A Challenge

Religion and science have always been in conflict, and I believe they always will be. There are those who feel that religion and science can co-exist peacefully, that the two answer different questions in life and that they need not be in conflict. But religion is the very anti-thesis of science because the two go about answering life's questions in entirely different ways. Religion relies on revelation, usually to one individual, for life's answers, whereas science relies on repeatable, independant, unbiased observations for the answers to life's questions. The two are not compatable. Throughout history science, as it slowly advances knowledge, has completely crushed the accepted "truths" of religion, and continues to do so today. That millions of people reject evolution only because it threatens their religion only shows the immense power of science to free us from falsehoods of religion.

But I would go even one step further and state that science offers the answers to every question for which there is an answer. I submit that any question for which there actually is definite answer, science is capable, given enough time and resources, to discover the answer. Some questions are not answerable by science, but they are only the questions that do not have an answer at all, such as: "Is blue or green a better colour?", or "Does tea taste better than coffee?" These are purely philosophical questions that are only answerable by each individual depending on their particular preference. Science, obviously, can answer many fundamental questions about the natural world around us, such as: "How do kidneys work?" and "How did the universe begin?". But many people would dispute the ability of science to answer questions such as: "Why are we here?", and "Where does morality come from?", claiming instead that these questions are only answerable by religion. I vehemently disagree. If there is an answer to the question of where morality comes from then science, not religion, will provide the answer. The question of why we humans exist may not have a philosophical answer. We exist because of a process of evolution that resulted in our species' development and survival. That is all. There is no greater answer to that question. Many people think there should be a deeper answer to the question, but by wishing for deeper meaning they are simply dismissing the uncomfortable reality of the only answer.

My challenge is this. I challenge anyone to provide a question, for which there is a definite answer, which science cannot provide an answer.

The Limits of Science...Part I

My blog writing is suffering. I have blogger constipation. Not that I don't have things to write about, but I am having a hard time finding the time at the moment. Other things in life are keeping me very busy and away from writing. I realize that is the death march for any blogger. Blogs need to be regular in order to draw any interest. If anyone is visiting my blog on a regular basis (I'm still not sure if that is happening), they are likely getting bored and tired of checking back and seeing no new posts. I apologize and hope to find more time in the near future.

I did have an interesting discussion about science on Facebook  recently. A friend of mine had commented about the recent Nobel prize winner announcements and rhetorically pondered what science will discover next. (This friend is a Christian, as far as I can classify, but also very open minded, knowledgeable, and science-friendly). A friend of his, someone I don't know, commented on his status that he was fed up with science and scientists. This person ranted about all the problems that scientists had not been able to solve yet such as poverty, third-world hunger, wars, the common cold, etc. I thought this was an excellent representation of the pervasive public misunderstanding of science. I added a comment about how his rant really illustrated this misunderstanding of science. I pointed out that science is capable of any discovery so long as enough time and resources are available, but that that does not mean that scientists are capable of solving every human problem that is considered inconvenient. Lumping the common cold in with world peace, for example, is not only like comparing apples and oranges, it is more like comparing apples and Bengali tigers. One is solvable by science (assuming there is a solution) given enough time and resources. The other is not because it does not involve a process of discovery. There is not some phenomenon that would solve hunger and bring world peace if only it were discovered.

The interesting part of the Facebook conversation then began with my original friend. We had a bit of a discussion about the limits of science. This friend pointed out that science has not been about to solve certain things such as the existence of angelic beings and dark matter. Again, I pointed out that the two examples raised are in completely different categories. Given enough time and resources, the whole story about dark matter (and all particles in the universe) is solvable by science since it is a real phenomenon in the natural world. Angelic beings are not a natural phenomenon in the real world (at least, we don't have any evidence that they are), and therefore their existence will never be solved by science. My friend then rightly pointed out that scientists have often been wrong in the past, but the scientific process corrects itself as it goes along, and tried to produce the neat trick of then lumping super-natural phenomenon into that category. Perhaps in the future scientists will find out that they have been wrong about angelic beings. This warping of the limits of science is very common and pervasive. It is by using a bit of truth about science (the process, applied imperfectly by biased scientists sometimes produces error), people often try to point out that science is limited in its ability to discover knowledge in the natural world. It is not. My friend went on to point out a few examples of the usual questions that people think science cannot answer such as, "Why are we here?" and "What should we do?". The first question, of course, has been more or less answered 150 years ago by Darwin. The answer isn't always one that people like or are comfortable with, so the answer gets ignored or rejected and people claim that science cannot answer it. The second question simply needs qualifying before science can answer it, since it isn't a reasonable question as it stands. "What should we do...if we want more elephants in the world?" is a very answerable questions in science. "What should we do...in general with our lives?" probably isn't. This IS an example of the limits of science. Science cannot answer questions for which there is no answer. But, for any real phenomenon, science can provide an answer, given enough time and resources.

