vol 3: Development
cap 2: Epistemology
page 3: Scientific method
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
Scientific method
Knowledge and action
In scientific investigation, it is permitted to invent any hypotheses and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the ranks of well grounded theory. (Darwin)
Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the sentence: 'All people by nature desire to know' (McKeon p 689). This natural desire is easily explained by the theory of evolution: knowledge is the key to survival. To survive, an organism must navigate in its environment. To navigate is to know where one is going, and to act effectively to get there. One must find food, shelter, companionship and all the other inputs to life.
Knowledge provides a working model of oneself and one's environment. Using this model, the consequences of various actions can be predicted. Better procedures can be selected from the possibilities without the expense of actually trying everything in action.
Consistent successful action requires true knowledge. False knowledge is likely to lead to consistently unsuccessful action. No knowledge at all leads to random action which may or may not benefit the actor. This holds for organisms at all levels of complexity. Motile anaerobic bacteria need to to able to move away from dangerous oxygen concentrations just as human communities need to be able to move away from communal violence.
Experience teaches that although it is very useful, sure knowledge is not easy to acquire. We have no special access to the nature of things, and things are not always what they seem. So the history of science, like the history of any individual, is littered with mistakes and misunderstandings. Since the beginning of recorded history, there has been continued debate about what is true, and how to find out what is true.
Science concerns itself with ideas about the world that can be tested, at least in principle. To be tested here means to be put into practice and seen to work. It is the embodiment of the idea that knowledge is embodied. This practical feature of scientific thought is what gives us the fitness advantage we have over the rest of the world. So great is this advantage that we must postulate ethical restraints to govern the use of our power, lest we destroy the world that nurtures us.
Science and spirit
Science is based on common experience, which is historically (and conveniently) divided into subjective and objective experience. Objective or physical experiences are those public phenomena studied by physics, chemistry, biology and their specialized permutations and combinations.
Common experience in the subjective realm exists, but is rather harder to pin down. Many people may agree on certain common elements of say, eating, but outside this commonality, is room for much variation. This inner experience is taken here to be the subject of metaphysics, or theology. Since inner experience depends upon nurture as well as nature, theology and religion have a strong influence on how we experience life.
This is why religions devote much energy to forming the subjective experience of communities into a common mould. Experience suggests that people with a common mind cooperate better for their survival The successful construction of any human corporate entity depends on the establishment of a certain esprit de corps which motivates individuals to value the welfare of the whole.
At one extreme, educators may try to install old and well tried ideas into the minds of their pupils. Such an approach is valid in a stable environment, where generation after generation experience similar problems in life and solve these problems with old and tested methods.
At the other extreme, in times of rapid change, there is an advantage in being able to assess complex and changing systems and work out effective ways to deal with them. Here we might educate for creativity and daring: an ability to explore large spaces of possibility to find valuable insights and technologies.
So can there be a science of spirit? I believe there can. We simply need to devise testable hypotheses about the nature of spirit. The requirement of testability means that theory, concept, law, and method of measurement - forever inseparable - are born into the world in union. Misner, Thorne and Wheeler 1973 p 71.
Science and creation
The chance of matter naturally aggregating itself into something like the computer I am using now seems to be vanishingly small. Yet computers are reproducing exponentially. The explanation of this phenomenon lies not in matter, but in the human spirit. The human spirit, like the wave function in quantum mechanics, cannot be observed directly, but its presence is clearly indicated by its effects.
The importance of scientific method is that we can rely on things that have been carefully tested. Religion is just as important as any other human art or technology, and has just as great a need for true guidance. All industry is now beginning to realize the value of quality control and the importance of safety and environmental consistency in our manufactured products. It is the purpose of this site to find and report religious ideas that have been tested and found to work.
Where science differs from traditional religion, however, is in its attitude to existing beliefs. For many religions, traditional beliefs are sacred. For science in a moving world, a belief is only as trustworthy as the evidence supporting it. Once we see that a belief has feet of clay, we are moved to create a replacement.
The ancient assumption that God is outside the world and invisible puts theology outside the realm of science. Here we wish to develop and test the alternative assumption, that God and the world are different names for the same entity. Since we and our experience are part of the world, this assumption opens the way to scientific theology and religion.
(revised 19 June 2007)
Books
| Darwin, Charles, and Harriet Ritvo (Introduction), The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (Foundations of Natural History) , Johns Hopkins University Press 1998 Amazon back |
| Kutchins, Herb, and Stuart A Kirk, Making Us Crazy: DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders, The Free Press 1997 Jacket: 'What makes a person crazy? Nowadays it's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). For many mental health professionals, the DSM is an indispensable diagnostic tool, and as the standard reference book for psychiatrists and psychotherapists everywhere, it has an inestimable influence on the way we view other human beings. Deciding what we call sane and normal, and reflecting the prejudices and values of each generation, it's not surprising that the DSM has become a battleground. What goes in it, and stays out, is of monumental importance. Homosexuals, for example, fought long and hard to have their "lifestyle" erased from its pages.' Amazon back |
| McKeon, Richard, and (editor), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random 1941 Introduction: 'The influence of Aristotle, in the ... sense of initiating a tradition, has been continuous from his day to the present, for his philosophy contains the first statement, explicit or by opposition, of many of the technical distinctions, definitions, and convictions on which later science and philosophy have been based...' (xi) Amazon back |
| Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. ... this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity).' Amazon back |
| Newton, Isaac, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , Harvard University Press 1972 One of the most important contributions to human knowledge. First translated from the Latin by Andrew Motte in 1729, Amazon back |
| Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii] Amazon back |
| Popper, Karl Raimund, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1992 Jacket: 'A striking picture of the logical character of scientific discovery is presented here ... Science is presented as ... the attempt to find a coherent theory of the world composed of bold conjectures and disciplines by penetrating criticism.' Amazon back |
Click on an "Amazon" link in the booklist at the foot of the page to buy the book, see more details or search for similar items
Related sites:
Concordat Watch
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
