Participants: Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: CFTF
Program Code: CFTF000002
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00:20 Greetings, Cliff Goldstein here
00:22 and I want to welcome you to "Contending for the Faith." 00:26 This is part of a series 00:28 I'm doing on the questions of faith in science. 00:31 And that's because we live in a world 00:33 were these two forces, 00:35 faith and science are really very prevalent. 00:39 In fact even if we don't have faith, 00:42 well actually we all have faith. 00:45 Even if you don't have faith in what is deemed, 00:49 traditional religious faith, you know, 00:53 you still have faith in whatever you believe, 00:56 and that's because of the nature of knowledge 00:59 or should I say belief itself. 01:02 See look, we are beings 01:04 who are greatly limited in our-- 01:06 limited in our understanding of whatever 01:09 we believe or know or think that we know. 01:12 There are some very powerful and as far as I know 01:16 impenetrable barriers on our knowledge, 01:20 on our beliefs about anything and everything. 01:23 You know, you could believe something, 01:25 believe in it strongly. 01:27 In fact you could say you are certain of it 01:30 and indeed you could have some very very good reasons, 01:34 some valid reasons for believing it's true. 01:37 And it very well might be. 01:40 But the fact is there's always going to be 01:43 some contingency to your beliefs. 01:46 There is always going to be a bit of a gray area. 01:49 A place where doubt can come in, 01:52 where some questions can come in, 01:55 which means that no matter how sure you are of some thing, 01:59 someone else could point out reasons 02:02 why you might be wrong. 02:06 This is just a basic fact of our knowledge, 02:09 which is why I say that every one, 02:11 even atheist too-- especially atheist 02:15 I think have to have faith. 02:17 And I mean, to make the statement 02:20 that no God exist is as much of a faith statement 02:24 as the statement that God does exists. 02:27 Now the atheist might have what he or she believes 02:31 there are some very good reasons for their faith? 02:34 Okay, I mean there are some pretty smart atheists 02:38 who can give some pretty good arguments for their belief. 02:42 It's the same with those who believe in God, 02:45 they can give some pretty good arguments 02:47 for their beliefs as well. 02:49 But in the end whether you believe in God 02:52 or don't believe in God, 02:54 there is still some degree of belief, 02:58 your belief is still to some degree a faith statement. 03:03 And you know, that's no really big deal, 03:05 because I'm trying to prep say 03:07 pretty much that all we believe. 03:10 Everything we believe, 03:12 we have to take to some degree on faith. 03:15 Hence faith is a big part of our life 03:19 and so is science. 03:22 And in fact there's a lot more faith in the process of science 03:26 than most people realize. 03:28 Hence the title of this series faith in science. 03:33 It just doesn't mean 03:34 someone outside of science having faith in it. 03:39 It also means those in the field of science 03:42 needing to work by faith as well. 03:47 Anyway in this series, I look at science 03:50 and some of the issues in science 03:52 and seek to explore what science does, 03:55 what it cannot do, what it claims to do, 03:58 and what it claims to teach us 04:00 and to reveal to us about the world. 04:02 And I also want to look at how should 04:05 we as religious people respond to those claims, 04:09 some of those claims of what science makes for itself. 04:14 Now, I emphasize the word religious, 04:16 because that's an adjective 04:19 to let us know the kind of faith 04:20 I'm talking about here specifically. 04:23 Because believe me, 04:24 there are lot of different kinds of faith out there. 04:27 You know, contrariety what some would have us belief. 04:30 I can still remember Richard Dawkins book 04:32 "The God Delusion." 04:34 And I can remember him writing that science is based on facts 04:37 and reason and evidence and proof, 04:40 while religion is based he said, just on faith. 04:45 Well, of course, if anyone is confronted with the choice 04:48 presented in terms like that, 04:50 which one are they gonna choose, okay. 04:52 But the fact is that Dawkins characterization 04:56 is really a caricature of what the real issues are? 05:00 And we'll deal with this for more in the future for sure. 05:04 Anyway for now, there is this belief, 05:07 there is this belief now that science 05:10 is kind of this higher form of knowledge, 05:14 someone once described that is the sequel mode of knowledge, 05:18 and that it pretty much trumps 05:20 any other kind of belief you have. 05:23 Okay, in other words if you believe in X, 05:26 doesn't really matter what X is. 05:29 Okay, or how are you came to believe in X. 05:31 You believe in X and you think 05:33 you have good reasons for believing in X. 05:37 And you really might have good reasons for it. 05:40 However, someone comes along with the latest 05:43 and greatest data based on laboratory experiment 05:47 and other things done according to what has been called 05:51 the scientific method and the scientific model 05:55 and that person says to you that X is false, 05:59 and we have proved it false in science, 06:03 then you have no choice, do you? 06:05 Any rational person must renounce 06:08 his or her belief in X. 06:10 After all we have science, scientific evidence showing 06:14 that your belief in X is wrong. 