Evidence-Chasing

Anyone who knows me or has read much of my writing knows that I try to put value on evidence. I always have in my daily life, and have always tried to approach life in a rational way. My logical, evidence-based approach to life is probably just part of my personality, and one that does occasionally drive people around me a bit crazy. Humans are emotional beings. We often make snap illogical decisions in life that have profound consequences. I’m no exception, I’m still an emotional person too, but I do think I have a more evidence-based approach to life than most. This is probably the biggest factor in eventually leading me to leave the Christian faith. Sometimes I think people think this means I think I am always right. It doesn’t, of course, though I can understand why I sometimes come across that way. When you try to align your beliefs and opinions with evidence, and then back them up with evidence when challenged, it can appear that you are close minded because you’ve already examined your positions quite carefully. Often, though, I’ll realize that my position on something is not evidence-based and then I must alter my position.

One of the very difficult things to do in life, however, is to really objectively examine evidence without bias. We all have biases, and we are all tempted all the time to try to make our observations of evidence fit our conclusion or opinion about something. On a simple everyday level this happens all the time in the world of sports. Any fan of a sports team will typically make observations fit their held belief that their team is best. This might manifest itself as bias in observations of officiating during a match, or ignoring evidence that doesn’t support a held opinion that a particular favoured athlete is the best at what they do. In the world of sports this probably doesn’t matter so much and does lead to the exciting, passionate, and endless debates about who really is the better team or player. However, in the world of science or religion, this is not a good approach. Making evidence fit a preconceived opinion or belief is disastrous in science as it can easily lead to false interpretation of results or findings. This happens all the time in science, but fortunately the process of modern science is relatively good at catching mistakes. An example is the “finding” some years ago that child vaccinations lead to an increased risk of autism. In 1998 The Lancet, a highly regarded medical journal, published a study that found an increased risk of autism among children exposed to routine vaccinations. It is generally accepted now that this is not the case, and that the lead scientist had allowed his biases to cause a misinterpretation and some bad science. The Lancet has since retracted the publication, but unfortunately this mistake has had major implications in the health of many young children as their parents have foolishly avoided vaccinating their kids against some diseases that are easily preventable. This is an example of some major consequences of a relatively minor bit of evidence-chasing.

In religion too, this sort of thing happens. Sometimes the consequences are even more profound. Sometimes the result of evidence-chasing is that thousands of children are raised to believe something that is not true, and perhaps even worse, to turn into evidence-chasers themselves (think of the common rejection of evolutionary biology in high schools in the U.S., for example). To someone with an education in science, spotting evidence-chasing among things like creationist opinions is relatively easy, but it can crop up as a much more subtle way that might initially appear like authentic rationalism even when it is not. I recently encountered an example of this in an exchange I had with someone on the internet with respect to their writing. In fairness to this person, they will remain anonymous as I have not gained their permission to use their opinions in this example. My example requires a bit of background.

There are a number of websites that act as forums for people who have left Christianity and embraced agnosticism, atheism, or who have simply stopped believing in the god of their upbringing. On one such website recently, a Christian started to make comments. He then reported on his experience on this forum on his own blog in an article that talked about his experiences in an atheist community. I felt that his post on the blog was deliberately intended to be a bit inflammatory and deliberately designed to not give people (“the atheists”) on the webpage the benefit of the doubt. A photograph was attached to the blog, one which showed a large crowd of people (the majority of whom were incidentally non-white; Time magazine’s O.J. Simpson legacy of skin darkening sadly lives on) shouting and holding their hands in the air with thumbs pointed down. I can’t imagine for a moment that the photo is either a group of atheists or a group of former Christians. It is clearly just a group of people protesting something loudly. I think the photograph was attached with the intention of supporting the overall impression that “atheists” (it was not a group of atheists per se that the blog author had engaged with, but a mix of former Christians) are unreasonable, loud people who like can't be reasoned with, much like any large group of protesters. To be fair, there were a number of impolite and unreasonable comments made towards this person on the web page forum, but I felt they were done out of frustration at a persistently dogmatic point of view. Again, the web page is not an atheist website and a number of the people he engaged with were not atheists. This was pointed out to him a number of times by various people making comments on his blog but, as far as I know, he never acknowledged the error or misrepresentation.

The crux of his blog post was five points about atheists that he summarizes from his experience on the (non-atheist) web page. As you can see, some Christians have a real problem distinguishing an atheist from anyone who isn’t a Christian. Briefly then, his five summary points of the views of atheists, where:

1. Christians are idiots.
2. Atheists are morally superior to Christians.
3. God is evil.
4. The Bible is a bunch of bunk.
5. Anyone who would question non-belief is not wanted.

