The constructs of modern science are often so complex and rarefied, they can only be understood through analogy and metaphor. No doubt he textbooks provide precise definitions and mathematical formulations, but it is often difficult to think clearly about them without a healthy dollop of less precise language.
Perhaps this is a point of contact with religion. In trying to talk about God, or the meaning of existence, we must frequently make do with figurative language. Religious discourse is filled with metaphors and approximations. It must be so, since the concepts we use to navigate our daily lives are inadequate for discussing weighty existential problems.
Writing in Nature, Daniel Sarewitz presents a version of this argument. He calls our attention to an article from The New York Tines in which the analogy of "cosmic molasses" is used in a discussion of the Higgs boson. Sarewitz compares this to a metaphor from certain Hindu writings, in which reality is likened to a sea of milk. Sarewitz writes:
If you find the idea of a cosmic molasses that imparts mass to invisible elementary particles more convincing than a sea of milk that imparts immortality to the Hindu gods, then surely it's not because one image is inherently more credible and more 'scientific' than the other. Both images sound a bit ridiculous. But people raised to believe that physicists are more reliable than Hindu priests will prefer molasses to milk. For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith, not of rationality.
In reconciling science and religion, it is commonplace for religion's defenders to stress its rational aspects. Sarewitz' argument represents a different approach. Rather than point to the rational side of religion, we point instead to the irrational side of science.
Let me suggest, however, that Sarewitz has overlooked a few things. While it is certainly true that scientists make healthy use of analogies and imprecise language in communicating their ideas to the public, the fact remains that the textbooks are available for anyone with the requisite interest and patience. The Higgs boson is real, confirmed both by theory and experiment. This is all in stark contrast to the analogies of religion, which, for all we know, have no correlates in reality. Elementary particles exist and can be described with great precision by those with the proper training. We cannot make the same claim on behalf of the Hindu gods.
Moreover, the attitude of lay people toward physics is hardly comparable to that of a religious person toward his dogmas. It is not an irrational leap of faith to accept what physicists say about the Higgs boson, even if you lack the technical prowess to read the textbooks. It is instead an expression of confidence in the investigatory method that led to our knowledge of the Higgs. People are not "raised to believe" that physicists are more reliable than Hindu priests. Rather, they discover it on their own by contrasting the manifest successes of scientific investigation with the lack of same on the part of religion.
Sarewitz' argument backfires in that it calls our attention to the key difference between science and religion. It is sometimes said that religion answers questions about meaning and purpose, but this is not accurate. The correct formulation is that religion makes assertions about meaning and purpose. Sorely lacking is any reliable method for establishing the correctness of those assertions. Science's contribution to these conversations is a set of investigative methods that everyone regards as legitimate. When a physicist lectures about the Higgs, the audience understands that he is not just making things up. He is not asking anyone to believe anything solely on his authority.
As a practical matter, we all must accept what experts tell us about fields we have not studied ourselves. It is very lazy, however, to say that all such instances are just acts of faith and therefore intellectually equivalent. Surely we have reliable ways of distinguishing fields of inquiry that have earned our confidence from those that have not. To accept Sarewitz' argument is to lapse into a dangerous relativism, in which science and religion are just rival myth-making enterprises, neither with a greater claim to our respect than the other.
For many people religion satisfies needs that science does not address. For those not directly involved in their production, the findings of science often have little emotional resonance. There is always a place for awe and wonder, regardless of your beliefs about God. Acknowledging that simple reality, however, in no way implies that we should denigrate the tried and true methods of science by reducing them to a form of faith. Nor should we equate emotionally satisfying beliefs with those that are established by careful reasoning and hard data.
Thus spake Jason Rosenhouse: "Ethics is Dead". We will duly pass your fatwa onto Aristotle and the Liberal Art Department when we see them next.
Science is excellent at explaining the measurable, the repeatable. Unfortunately, not all we experience in life is measurable. Taking due caution against a "God-of-the-gaps", there is still much to be understood that is not repeatable, measurable or merely an result of human need for an "emotionally satisfying" answer.