06:18 In many ways, there is a strong current 06:22 for this type of thinking in our society today. 06:25 And you know, it's really to a certain degree 06:28 it's understandable, 06:30 and in some cases it might even be just viable. 06:33 Your belief in X might really been misguided. 06:37 And science comes along to show you that it is. 06:41 That's fine, but I want to look at the question. 06:46 Why should we believe what science tells us 06:49 or do we have good reasons at times to question it? 06:53 Even on things that science often declares as certain. 06:57 I want to listen to-- I want you to listen 06:59 to this quote from someone 07:01 who has been a very well known 07:03 and very influential thinker in the previous century, 07:07 his name is Alfred North Whitehead. 07:09 Listen to this quote "Fifty-seven years ago it was 07:14 when I was a young man in the University of Cambridge. 07:17 I was taught science and mathematics 07:19 by brilliant men and I did well in them, 07:23 since the turn of the century I have lived to see every one 07:26 of the basic assumptions of both set aside. 07:31 And yet, in the face of that, 07:33 the discoverers of the new hypotheses 07:36 in science are declaring. 07:38 'Now at least, we have certitude.' 07:43 " Wow, that to me is very very heavy, 07:47 something to really give you something to think about 07:50 especially as we confront the idea, 07:54 that if we have a belief, but science comes along 07:57 and teach us something contrary to it, 07:59 then we have to by fault just give up that belief. 08:04 And I want to look at one particular thing 08:06 regarding the nature of science, 08:10 and what it says to us 08:11 and whether we should accept it or not. 08:14 Have you ever heard the argument, 08:17 well, science works? 08:20 I mean how can we question what science is doing? 08:24 How can we question that science is doing 08:26 anything other than giving us truth, 08:28 giving us truth about what's out there 08:31 when it works so well. 08:32 If we want to go to the moon. 08:34 Okay, and we got to the moon and the science, and science, 08:37 and scientists got us to the moon 08:39 then how can the science be wrong? 08:43 Fill in the blanks. 08:44 I wanted to build the smart phone, 08:46 okay and so we ask science to build us a smart phone, 08:50 and we got a smart phone. 08:51 How could it be wrong? 08:53 We wanted to build a nuke and we ask science to help us 08:57 to build the nuke and lo and behold 08:59 when they drop the little boy over Hiroshima, 09:01 coincidence of coincidence it just happened 09:04 it could explode just as science told us. 09:08 Thus the question is, how could science be wrong? 09:13 Thus, if we believe X and science tells us 09:18 belief in X is wrong. 09:20 How dare we challenge it? 09:25 When Christian theologian 09:27 and of all people Christian theologians 09:29 you think won't be so gullible. 09:32 But He once said, "Christians who fly 09:34 through the heavens in planes 09:36 and speed along the earth in cars, 09:39 who watch television and use electric razors, 09:42 cannot fairly repudiate the conclusions of science. 09:47 Really now, because science allows us 09:51 to fly planes and use electric razors, 09:54 that because it bears practical fruit. 09:57 Now it's the ultimate arbiter of truth. 10:00 Well, at one level that sounds all right, 10:03 but I want you to look at it, 10:05 we're gonna look at this a little more closely. 10:09 Have you ever seen the movie Apollo-13, about the Apollo-13 10:15 those crippled spacecraft going to the moon, 10:17 I remember the reality of it very well, 10:20 and attempt to get it back to the earth 10:22 with the astronauts in one piece. 10:24 Well there's this great scene, 10:27 when the head of NASA played by Ed Harris. 10:30 He stands in front of a group of people, co-workers 10:34 and he has got to chalkboard up there 10:36 and he has got a crude drawing of the earth and the moon, 10:39 and he has a crude drawing of the Apollo spacecraft. 10:43 And basically what he said that they were going to do, 10:47 is he said that they were going to have the spacecraft circle 10:51 behind the moon 10:52 and let the gravity of the moon catch the spacecraft 10:56 and zing ricochet back to earth. 11:00 And you know what? That's what they did. 11:03 And you know, what's even more amazing. 11:05 Hey, folks, it worked. 11:08 Now they were using at that point, 11:11 they were using pure Newtonian physics. 