I don’t need to go into the details of his explanations of these five points because they are not really what I want to discuss, though he does attempt to justify them reasonably and back them up through his experiences in the exchanges he had. My point is not to refute or critique his blog posting in general, but rather to establish the background of some serious evidence-chasing at the end.

I wrote a comment expressing my point of view on these five points as follows:

I would agree with points 2 - 4. Points 1 and 5 I would disagree with.

1. Christians are not idiots. An idiot is typically considered to be someone who is mentally deficient. It is further normally intended as a derogatory term, though technically it need not be. To claim that a large group of people are idiots (presumably of lower I.Q.) based on their religious beliefs is inaccurate and likely easy to disprove. I have met many highly intelligent Christians and many atheists of lower than average intelligence. What I would say about Christians, though sweeping generalizations are often inherently unfair, is that they are typically irrational, ignorant (often deliberately so), illogical, and very dogmatic, specifically when it comes to thinking about and discussing their religious beliefs. Unlike idiocy, none of those descriptions are derogatory. They are simply descriptions. But, in my pretty extensive experiences in relating to Christians and in having been one myself, I would state that the most accurate description of Christians is that they are typically not actually interested in discovery and truth, but rather in making any piece of information gathered to fit a preconceived conclusion and world view that they have decided from the outset will never fundamentally change.

2. Yes, with a qualifier. I would say more accurately that atheism is morally superior to Christianity rather than comparing individuals. One need not delve into the darker parts of Yahweh's character and instructions to decipher how horrendously evil his morality is. One need only think of the notion of teaching children about hell without a shred of evidence to support it.

3. Yes, assuming that you are talking about the Biblical god Yahweh. God, of course, doesn't exist as an entity, but the concept of him is horrifically evil, and his entire raison d'etre (within the Bible, not in reality) is to allow people to control other people. That in itself is an evil notion. I can't imagine anyone reading the Bible with an open mind and coming to any other reasonable conclusion. If humans behaved in the way God condoned in the Bible, they would make Hitler look like a normal political leader.

4. Without doubt. The Biblical contradictions with established science are astounding, sometimes amusingly so. The book was clearly written by men who had the knowledge you would expect of the times that it was written. Many events in the book are so physically impossible that they have to be taken as allegory by any rational human. Once you start taking the book as figuratively then you realize that they whole thing can be discarded as fiction. Further, the contradictions within the book itself make it completely unbelievable.

5. Certainly not. Questioning anything and everything is always a good idea. Though, in practice I'm not sure how you question non-belief in a phenomenon. A more logical approach is to question belief. I don't believe in the tooth fairy, but I also don't feel any need to question why I don't believe in her. The question never has reason to enter my consciousness. If someone presented themselves to me as an honest believer in the tooth-fairy and presented some evidence in support, then I would examine the evidence and my position. Same with Christianity and God. But I have yet to see any evidence ever presented in support of the existence of the Biblical God.

Now we finally leave the background and get to the real point of evidence-chasing. In response, the individual in question stated:

Thanks for the comment; it seemed very well-thought-out.  One question for you... in my short amount of time studying these things (I'm trying to start with fundamental scientific questions about God and atheism and the existence of god before I delve into questions about Christianity more deeply), I've run into several strong points of evidence about the existence of a god (not necessarily about the Christian God).  How do you deal with these issues:

1. The laws of nature: that nature obeys laws (and has regularities) is evidence that there is a God.
2. The existence of the cosmos: that there exists any universe at all, and that it is fine-tuned for the existence of life, is evidence that there is a God.
3. The presence of life: that there is life at all is evidence that there is a God.  Scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated in the early 1980s the probability of life forming, and placed the odds at one in 10^40,000.
4. Human consciousness: The existence of consciousness in humans is something that science cannot explain.

The first three of those questions were things that Antony Flew cited as reasons he stopped being an atheist, after years of being a prominent atheist, and started believing in a god (deistic).  The last question is just one that I have tacked on, because it's something that troubles me.

These are things that I cannot yet reconcile with an atheistic viewpoint, and I wonder how you've answered them?

As you can see, this is no run-of-the-mill Christian evidence denier that we’re dealing with. This is not someone whose first attempt at debunking atheism is to run to the tired old arguments in support of creationism. Learning to examine the evidence and then form your conclusions is relatively simple when dealing with things like Noah’s flood or talking donkeys, and at first glance you might be tempted to think this individual has genuinely examined the evidence and finds a few major pieces of evidence in support of a god. But, this is nothing more than basic evidence-chasing yet again. My response to these four points:

Perhaps I can assume from your response that you accept that lack of evidence is a valid reason to reject the notion of deities, and your position is that there is evidence and therefore you accept the notion of a god. In response to your four points:

1. I don’t see how the laws of nature are evidence that there is a god. Regularities occur in nature. There is gravity where there is mass. So what? Why does that mean there is a god?

