religion and subjective faith will inevitably lead to creation and perpetuation of error and injustice, while the honest and dedicated pursuit of evidentiary science is inherently, in the long run, self-correcting and the most (if not the only) reliable way of discovering and correcting our mistakes and foolish biases.

[Gunnar]

BYU very much took notice of that. It was one of the reasons BYU abandoned its apartheid race policy. Trump, on the other hand, wants to curtail inclusiveness at Harvard.

The very fact that the Church and its University ever had an apartheid race policy or forbade the ordination of blacks to the priesthood is one of the strongest justifications I can think of for concluding that it neither is nor ever was divinely inspired.

[Kishkumen]

I have always thought of science as a method of inquiry. I don't understand how actual science is set against religion in this way. It seems to me to spring from ignorance and fear.

Is this just a byproduct of the human mind finding its greatest comfort in what it already seems to ‘know’?

For millennia, all people knew were religious theories, as taught to them by their parents and elders. Even after science started to ‘explain’ things from a few hundred years back, we still first teach our children about our familiar gods - and linking that to our identity - long before we expose them to scientific explanations. Crudely expressed … how comfortable they are at uprooting and replacing that first religious programming for some simple science ideas might then determine if they see science as incompatible with their core religious beliefs later, and that seems to be a root biological function than solely an intellectual one. Sort of like the difference betweeen BIOS and RAM, for lack of a better way to put it.

Great thoughts, canpakes. The unfortunate pitting of religion against science does take its toll. If people are convinced the two are somehow incompatible and in conflict, then people will be motivated to choose one over the other. The results are clear and disastrous.

[Chap]

Science is not a pagan faith. Science is not a religion.

There is faith in science. Once you read it in textbooks, science is settled, but in creating that knowledge, science needs faith. People have to spend years of their lives pursuing ideas in faith that the pursuit is worthwhile. The hypothesis might be wrong, but it has to be wrong for good reason, we have to learn something worthwhile, or I have wasted my life, and I've wasted years of smart young peoples' lives, making them do this stuff for their PhDs.

This is not the kind of faith that makes anyone confident, though. This is fear and trembling. We're going to look at reality and see. If we're wrong, we'll be wrong.


[...]


To be a scientist you need, first of all, the hard-nosed scepticism of a used car buyer. Secondly, you need patience. You have to be willing to look and listen to a lot of stuff, and thresh it through, and not expect truth to be a conveniently packaged soundbite. Your jumped-up-monkey brain has pathetically small working memory. You are trying to follow God's thoughts, and God isn't YouTube. God makes things to work, not to be easy for you.

I respect and find great wisdom in that perspective. Thanks for posting that! Einstein famously said that "Science without faith is lame, religion without science is blind." I believe that faith is what motivates people to justify and act on their convictions, whether right or wrong, and that without it we would likely never accomplish anything significant, whether good or bad, but it needs to be tempered and subordinated by science and objective evidence, not the other way around. Subordinating science and objective evidence to religion and subjective faith will inevitably lead to creation and perpetuation of error and injustice, while the honest and dedicated pursuit of evidentiary science is inherently, in the long run, self-correcting and the most (if not the only) reliable way of discovering and correcting our mistakes and foolish biases.

It is worth noting the context of that often-quoted sentence of Einstein, which was part of his 1954 essay "Science and Religion". Here it is:

“Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

For more on this, see:

Jerry A. Coyne
December 5, 2013, The New Republic
Einstein’s Famous Quote About Science and Religion Didn’t Mean What You Were Taught

Einstein is not suggesting for a moment that science cannot function without religious belief - simply that a scientist is, as PhysicsGuy indicates, unlikely to slog away at the labour of theory construction and experiments testing unless they believe that all their effort is likely to lead them forward in the quest for rational insight into the workings of our universe.

You can call that 'faith' if you like, but it is a faith far distant from religious faith. If a young scientist was to ask their professor why they should consider committing themselves to a life of research, the professor can give them example after example of factually verifiable cases where the effort of scientific investigation has objectively paid off big-time. The conclusion that scientific work often leads to deeper understanding is based on evidence that any rational person can evaluate - there is nothing like "Read the Book of Mormon over and over again and keep praying to know it is true, and then you will have a warm glow inside that tells you it is true".

[Gunnar]

“Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

For more on this, see:

Jerry A. Coyne
December 5, 2013, The New Republic
Einstein’s Famous Quote About Science and Religion Didn’t Mean What You Were Taught

Einstein is not suggesting for a moment that science cannot function without religious belief - simply that a scientist is, as PhysicsGuy indicates, unlikely to slog away at the labour of theory construction and experiments testing unless they believe that all their effort is likely to lead them forward in the quest for rational insight into the workings of our universe.

You can call that 'faith' if you like, but it is a faith far distant from religious faith. If a young scientist was to ask their professor why they should consider committing themselves to a life of research, the professor can give them example after example of factually verifiable cases where the effort of scientific investigation has objectively paid off big-time. The conclusion that scientific work often leads to deeper understanding is based on evidence that any rational person can evaluate - there is nothing like "Read the Book of Mormon over and over again and keep praying to know it is true, and then you will have a warm glow inside that tells you it is true".

Yes, Chap. I already found, read, understood and agree with the same references you cited above. I also acknowledge that taken together, they are more comprehensive than the abbreviated quotes I cited in my post on the subject. I thank you for providing that more comprehensive understanding of the issue.

[Some Schmo]

I like the way Dawkins drew a distinction between faith and trust in The God Delusion. Faith is believing because you want to believe but have no good reason to believe. Trust is not knowing but believing based on past experience.

I would say science is largely about trust, not faith.

[Gunnar]

I like the way Dawkins drew a distinction between faith and trust in The God Delusion. Faith is believing because you want to believe but have no good reason to believe. Trust is not knowing but believing based on past experience.

I would say science is largely about trust, not faith.

I agree. In Hebrews 11:1 it says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This, to me, is a prime example of a scripture that contains both wisdom and nonsense in the very same sentence. I can accept first part that "faith is the substance of things hoped for", but I reject the second part that faith is "the evidence of things not seen." Faith when tempered by evidence and reason might be more valuable and satisfying than evidence alone and can lead to discovery of further evidence, but faith by itself is neither evidence nor an adequate substitute for evidence. An analogy I like to use is a place value numerical notation system using ones and zeros. A one by itself has a positive value of "1" but zero by itself signifies "0." If we put a "0" to the right of a "1", we get "10" which signifies a greater value than the "1" by itself. But if we have only "1" we still have something, whereas if we have only "0", it signifies nothing, no matter how many "0's" we have. Similarly, if all we have is blind faith unsupported by evidence and sound reason, we really have nothing.

[canpakes]

I would say science is largely about trust, not faith.

I like that. Faith may end up being what you want or hope will happen, whereas trust is what is expected to occur as the result of, say, the rules of physics, regardless of whether anyone wants it to, or not.

As example, tomorrow is happening, no matter how much I pray that it doesn’t.