11:16 The physics that Newton developed 11:18 as a young man in the 1600's. 11:21 You know, if somehow they could have 11:23 transported Newton from the 1600's 11:26 and brought him into that room, 11:27 sat him down with the sheet of paper and a pencil 11:31 and giving Newton a few variables 11:33 and probably 10 minutes 11:35 Sir Isaac could have told them given on the computation 11:38 and told them exactly what they needed to do 11:40 in order to get the spacecraft back. 11:44 Okay, talk about wonders of wonders, 11:47 I mean how can we refuse this after all it worked. 11:53 Therefore, air go it must be true. 11:58 This my, friends, 12:00 is one of the grand fallacies and misconceptions 12:04 that people have about science. 12:08 For starters let's go back and look at the Newton again. 12:11 For starters Isaac Newton didn't have any clue 12:16 what gravity was. 12:17 He says, "I feign no hypothesis." 12:20 He had no idea what gravity was or how why these objects 12:25 would attract each other with the force 12:27 that they do proportional to their distances 12:29 and their mass. 12:30 He had no conclude idea why? 12:32 In fact he even said that the idea 12:34 that two forces being able to attract each other like this, 12:38 he said was so absurd, 12:39 he didn't know why anybody would believe it. 12:41 Now Newton was talking about his own theory, 12:44 so he had no idea what it was? 12:48 Secondly, Newton developed his theory based on two premises, 12:54 both of which had been now shown to be false. 12:57 He based his theory on the concept of absolute time 13:01 and absolute space, 13:03 and they were both shown to be wrong. 13:06 Finally read till this last point. 13:09 Newton's theory was-- 13:10 I wouldn't say it has been overturned, 13:13 it has been superseded 13:15 by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. 13:20 Now what is this mean? 13:21 We know, we often hail Newton's work 13:23 on the law of gravity as a class of-- 13:26 account of how science reveals truth to us. 13:29 And yet what? 13:30 Newton had no clue as to what gravity was. 13:34 No clue as to how it worked. 13:36 He built his premises on some false, 13:39 he built his theory on false premises, 13:42 and the theory it worked only in certain circumstances 13:45 and in many ways 13:46 the foundation of the whole theory 13:49 has been superseded by something else. 13:53 This is finding truth, 13:57 all Newton's theory did was make predictions. 14:02 Now if that's all you think that science is for, 14:05 and some people do think that, then this is fine. 14:08 And you know, it was a smashing success 14:11 at least it certain within certain speed limits. 14:15 But this brings up 14:17 a very crucial misconception about science, 14:20 and it has to do with what I talked about earlier. 14:24 Just because the "science works," 14:29 just because we can use it to make 14:32 accurate predictions about the world, 14:35 just because we can use it to make 14:37 electric razors or smart phones, 14:40 does it mean that our understanding 14:42 of it is complete or even correct. 14:47 That theologian who said because science works 14:49 we just can't dismiss it doesn't understand 14:53 some of the severed limits on science. 14:57 Let me give you another example. 15:00 Let's take the Ptolemy view of the cosmos, 15:06 which were 1300 years dominated Western thought. 15:10 This is the idea that the earth sat 15:13 at the center of the universe 15:15 and all the stars, and all the planets 15:18 and everything circled the earth 15:20 in orbit of the earth in perfect circles. 15:24 This belief goes back long even before than Aristotle plotted, 15:28 and it was-- it was believed 15:31 in the western world for centuries, okay. 15:34 But guess what, folks? It worked, it worked. 15:38 If you wanted to sail your ship from Lisbon to Venice 15:43 it would get you there. 15:44 If you wanted to predict 15:46 what some stars would be doing in six months, 15:49 the Ptolemaic worldview enabled you to do just that, 15:53 even though-- come on 15:54 it was completely radically wrong. 15:57 I mean a theory that positive a stationary earth wrong, 16:02 sitting at the center of the universe wrong, 16:05 with everything orbiting it in perfect spheres-- 16:09 prefect circles wrong, 16:11 still enabled people to make accurate predictions, 16:15 and enables you to sail your ship 16:17 from Lisbon to Venice. 16:21 God, that's about as wrong as arguing for a flat earth. 16:26 But you know, and I haven't looked into it, 16:28 but I think it would be kind to fun. 16:31 What kind of accurate predictions 16:33 could somebody make about the earth, 16:34 and what goes on here on the earth 16:37 from a flat earth perspective? 16:40 I'd be willing to bet 16:41 that you could build a system of predictions, 16:43 interpretations based on a flat earth 16:48 that would properly bear 16:49 a certain amount of practical fruit. 