2. We know a lot about the origins of the universe, but we still know precious little about it compared to what remains to be known. Lack of understanding of the origins does not logically provide evidence that the origins were magic (see my comparisons below to phenomena that used to seem like magic to less knowledgeable humans).

3. Hoyle’s numbers are widely rejected by mainstream science. Hoyle also believed that life did not originate on earth but came about by panspermia which is not scientifically supported. But even if you accept that the probability of life forming is slim, life did form. Therefore it must be both physically possible and statistically possible because we do know that it happened. Looking around us and saying that we’re so unlikely to exist that there must be a god who put us here is to go about it backwards. We are here, we know how life evolves given the right conditions, and therefore the probability is, by definition, within the realm of possibility.

4. As with your first point, I fail to see how human consciousness is evidence for a god. I would disagree that science cannot explain it. Neuroscience has a lot to say about the nature of human consciousness, as does evolution. That we have self awareness, prior knowledge of our own death, language, etc., are all within the process of human
evolution.

Even if you don’t accept my explanations point by point, they can all also be dismissed outright since none of these issues is specific evidence for a god, they are simply problems some people have with the, as yet, partly unexplained. Two analogies to help explain what I mean. Firstly, if we were having this conversation several thousand years ago, similar points you might raise as evidence of a god could be: occasionally the earth moves uncontrollably and randomly; sometimes healthy people suddenly and randomly get sick and die; on some nights huge flashes of light shoot from the sky and destroy things on earth, therefore there must be a god. In other words, I perceive all four points as essentially the same argument: we can’t fully explain certain things yet, therefore there must be a god responsible for these things. Secondly, suppose I was having this conversation with someone who believed we are all living within a computer programme much like the movie The Matrix. They might logically try to use all the same four points in support of their belief. In other words, there is no specificity towards deities in your points. Not to mention narrowing it down to a specific god such as the Christian god.

As you can see from my response, I point out that these four points are nothing more than a modern day exasperation at gaps in our scientific understanding. They are nothing more than a modern day version of the Ancient Greeks' formation of a Poseidon hypothesis resulting from observations of ocean storms. The point about Hoyle in particular is classic evidence-chasing. This individual effectively goes about his search for evidence to support his conclusion (that life could not have happened without the intervention of a deity) by wondering: “There must be a scientist out there somewhere who supports this notion. Ah yes, Hoyle, he’ll do.” Rather than examining all the evidence about the beginnings of life, examining how Hoyle’s theories were received in the scientific community, and realizing that he is clinging to one piece of false evidence in support of a pet theory rather than vice versa. So far the conversation has ended at this point and I’ve had no further response.

So, evidence-chasing comes at all levels of sophistication. It can crop up in conversation between two NBA fans in support of their pet favourite team, it can crop up in the study of vaccinations and health published at the highest levels of science, and it can crop up in a personal discussion involving the same old tired process of trying to find a reason to support your conclusion that god exists.

Dichotomy of Views on Evidence

Does God exist? It is a question that almost everyone must have asked of themselves at some point. From a scientist’s point of view it is an inherently unanswerable question. Disproving a hypothesis for which there is no scientific test is impossible. That it is unanswerable does not increase the likelihood of God’s existence, however. There are many inherently unanswerable questions in life. By definition, a research question can only be answered if one is able to gather data and test hypotheses. This is not possible of the question of God’s existence. (Actually some have attempted to address this as a research question by establishing a controlled study on the effects of prayer on those suffering from ill health. And, while I personally think this type of approach is a waste of resources and amounts to hypothesis chasing, it perhaps has some validity in addressing the overall question. Christians, of course, argue that scientific tests on God like that are invalid because of what amounts to a supernatural Hawthorne effect!).

There seems to be a continuum of views amongst humans in terms of the requirement for evidence to support belief in God. On the one extreme are believers who essentially require no evidence whatsoever for their belief in God. In fact, some believers state that their belief despite the lack of evidence is actually a sign of strong faith, which can only be taken as a good thing. On the other extreme are many atheists and scientists who reject the notion of deities due to a complete lack of evidence. Many people seem to lie somewhere in the middle, generally living their lives without being entirely convinced of the existence of God. Occasionally when something inexplicable happens or they lose a loved one or have a near death experience, they feel “something” and put it down to some sort of spirituality. Many people seem willing to sort of throw out their normal expectations of evidence in the face of adversity and whisper a prayer on the off chance that God does exist and might help them out in a pinch. Many shrug and accept that there is no evidence for God, but are also very quick to point out to atheists that they also can’t prove God doesn’t exist, so both positions are equally likely. How wrong this last statement is. I probably don’t, at this point, need to delve into all the limitless analogies of other things that cannot either be proven or disproved, yet which most people are perfectly willing to dismiss (fairies, invisible unicorns, etc.). While this is simply another example of the inconsistency of logic in many people’s minds when dealing specifically with the notion of God, there is another point I wish to make in support of the atheist’s point of view.

