It is an exciting time for physicists. They have experimentally confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, something postulated decades ago by theoreticians to reconcile seemingly contradictory evidence from previous experiments. The Higgs boson is arguably the most important science discovery of this young century because it helps unify particle physics under what is called the Standard Model by affirming how particles have mass. One important lesson from this discovery is that sometimes it takes decades to produce experiments to support or reject hypotheses.
Another important lesson from this newsworthy event is that it highlights what makes science, science. Namely, that one must posit testable hypotheses to do science. That is, if a question or theory about how the natural world works can be turned into a testable and falsifiable hypothesis, then it is a scientific question. If a question cannot be falsified, or disproved, it is not scientific. Science progresses by transforming raw ideas, however outrageous or iconoclastic, into formal statements that can be tested with results that either support or refute the initial idea.
Although this might seem a trivial point to some, I think we scientists have failed to teach the general public that falsifiable hypotheses lie at the core of science. One of the consequences of this failure is that we continue to waste time debating the role of evolutionary biology in public schools. Every year at least a few state legislatures propose bills to weaken the teaching of evolution in our schools. This year, legislators in Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri proposed bills that would weaken the teaching of evolution in public school science courses. There will be more bills elsewhere next year.
Make no mistake, evolution provides the mechanisms by which the simple building blocks of DNA has been assembled into the vast living beauty that surrounds us. It has remained largely unchanged for over 150 years. In fact, discoveries such as DNA (among the most important discoveries of the 20th century) and the development of the field of population genetics have filled-out, refined, and strengthened Darwin's initial idea of evolution by natural selection (among the most brilliant insights of the 19th century).
Just as physics is integral to understanding how the physical world works, evolution is integral to understanding the unity and diversity of life forms and how they change over time. Until a better theory comes along, evolution is the Standard Model of biology. It is a falsifiable theory and has withstood repeated rigorous tests. Do you have to understand evolution to be a surgeon? No, just as you do not have to have a deep understanding of physics to fly a plane or know the subtleties of organic chemistry to fill a prescription. But I certainly want my doctors and pilots and pharmacists to understand these fields because they make them better professionals. And for some professions, a profound understanding of these sciences is absolutely necessary. Still, I'd like everybody to have at least an appreciation of these sciences because they make the world a more sensible (and satisfying) place.
Understanding evolution needn't cause one to abandon one's god, moral code, or respect for life. Many brilliant scientists have reconciled their spiritual beliefs, however fundamentalist or liberal, with evolutionary theory and have emerged both devout believers and insightful scientists. They seamlessly function in the spiritual and scientific worlds. One of the things I enjoy most as a teacher is seeing my senior biology students have an "aha" moment when they realize how much evolution makes sense as a mechanism to explain the diversity of life, and that they do not have to abandon their morals to appreciate its elegance.
We need to make sure the general public understands that science is about proposing testable mechanisms for how the natural world works. Let us teach evolution (and particle physics) in our science courses. Let us teach religion in our religion courses. Let there be no controversy; they address different topics. Science is a method of learning about the world that need not be threatening. To suggest otherwise is to add sound and fury that divert resources away from learning how the world works. Our students deserve better. Our society deserves better.
Higgs Boson Impostors? It's Possible, Say Scientists
Higgs and the holy grail of physics
Not only has this idea been refuted by several people most notably Sam Harris in his book 'The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values' but it goes without saying that although there are a handful of serious scientists that do confess to religious beliefs ie Francis Collins, Kenneth R Miller, they have never let their religious beliefs inform their science in any way ipso facto controversy inevitability. Begs the question, how is it possible to have the intelligence and brilliance of these scientists yet believe the existence of a deity? An non testable phenomenon that for all intents and purposes does not exist?
One has to pick which side they play for, one cannot have it both ways, this not only undermines credibility but it also makes the fight against superstition, dogma, creationism, that much harder.
I asked them about the conflict and they basically said that they switch their religious beliefs off when at work and they don't think about science when reading the bible.
The human mind seems to be capable of that, even though logic is not.
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Aren't you, Dave? How about taking some real science classes to lift that confusion of yours?
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If it is not empirical and it is not, in some rational way, quantifiable, it's not science.
Science, in its simplest form, is the repetition of three steps:
1) Make an observation or experiment.
2) Compare the results to your expectations about the outcome.