16:51 Anyway, the point is out to some degree it would work. 16:56 But can you see my point here, 16:59 just because something works in science, 17:03 just because it makes predictions 17:05 just because-- accurate predictions, 17:07 just because something of a practical value 17:10 can be cashed out of it, doesn't necessarily mean 17:14 the science behind it is correct, it might be. 17:18 And in some cases it probably is, 17:20 but as we've seen it always, always doesn't have to be. 17:25 We are impressed by science and rightly so, 17:29 because science really does give us 17:31 some incredible technology. 17:34 And which you can see how well it works, okay. 17:37 But that's no guarantee that the theory is correct. 17:41 It might be right and we may be have 17:44 great reasons other than its mere accuracy 17:47 to believe it's right, but it might not be. 17:51 Let me give you an example right now in the-- 17:54 right in the forefront of science 17:57 and technology today. 18:00 General relativity and quantum theory 18:02 are two of the most powerful scientific concepts 18:07 and they have been verified 18:09 over and over and over in the 20th century, 18:12 especially quantum theory. 18:14 I've heard they said that quantum theory 18:15 can make prediction so accurate, 18:18 it's like comparing a human hair 18:21 to the width of the continental United States, 18:25 that's how accurate it is. 18:28 And not only do we use quantum theory 18:30 in our cell phones, 18:31 we use general relativity in our GPS's. 18:35 In other word these theories 18:36 not only make accurate predictions 18:39 but they bear very fruitful technology. 18:41 My cell phone, my iPhone uses 18:43 quantum theory and general relativity. 18:48 Now let me read you a quote from physicist Brian Greene, 18:54 in his book the Elegant Universe. 18:57 He talks about these theories and he says they are almost 19:00 unimaginable accurate virtually all predictions made 19:04 by these theories have been correct. 19:07 Okay, so they are making amazingly 19:09 accurate predictions, okay. 19:11 Just like Newton's gravity made some pretty good predictions. 19:16 But then listen to what he writes, 19:19 "As they are currently formulated, 19:23 general relativity and quantum theory 19:25 cannot both be right. 19:28 The two theories underlying 19:30 the tremendous progress of physics 19:33 during the last hundred years are mutually incompatible." 19:39 Wow, that's heavy. 19:42 We have two of the most successful scientific theories, 19:47 that have-- and that have given us 19:49 incredible technology and yet what? 19:52 They are in places incompatible. 19:55 If one is true the other can't be, 19:58 they both can't be right. 20:00 But how can one of them be wrong? 20:02 And how could they even be wrong 20:04 if they give us such accurate predictions 20:06 and give us such powerful technology. 20:10 See don't miss the deeper point here. 20:13 Two of the premier theories of science, 20:18 two of what are considered the greatest-- 20:20 the 20th century's greatest scientific achievements 20:25 and yet what? 20:27 Something is seriously wrong with our understanding 20:31 of either one of them or both of them. 20:35 I find that fascinating. 20:37 They work, they give us predictions 20:39 and yet we know 20:41 that there is something wrong there. 20:43 You know, if you are interested 20:45 there is a great series of lectures, 20:48 from a place called the teaching company called 20:50 Science Wars by Dr. Steven Goldman. 20:54 And if you're interested in this, 20:55 he does his great series of lectures on this. 20:58 but one of the fascinating things 21:00 just he talked about in 1800's 21:03 there were great technical rewards 21:06 were coming from science, 21:07 they only they were building all sorts of widgets 21:10 and all sorts of devices based on this-- 21:12 this science that they had in the 1800's. 21:15 The only problem was by the 1900's 21:18 almost all those scientific theories 21:21 were being overturned. 21:23 In other words, they were said to them 21:26 they're making a great-- 21:27 you're making a widget based on a theory, 21:30 but they are being told, oh by the way 21:32 the theory you have used to make that widget 21:34 we now know is wrong. 21:39 Thus the practical gains from science 21:43 prove only that we understand the science 21:45 well enough, well to get practical gains from it. 21:49 These gains don't do's those gains prove nothing 21:52 about the absolute correctness of the science itself. 21:57 A theory can make great predictions 21:59 and even give us proof full technology 22:04 and still not be giving us 22:06 an accurate depiction of reality. 22:10 This leads to something that has been greatly 22:12 and hotly contested among scientists 22:16 from a couple hundred years 22:17 and they're still debating it today. 22:19 And look the idea is very simple. 22:22 In the 1700-1800's 22:23 there was a big debate over the nature of heat. 22:26 What is heat? 22:27 People came up with different ideas, 22:28 and hate some phlogiston theory, 22:30 the caloric theory. 