I find myself firmly on the skeptical end of this continuum. Why? In short, because the onus is on those making a claim to provide evidence, whether applying to the topic of God or any other claim. Think of our legal system. Do we require anything less than evidence before conviction when one is accused of a crime. How bizarre and wrong it would be if you faced accusations in court and the judge announced that there is no proof you didn’t commit the crime so you are equally likely to be guilty as innocent. I remember, following the verdict at the conclusion of the drawn out O.J. Simpson double murder trial in the mid-1990s, one of Simpson’s lawyers, Robert Shapiro, stating in an interview that the American legal system erred on the side of innocence. That the burden of proof lay with the prosecutors rather than the defense attorneys, and that it was worth paying the price of a guilty man occasionally going free in order to reduce the chances that an innocent man might go to jail. Apart from this sort of obvious suggestion of guilt towards Mr. Simpson by one of his lawyers, I thought this was a very clear statement of the basis of the system. The system requires a level of proof (typically reasonable doubt in the legal system) to convict. So too does the question of God’s existence require a level of proof in order to make a claim. Pascal, of course, has claimed that it is better to err on the side of belief than skepticism. Is it though? What if you lived your life consistently and erred on the side of belief in all things. Fairies might exist, unlikely though it is, so you’d better err on the side of belief.

It is interesting, though, how many people are happy to accept religion without evidence. Many Christians I’ve conversed with claim personal experience as the most convincing aspect of their faith. Indeed, in debate over the issue of my position as a former Christian, and in their claim that there is no such thing, I have heard Christians claim that the reason I wasn’t really a Christian was because I didn’t experience the Holy Spirit. If only I had, I would have known that it were the truth. This seems like a most hollow argument to me. Firstly, almost every religion will make similar claims. People of other religions will adamantly claim that their personal experience is equally convincing as a Christian’s personal experience. Yet, of course, they can’t all be true since many religions are in opposition to each other. (Well technically, of course, they are all true personal experiences because they are simply that: a personal experience. Just as two people in the same room who take a hallucinogenic drug may both claim different things happened in the room, both are true personal experiences though neither reflect the reality of what went on in the room). Secondly, this sort of claim as a replacement for evidence puts someone in the position of zero accountability. Their position is simply that they have had a personal experience that proves their faith, and if you haven’t happened to have the same personal experience then that is your problem though it doesn’t change the truthfulness of theirs. This attitude is in opposition to the nature of truth: it is freely available to anyone to discover.

I’ve had an interesting discussion with a Christian recently, all conducted in writing, so I am in the position to be able to reproduce some of his points here. I think he is a very good representation of how Christians are willing to dismiss evidence in order to allow themselves to continue believing what they want to believe. This particular individual even claims to be a scientist, though when pressed on this issue, his reason for making that claim is that he has completed a degree in psychology. I thought it would be an interesting illustration to publish a few of the exchanges we’ve had. Typically, the pattern or our conversation involves him making a claim about the nature of God, with me then asking for some evidence to support his claim. Often he will then quote the Bible as supporting evidence for his claims about the nature of God, to which I will then point out that many (most?) of the events Bible can be largely dismissed as false.

In this particular dialogue below, the bold text represents the quotes from this particular Christian; the italics are mine. The conversation begins with him asking me to explain my claim that the Bible has been shown to be false. I responded with:

“As for scientifically proving the Bible is false, one need look no further than the story of creation in Genesis. It did not occur. Neither did the global flood to a height of 30,000 ft. I could go on and on and you could try to explain them all away, but anyone who has the least understanding of science knows that the Bible is fiction.”

“I'll skip the sixth day and go straight to your flood argument. The Bible does not say 30,000 feet. The Bible says fifteen cubits up and that the mountains were covered. Many people think that fifteen cubits equals 23 feet or 6.8 meters. I don't have an explanation for how that covered the mountains but there are several plausible explanations to consider: mountains weren't that tall yet, the Bible was referring only to local mountains, or the flood really was 30,000 feet deep.”

“Did you really just use the phrase "plausible explanations" and then go on to suggest that mountains weren't that tall yet or that a global flood occurred to the depth of 30,000 feet (and mammals survived on a floating boat at that elevation)? Do you understand now why I doubt your claims to be a scientist?”

“I stand by what I said. They are plausible explanations. My evidence of God's existence is personal experience but that is not merely an emotional experience. God exists and therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations. This isn't wishful thinking. God will accomplish his purpose whether we are for or against him.”

“You think it is plausible that the highest mountains on earth have developed to that height in the past 10,000 years. Or you think that it is plausible for mammals, including humans, to survive at 30,000 feet for months at a time, without freezing to death or dying from hypoxia? And you think this is scientifically plausible? I find that hard to accept.”