3) If the outcome does not align with your expectation, make the smallest possible change to the reasoning that underlies your expectations.
Rinse and repeat.
This is it. There is no deep cosmic mystery here. You don't need a philosophy department to hold your hand. You don't need to be afraid that the gods will smite you or that nature will cheat you.
All you need to get started is the naive understanding that what you see is what you get (which is not hard, unless you are paranoid, in which case your first thought should be about getting better) AND the ability to be honest with your peers and with yourself. If something doesn't work, you have to be able to say so and to try again.
How hard is that?
All the difference in the world. Catholics have given up the "god in the gaps" strategy a long time ago. They lost too many battles with it and know better, today. Today they are playing the "It's a mystery!" card.
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Second, that people can entertain incompatible beliefs is hardly evidence that the beliefs are indeed compatible. People can come up with misguided rationalizations (e.g., science and religion address different spheres) that seemingly allow for reconciliation but are in fact flawed themselves. And certainly people's actions are often in direct violation of their beliefs, again suggesting that consistency is not a hallmark of human beings. As examples of the latter, consider all those religious folks who believe "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not commit adultery" who do in fact kill or commit adultery. Is this evidence for compatibility of action and belief?
No scientist I know who has strong religious beliefs is fully capable of "reconciliation". All of them openly admit that science is science and their beliefs are what they practice in church on Sunday. There is no evidence for a successful integration of empirical thinking into religious mythology (or the other way around). Not even the people who are highly trained at this intellectual endeavor of harmonizing all available data in overarching theories can do it.
And that's OK. If somebody can cleanly separate the two and doesn't mind bending their brains into a pretzel along the way, they shall.
The majority of the population, obviously can't do this mental high-wire act and that's where the real tragedy for the US begins. It is primed with the wrong kind of religiosity and has to play out the conflict in full, no matter how foolish, until this kind of religiosity will be attenuated sufficiently.
Folks, it's so easy to stay intellectually honest. If you don't know something, just say I don't know! If you don't care to learn about it, just say I don't care to learn about it!
Nobody will fault you for either!
But don't hide behind a 2600 year old religious text that is only valid for Jews, to begin with (no, the big sky pixie never offered a covenant to anybody else), or behind some completely meaningless New Age crap.
Admit that your lives are perfectly fine between a dead-end job, raising kids that are not going to exceed their parents and culinary adventures at McBurger. No need to make a fool of yourselves by pretending otherwise.
If, of course, you think that your empty lives are not enough, then your only choice is to actually grab a few textbooks and learn all the stuff that the smarter ones already know. There is a whole world of light out there... and it is all accessible through the library. But only if you are willing to put the work in, like all of us.
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Science IS the professional pursuit of questioning and rethinking of old hypotheses.
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Spiritualism? It needs to get itself something that qualifies as a hypothesis before we talk about "rethinking" any. It doesn't have hypotheses it has unfounded random spoutings.
Not that it's necessary. As an adult you are expected to be able to take care of your things. You are an adult, right?
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You know... that's the thing where you can say "I don't know." when you don't know and not mistake your religious beliefs for knowledge. It's that thing where you don't feel this urge to pretend that reality follows your beliefs, when it clearly doesn't.
Once you have been successful teaching intellectual honesty, you won't need to teach religion any longer... there will be no more religious.
Descriptive language, archetypal language, can thus be utilized to give us a sense of "what is", in a way that does not so much try to prove its "correctness" but seeks to effectively evoke that which it visualizes as the inherently Divine "World-process"...at work and at play as the flow of Life.
It's not necessary to to go into an embedding to scan the global topology of a manifold. We could tell the shape of Earth without using a satellite over 2000 years ago.
2) physically see the ever-invisible "action-basis-in-unity" for all vibration
No, of course not. Such a thing doesn't exist. It's no more possible to see that than it is to see "the real Santa".
OK... this went from the weird to the outright bizarre.
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~~~Not true. The shape of our universe is known. Read Lawrence Krauss's book A Universe from Nothing. He explains better than I can how cosmology has been able to determine the shape of the universe.
I've been an educator for 35 years, and the comment you made is so true...that it sometimes makes me weep.
Thank you—F&F!
The Texas GOP recently unveiled their party platform, one plank of which opposed the teaching of critical thinking. Can't give kids the tools to make rational choices and decisions, I guess. Yikes.