Philosophy and Theology do have professional rigor, process and review (see Aristotle on the topic of Logic), even if pundits and preachers do not.
With apologies to a non-scientist: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Jason, Than are dreamt of in your science."
NO.
There is a mind bogglingly huge difference between "We have all this data, we have reams of experimental findings, this is all really really complicated but if you want a simpler way to think about it you can try this..."
And:
"Ummm, well, we have no data and no experimental findings but we're going to say that's BECAUSE it's really really complicated so we're just going to speak in metaphors because we *have nothing else to say*."
Stop trying to mix religion and science. They share no commonalities. Just knock it off.
maybe you stopped reading at the quote above...
I've always thought humanity’s religious are analogous, in some sense, to piano-keys...
Different tones / frequencies, but they all make wonderful / not-so-wonderful, (when ‘out of tune’), sounds via the sounding-board.
Likewise…
I DON'T find my previous single-Deity-faith, (the R.C.C.'s 'Jesus-1-in-3'), in conflict with my current, (polytheistic) NeoPaganism.
I frequently use ‘intolerant.monotheism’ in reference to various superficial, (I.M.H.O.!), pietists (such as Cardinal Dolan', Et.-Al'), who feel their religiosity allows / demands they manage other's personal issues...
Without even so much as a ‘how'd ya do?’ to the unrequested-management-efforts-targets!
I’m NOT concerned re Fred Phelps/his feral-family, as such!
However...I wouldn't tolerate their physical presence / interference, family-funeral-side, minus an invite!
Likewise creationists...
Science ISN'T the ‘be-all / end-all’.
But…
It significantly damages (already tarnished) religious-credibility to postulate obvious-nonsense-beliefs!!
Like Mr. Nye recently noted: To pretend in a '6,000-Yr.-Old-Earth isn’t a crime.
But…
To teach children something patently absurd has life long negative-career-/-social-effects!
There is simply NO gettin’ 'round N.Armstrong’s moonwalk! Or Dachau’s corpse-piles, as denialists, (in/out of religion) claim!
The earth won’t die from climate-change!
but billions-of-years-of-history clearly indicate that, like the dinosaurs...
...Humanity might!
Any conclusion of QM would qualify to be described as "against common sense".
If we didn't accept them you wouldn't be reading this on your computer right now. We accept conclusions based on DATA, not "common sense". The fact that you can't wrap your head around that speaks to your own shortcomings, not those of science.
Your statements about religion have about as much credibility as a blind man asserting that there is no light or the sun simply because in his/her blindness the sun nor light can be seen. Just more materialist gibberish!
How about the materialist fallacy and delusion, which encompasses an entire paradigm and worldview. The whole logic behind it is a grand delusion. Intellectual infants looking for God under microscopes and telescopes or in genes and then saying God doesn't exist because they can't find God.
As a brilliant philosopher of the last century said--Materialist science is the most unintelligent manner of appearing intelligent.
I prefer the world intellectual bankruptcy which more accurately identifies such thinking rather than gibberish. "No logical reason or empirical evidence" That literally is like a blind person saying because I am blind and don't see the sun, logically there is no reason to believe any one else has sight or that the sun exists. Such delusional thinking isn't logical, rational, or intelligent by the most remote stretch of the imagination. Its pure delusion parading as pseudo rationalism !
Pointing out important differences between faith in ancient scriptures written by primitive, pre-science people and the hard-won, empirical and proven scientific fields like math and physics.
Their faith in an invisible god or gods is not the same as our 'faith' that nuclear energy works, that computers work or that medicine works.
They both have their hidden agenda's and cherished beliefs and hidden paradigms to protect at all costs. Those hidden paradigms are at a sub consciousness level so neither are blameworthy.
Neither the materialist nor the religious have any idea that their view of the world is being controlled by their beliefs at a sub consciousness that affects their view of reality.