“I think it is plausible that the highest mountains on Earth could have developed to that height in a matter of days. (Genesis 10:25) I think it is plausible when the flood waters rose that the atmosphere was also pushed up to supply oxygen and warmth.”


This conversation is almost humorous. Here is a Christian so intent on clinging to the dogma of his religion that he is actually willing to state that it is plausible that the highest mountains on earth, the Himalaya, developed in a matter of days (without offering any hypothesis or evidence about how that might happen). Total blindness to evidence. We know without any level of reasonable doubt that the Himalaya, though they are relatively young as mountain ranges go, began to form as the Indian subcontinent drove northwards into the Asian landmass 70 million years ago. Yet, here is a person (who claims to be a scientist no less), stating that it is reasonable to believe the Himalaya developed in the past few thousand years. And the only reason he is willing to say this is to allow a continuation of another belief founded in the Biblical book of Genesis. This is the kind of ignorance that is out there in our world in support or religion.

Of particular interest is his statement, “God exists and therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations.” First he establishes his cart (God exists), then the horse is attached and dragged along (therefore these are plausible and scientific explanations). Others might call this circular reasoning. Remember what this conversation was all about to begin with. When asked for evidence that God exists, this person goes to the Bible as evidence. When I pointed out that the Bible (or certainly large portions of it) could not be literally true, he insists that it must be true because God exists. The amazing thing is the blindness with which this sort of “logic” is upheld. This particular individual claimed to have an I.Q. of 136 and he was adamant that he was a logical thinker (to his credit, he was able to list a number of qualities and facts about logic, whether they were simply copied and pasted I don’t know). Eventually, as is often the case, the dialogue with this individual broke down. He insisted I was a “propagandist” interested only in advancing my own agenda. He called me a bully (and a wanker!), claimed that I was likely to go an try to bomb churches, and told me to shut up unless I engaged in scientific dialogue. (Yes, I recognize that this particular individual may well have been suffering mental illness, but yet his dialogue was quite representative of what I’ve encountered from other lucid Christians).

Once again, I plead, examine the evidence first, then draw your conclusions from that evidence rather than the other way around.

Mechanistic Research: The Only True Answer to A Question

Image courtesy of Google Images.

Science is simply wonderful. Sometimes it is also wonderfully simple. Some of the most important scientific discoveries ever made have been elegantly simple and, after the fact it is hard to understand how the discovery was missed up to that point. However, science can also be wonderfully complex. Anyone who has studied advanced organic chemistry has probably wondered at its complexity. The same could be said for much of the physiological processes that occur in biological systems, particularly advanced eukaryotic ones such as humans. I think we do not celebrate science enough nor give scientists enough recognition for the goodness with which they have illuminated the world. Sadly, there is also much poor science (or more accurately pseudo-science, for any science that is poor is not technically science) out there as well.

In my opinion, very good science seeks not only to make observations in our world, but to explain the mechanism behind the observations. It is astounding how much money and time is spent on non-mechanistic research. Just think for a moment of modern obesity-related research. Literally billions of tax dollars are spent each year on research that describes the increasing rate of the obesity epidemic in Western societies. Yet much of this type of research is not mechanistic. It makes no attempt to learn why western populations are more obese than their parents’ generations. In the extreme, one could opine that non-mechanistic research is worthless in terms of true scientific value. Think of an example of research into the health effects of smoking. Nowadays we all know that smoking is bad for you and we take that knowledge for granted. But think back 50 or 60 years and imagine designing research to determine the effects of smoking on health. The easiest type of research to conduct would be to examine the health of smokers and non-smokers and make a comparison: a cross-sectional study. Longitudinal research, involving the examination of the health of smokers over a long period of time, might be more valid because it may remove other confounding factors more effectively. Indeed, both of these types of research have been conducted on smokers in the past, and they both had some value in helping us arrive at the conclusion that smoking is bad for your health. Yet these types of research are not mechanistic: they tell us nothing about why smoking is bad for your health. Not until researchers examined the mechanisms behind airway and endothelial functions following exposure to the contents of cigarettes were we able to really understand why smoking may cause cancer, why it may cause heart disease, and why it may cause a host of other long-term health problems.