22:32 Well, in 1822 a Frenchmen came along 22:35 and wrote a book called the analytical theory of heat, 22:38 and the bottom line is he said, it doesn't matter what heat is, 22:43 forget about what heat is, all that matters 22:46 is just can we make predictions? 22:49 Can we use it to do what we want to do? 22:52 Don't worry about what it is? 22:54 And see this gets to a big debate 22:57 in the whole question of science of what science is? 23:02 One group is out there that science is there 23:05 to tell us how the world really is. 23:08 It's out there to teach us truth. 23:11 If that's true though, then as we saw 23:14 Newton's famous laws of gravity, 23:18 Newton's famous law that we all learned, 23:20 if that's what science is supposed to do, 23:23 then Newton's theory failed completely. 23:28 On the other hand other say please science does not 23:32 and cannot tell us what's really out there. 23:35 That can't tell us what is truth, that's nonsense. 23:38 All science could do is help us make predictions 23:42 about the world and how it works. 23:44 If it tells you that, you have X 23:47 and if you do such and such of X you get Y. 23:50 We know if you have X 23:51 and you bring Y to you'll get Z, 23:54 that's all it can do. 23:56 It can tell us what, but it can't tell us why? 24:00 At least not in any absolute sense. 24:05 So right of the bat here we see that science even 24:09 something as successful as Newton's law of gravity, 24:13 which allows us to make incredible predictions, 24:17 isn't really quite cut out, isn't really quite every thing 24:22 that we are led to believe it was. 24:25 And it's fascinating that, and so basic a question 24:29 as to what science does at a very foundational level 24:33 there is a great debate among scientists, 24:36 then and philosophers and scientists themselves. 24:38 They don't even agree on what science really does. 24:42 And trust me, this is one only 24:44 one of the many unsolved debates likes this 24:47 that remain in this whole area today. 24:51 Does science really tell us about the world? 24:54 Does it really tell us truth? 24:57 Or does it simply tell us how the world acts? 25:00 What it does under such and such conditions? 25:04 These are two very different things too. 25:07 Now, I want to be careful here. 25:10 I don't want to go too far the other way 25:13 and you get into this radical postmodernism 25:18 and this whole idea that science is this-- 25:22 it's really just a power tool of the elite 25:24 to oppress minorities and women and anything 25:29 that are in the in crowd, 25:30 I mean they-- I once read where some body once did 25:34 a feminist critic of mathematics. 25:37 Can you imagine? 25:38 A feminist critic of mathematics please, 25:42 we are not going down that road, 25:43 that's getting too far. 25:45 Somebody even came up with wrote a paper 25:47 talk once called toward a feminist algebra. 25:52 I mean, please I don't want to go that far. 25:54 I don't want to get down to that extreme. 25:58 But what I want to show in this series 26:00 is that we don't have to automatically bow down 26:03 and kowtow and surrender in every belief we have, 26:08 when somebody declares that science teaches it 26:12 or that the science works and so on and so forth, okay. 26:17 You know, but at the same time 26:18 we don't want to go too far the other way. 26:21 It's not just the bunch of happy coincidences 26:24 that the work on the Manhattan progress, 26:27 you know, that they said 26:28 they wanted to build a nuclear bomb 26:30 and sure enough, kaboom, they built the nuclear bomb. 26:33 There is no question science I believe 26:36 is telling us something about the real world. 26:42 But there is an independent reality out there, 26:46 regardless of how subjectively 26:48 we interact with it and seek to understand it. 26:52 And to say that science deals with reality, 26:54 yet to say that science deals with reality. 26:58 Doesn't make it infallible and absolutely correct 27:02 in its understanding of reality. 27:05 If you study the history of science 27:09 and it shows us that all through history time 27:13 and again science has not been correct. 27:17 Even when the science works, 27:20 even when you can get fruitful technology from it, 27:25 to build devices travel, make predictions, 27:29 and it turned out we could do that all these theories 27:33 that are now tossed on the junk pile. 27:37 Thus I think we could safely assume 27:41 that some of what science tells us today is correct. 27:46 And that some of the science 27:47 even that science that works us correct. 27:50 But I think we could safely assume too, 27:53 that some what the science tells us today, 27:56 things that come with the imprimatur of science, 28:00 even things that they say are scientifically proven., 28:03 even things that science does that works, 28:07 we can have all that and yet it's very possible 28:11 it could be wrong. 28:12 Something we as believers need to ever keep in mind. |
Revised 2015-01-08