Where to look to gain greater knowledge into these mysteries of life?
Sorry cannot be given out as one must become a sincere seeker and every path is unique and neither the materialist nor the religious have any interest in looking outside their “middle of the forest” beliefs.
Both the religious and the materialist judge by appearances. One confuses an effect for a cause and the other has made a God or gods in their image. Believe neither as an absolute; they both have agendas to protect at all costs. The human ego is that fearful and deceptive.
This is just an absurd statement. The reason we know about subconscious biases is because of the scientific method.
Science does not look outside its materialist paradigm just as religion does not look outside their religious paradigm. two sides of the same coin and they dont have a clue they are more alike than different. not a clue.
The difference is. The Higgs Bosun has and will continue to be tested and refined, tested and refined ad naseum because that is what science does. Religion doesn't. Never has, never will be able to.
But he knows that. Or one would presume that he would know that being that, he being a Phd from Cornell in Geology and teaches at ASU. So maybe, perhaps not.
The big difference, would be that Sarewitz unless he wrote his article with a type writer and not on a computer or a tablet, or a cell phone or whatever he used, all of that came from the understanding, testing and implementation of those little particles that he purports that to the average person is the same as belief in fairies. iPhone uses (my self included) might be dogmatic. Iphones, the components that make it up and the science that leads to making them are not.
So you don't have to take an expert at his/her word like you do with snake oil salesman religious clergy. Pick up your phone and make a call.
Religion starts with ideas that some person or group has formulated. Anything that disagrees with the formulation is discarded. It is not a search for truth, but an attempt to maintain a myth.
You may have a good understanding of cats but the human mind be it scientists or religious maybe not so much. to trust science that much?
Science has been hyjacked by the materialists just as religion has been hyjacked by organized religion. trust neither.
The materialist popes are scientists and the religious have their popes also.
You seem to have no idea how science works. It's not a hijacking; It has always been a requisite of science that hypotheses be falsifiable.
One thing about the Higgs Boson (since it's in the title) is that it just happens to be the last fundamental particle we need strong evidence for. It's not like we have no evidence for fundamental particles at all and are just betting on a whim that there is a Higgs Boson. If you build a 50-piece puzzle and a piece is missing, it's not 'faith' that there really is a piece somewhere. It's just plain logical to surmise that such a piece exists, but we just can't find it yet.
That is how it differs from gods. If we had discovered the existence of a god of the sun, a god of the sky, a god of the ocean, and so forth; and we had not yet found a god of electricity, it would be logical for someone to believe there was a god of electricity even though we didn't have any evidence for it yet. I would not find that a leap of 'faith' at all. It's logical and supported by tangential evidence, even if not direct evidence.
But there is no evidence for any higher intelligences or gods or 'designers' or whatever supernatural force or individual someone wants to bring up. Therefore, any believe requires pure faith...not simple logic. And THAT IS FINE, but it is not analogous to believing there is a Higgs boson or abiogenesis or any other not-yet-discovered phenomenon that fits into an existing evidence-supported framework.
I don't agree that acceptance without study or investigation is a practical exercise. It removes skepticism, questioning and reasoning.
It doesn't matter what field of science or which expert is doing research. If you can't question the research how would it ever improve?
What you can do is check some things to your level of expertise. The more of an expert and enthusiast/professional in a field you are, the more you can and should check. But once you check a few things and find a particular field or expert tends to know what they are doing and to get it right, you trust that their claims in the future are correct because you have a feel for the gist of how they got their answer and you know they know what they are doing. And of course if they claim something that sounds dubious or counterintuitive, you can always double check them from time to time and notice when they are wrong.
There is a fundamental difference from someone like myself who is scientifically literate and knows how science works and how physicists got their answer. Who thinks critically. Who has taken the time to learn some science and to become an expert in my own field. Who admits when they don't know something. And someone who just blindly accepts whatever an expert tells them without attempting to understand or investigate the matter and without any competence or exercise of critical thinking whatsoever.