The main reason that non-mechanistic, or descriptive, research is less valid than mechanistic research is that conclusions drawn from observations alone can very often be faulty. A classic extreme example of this is the relationship between airliner crashes and fatalities by seat selection. Picture a descriptive researcher observing that more people die each year in plane crashes while sitting in window seats than sitting in aisle seats. With this information, the researcher may be tempted to draw a conclusion based on the observation such as: you are safer sitting in an aisle seat than a window seat when you travel by air. The researcher may even be tempted to go further and try to explain a reason for the observation such as: those who sit in the window seats are closer to the edge of the aircraft and may be exposed to greater impact forces during a crash. It is not hard to imagine people changing their behaviour based on this explanation of a true observation, but they would be completely misled if they did so. In this example, there is another factor that actually explains the observation which has been completely overlooked because the research was not mechanistic. The relationship between rates of death in airline crashes and seat selection is actually explained by the fact that more people choose window seats than aisle seats when traveling by air. When an airliner crashes, almost invariably everyone is killed. Put these two facts together and you find two things: 1) more people will die each year in window seats; 2) there is no relationship between your choice of seat and your chances of survival in a crash. So in fact the research, though accurate in describing the observations, has done a disservice to society in trying to explain the relationship without actually examining an appropriate mechanism for the explanation. These types of observational research reports are rampant in the popular news. Almost every day one can watch or read the news and find an example of health-related research that is urging you to take Vitamin C, get more (or less) sunlight exposure, avoid or use caffeine or alcohol, or any other number of behaviours that may help your health. There may be some truth to some of these recommendations. The problem is, without a mechanistic explanation, you don’t actually know whether they are true or merely based on a chance observational relationship.

This brings me to the topic of mechanistic science in relation to religious beliefs. Science is often purported to be in conflict with religion. Some say the two are incompatible. Others insist that the two can co-exist quite comfortably and do not necessarily contradict each other when it comes to explanations of the world around us. I fall firmly in the former group. Science is in direct conflict with religion for a very good reason: religion does not attempt to make mechanistic explanations; rather it is based purely on observations. I do not wish to get into a discussion of the evolution – creation “debate” (as if there were an actual debate on the topic!) at this point, but it is a relevant example. Occasionally, and recently, some creationists have attempted to strengthen their position by introducing the notion that there is some science in their theory. Some even go so far as to call it “creation science”. (That creationists are smart enough to figure out that being scientific lends validity to their point of view, yet continue to criticize and demean true science is at once incredibly humorous and deeply sad). Yet creationists almost never make any attempt to include mechanism in their “observations”. Almost invariably, a creationist, when asked how god created the world in six days comes up with some variation of “by magic” (i.e. no reasonable mechanism). This pattern, of course, extends far beyond creationism and into every realm of religious belief. Ask any believer what their explanation for how their god healed a relative and you are likely to initially get a simplistic answer: “by prayer”. Follow that up by asking for their explanation of the exact mechanism: “Yes, but how did your god actually remove the tumour from your aunt’s brain?”, and you will likely get a very blank stare. No thought is ever given to the mechanism. As I’ve pointed out, when there is no understanding or explanation of the mechanism, then the observation becomes significantly less valid, and the chances of misinterpreting the observations are increased. Mechanistic research, assuming it is done properly, rules out misinterpretation of observations. There is, of course, a very good reason that mechanistic research is not conducted by those attempting to show that god created the world, how he works in people’s lives, or even that god(s) exist: there is no mechanism to be uncovered. There are only observations with faulty conclusions. The mechanistic work done by physicists on our universe’s beginnings are infinitely more acceptable explanations for how we came to exist.

Is Science My Religion?

Image courtesy of Google Images.

This is an issue that arises often in discussions between religious and non-religious people or in the traditional debate between science and religion. Sometimes during a discussion those with religious beliefs will tell me that everyone has faith in something: they have faith in god, I have faith in science. Science has just become my religion, perhaps without me realizing it. Or, to look at it from a religious point of view, science has replaced religion in my life. That is to assume that one had religion or a need for religion in one’s life before. In my case, of course, that is true, but science only replaces religion is it fills the same needs as a religion. But does it? I suppose the answer to that question lies in how one views both science and religion and their influence on one’s life.

I believe in and have trust in the scientific method. Science is mostly responsible for bringing humanity to where it is today. Without science we would all be clustered in little groups on the African savannah gathering food (we wouldn’t even be hunting and we certainly wouldn’t be growing crops since the process of trial and error and the observations and conclusions required to develop these two skills is a form of science). As my high-school chemistry teacher told our class, if you want to live without the effects of science you will need to go and lie naked in the forest and be very careful not to think about most things. I also believe that everything that exists is theoretically knowable and understandable by science. That does not mean that the process of scientific discovery will eventually give us knowledge on everything. That is not practical given the various limitations (technological, financial, time and other resources) involved in putting scientific discovery into practice. But, I do believe that everything is knowable by science. Given enough time, resources, and technology, everything that exists is discoverable by the scientific method. That is also not to say that science can answer any question. Some questions are inherently unanswerable since they deal with abstract ideas (see below). For example, science will never answer the question of how tall tooth fairies are. The question of whether god exists, on the other hand, can be answered fairly well by science, just as the question of whether tooth fairies exist can be answered. However, my view that science has the ability to discover everything is in contrast to the views of many religious people (and agnostics) who accept that some things that do (or might) exist cannot be discovered by science. But, this is not be confused with my view that some questions are inherently unanswerable (see below). By contrast, what I am saying is that everything that actually exists can potentially be explored and explained by science.

All of this is to say that I clearly have a great deal of respect for and trust in science. Some would say that I put my faith in science. But is it faith that I have in science? Faith can be defined as believing something for which there is no evidence. I don’t think my trust of science is defined that way. Further, is science my religion? I guess I need to first examine what religion is.

To me, religion is an entirely human-made entity that satisfies a few needs in many humans’ lives. Firstly, it provides an explanation for the unexplained. Actually it does not technically do this, but it provides a substitute for an explanation for the unexplained. It provides an explanation to those who are satisfied without an actual answer. Religion in primitive societies provides a reassurance or explanation for things that cannot be explained. Ancient civilizations blamed the gods for things like lightening, thunder, eclipses and other natural phenomena that they had no scientific explanation for (some in today’s societies continue to do this with suggestions that earthquakes and hurricanes result from god’s wrath against the sinful rather than from plate tectonics or naturally occurring weather patterns). Even today, religion continues to provide an answer of sorts for questions that we as a species cannot answer. We do not have the complete answer to how the universe began (though we do know a lot about it), how abiogenesis occurred, and so on. The answer that god did it is a neat way of taking care of those difficult questions. As I explained above, I have no doubt that, given enough time and resources, science will provide all the answers to those questions (though I do not have faith that science will do so). Some though, clearly believe that since science has not yet answered those questions it is incapable of doing so, and that therefore god is the only plausible explanation. I hope you see the fault in this logic. Further along this line of thought, religion also provides answers for inherently unsolvable questions. There are some questions which humanity will never answer, no matter how scientifically advanced we become simply because they are not answerable through traditional research methods. For example, the questions “Why do I exist?”, or “What greater meaning does my life have?” are inherently unanswerable questions. While I believe we can answer scientifically the question about how humans came into existence, the question of why we came into existence does not have an answer. Yet, for those who accept religion, this inherently unanswerable question becomes answerable: we are here because God created us, loves us, and has a plan for us. In addition, I believe that a very large role of religion is to assuage the fear of death. Though I know many religious people who adamantly deny that they would still be religious if they knew there was no afterlife (and indeed I think they are so zealous about their religious convictions that they do believe that statement on a superficial level), I believe that religion would not have a firm grasp at all were it not for the promise of a pleasant and eternal afterlife (or the threat of an eternally painful one). Indeed I believe that the fact that we as humans are aware of death is one of the very factors that lead to the development of religion in the first place. This topic is of interest to me, and I hope to write more about it in the future, but in the meantime, suffice it to say that Pascal’s wager is alive and well in many church goers. Other, perhaps lesser, roles that religion plays is as a social club, or simply as something passed on from parents with no questioning of its validity or value. In short, many of the roles and reasons for religion is that it is a comfort.

None of these reasons for religion fit with my understanding of science. Science does not fill any of these needs for me. Science does not offer me a quick and easy answer for the things we cannot as a species yet explain. It holds promise that we shall understand them in the future, but that promise is not faith. Science does not take away any fear of death, nor does it provoke a fear of death. Death, from a scientific point of view, is simply the end of one’s existence and therefore there is no reason to believe it will be any different of an experience than what one experienced before birth. The process of dying may be awful, painful, or frightening, but neither religion nor science necessarily takes that away. And if we are talking about the more gruesome and painful factors in the process of dying then I will take science and medicine over religion any day for its ability’s to provide comfort through that process. Science does not act as a particularly good social club. Scientists are like anyone else – some of them are nice and interesting people and some are not. On balance, if I were to spend a social occasion with a group of people, I would prefer it to not be with only scientists, given my propensity to dislike egomaniacs and scientists propensity for a healthy ego.

Some people, usually religious ones, seem to assume that all humans need to believe in something “greater than themselves”. That we could not have come to exist by chance. That there is some greater reason or purpose to our lives, or that there is something eternal about us. But some of us, mainly atheists I would assume, have come to accept that our lives are nothing more nor less than biological. We are not eternal. There is no greater purpose to our lives than that which we find meaning during our lives (or perhaps the meaning we pass on after our deaths). Some of us atheists, myself included, believe that, while evolution is not a random process (more on this later), our species does exist more or less by chance. We feel no void that needs filling in our lives. The assumption that science is my religion stems from the assumption that all humans feel this “deeper” need for meaning and purpose in humanity’s existence is what leads some to believe that all humans need a religion of some sort and that science is mine. But, I feel no such void. I feel no such need for meaning to humanity’s existence (this is quite different, understand, than wanting or searching for meaning to one’s own life – a process that many if not most atheists take quite seriously).

So, science is not my religion. I do not have faith in science. I do not worship it. I do not look to science for answers to inherently unanswerable questions. For me, no question that is inherently unanswerable is worth asking. Most importantly, though, I do not look to science for comfort.