Lindau: From fullerenes to global education

When I visit my favourite restaurant for lunch or dinner, I usually order a legitimate food item from the main course. But once in a while, just to indulge, I order a sample platter of appetizers. The appetizers don't always provide the deep satisfaction that I get from eating a proper, expensive food item. But they provide me with a different kind of unique satisfaction; they give me a glimpse of what's new, what's possible. They provide a view of the diversity that can emerge in a plate of bite-sized chunks. And through their frequent novelty, they give me hope that there are new possibilities on the horizon. These appetizers constitute occasional but necessary fodder. Sir Harold Kroto's talk was one of the most satisfying platter of appetizers I have sampled, and I had not even ordered it...

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THE SCIENCE OF THE FAITHFUL

The moment I see someone who has won the Templeton Prize say something about science and religion, I raise my eyebrows. I have never really understood the point of the prize which has been awarded for "progress in science and religion". One of my all time favourite scientists and authors, Freeman Dyson, has received it and to this day I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's because Dyson has spoken in conciliatory terms about science and religion, although he like others has in my mind not managed to give a clear reason why and how the two can be reconciled. Richard Dawkins has perhaps rightly criticised the prize as "a large sum of money given to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion" (The God Delusion)

Now physicist Paul Davies has written an inconsequential piece in the NYT. Davies is a physicist who has written some very good books on popular physics. Like Dyson he has received the Templeton, and so when I saw an article about "faith" in science by him, my "skeptic antenna" started beeping. It turns out my doubts were not unjustified.

Davies seems to be trotting out a common argument used by scientists who want to reconcile science and faith. Their argument is that at at its core, even science is based on faith. In this particular case, Davies talks about the constants of the universe and the laws of physics, and the fact that scientists assume that these laws and nature itself are ordered in a rational and intellegible way. Scientists assume that the universe ultimately behaves in a particular way, and this should be taken as an indication of faith. Moreover, there is no current explanation for why the laws of physics are the way they are, why say the speed of light is what it is. Since scientists don't have an explanation for these facts, they too accept these laws on the basis of faith, without any explanation. But Davies goes so far as to compare this "faith" with religious faith when he says

"Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence...In other words, the (scientific) laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

Well, what can I say but that Davies simply does not seem to understand the difference between degrees of faith, something that I have talked about before. First of all, in one way everything is based on faith. Every single thought that we come up with or infer is ultimately based on some assumption. Even a complete lack of faith signifies a kind of faith. So to say that ultimately everything is based on faith is a meaningless statement which says nothing useful. Secondly, the kind of "faith" that scientists put in the ultimate laws of the universe and the kind of faith that religious people demonstrate in say, believing the virgin birth cannot remotely be compared. In one case, scientists are believing in something based on the consistency with which it applies to testable explanations of the universe. They have good reason to believe the laws of physics because these laws have helped them to discover so many facets of reality. In the second case, what religious people are believing is complete nonsense conjured up by a human being that has absolutely no connection to reality.

What I find appalling is that Davies is enunciating a half-truth without elaborating the very real and significant differences between scientific "faith" and religious blind faith. In addition, he does not seem to realise that in the end, everything is based on faith if you choose to define it so, but that significantly does not make all kinds of "faith" equivalent. But I find his piece especially disconcerting because he is giving an invitation to religious people to open fire on science once again and seethe with indignation at how in their mind, when everybody is criticising their blind faith, even science is based on faith. Davies is doing a disservice to the scientific community and should have known better than to pen this piece of naivete. I am disappointed.

AS BAD AS IT GETS: A DEBATE WITH TWO SURPRISINGLY CREATIONIST GENTLEMEN

How a debate with two friends about creationism turned into a defense of science itself...

Read the rest of the entry on Desipundit...

THE SCHIZOPHRENIC BELIEVER

"Atheist literature" (a scandalous term in my opinion- sounds like "revisionist literature") has been thriving in the last few years. Sparkling critiques of The Supreme Fascist, his cronies, and religion have been appearing, penned by stalwarts such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, and most recently, the outrageously provocative Christopher Hitchens.

All critiques have been controversial, but love them or hate them, all of them deliver devastating broadsides to the whole edifice of religion and faith. All four writers have been asked almost the same kinds of questions in public settings: Don't you feel you are hurting the sentiments of many? (Hitchens: "I don't care. It's the truth"). Don't we need God for some kind of moral code in life? (Dawkins: "Take a look at the bible first...an abomination upon humanity", Dennett: "Look to moral philosophy"). Aren't these barbs really directed at 'extremists', which are really abnormal growths in a largely benign paradigm? (Harris: "It's this 'benign' framework that nourishes the roots of extremism")

But one favourite question that is always asked, and which seems entirely reasonable is, "What harm does it do if a person keeps his religion to himself?". And all the authors more or less give the same kind of answer to this question, that while they personally don't believe in it, it would be largely all right if people keep their religion, prayer and faith to themselves. But some people have even gone to the extent of saying that denying this right to personal faith is treading on fundamental rights as enshrined in Constitutions.

There are many critical answers to this question, but I keep thinking of one particular point that has nothing to do per se with religion or politics; that doing something like this is just not psychologically possible. Think about it. Is it psychologically possible to believe wholeheartedly in something, and also to believe that it's not true? It sounds downright self-contradictory to me: "I believe in the green toad-faced gnome. I pray to him. I eat with him. He grants my prayers. Of course, I understand that he is not real". Can this happen?? You are believing something, but you are also believing that it does not exist.

Hitchens says that religion is like a toy. You are free to play with your toy, but don't insist that me and my wife and my children also play with the toy. Don't barge into our house and force us to play with the toy at gunpoint.
But this is precisely the problem. Especially if it's a toy (such as God) that does not exist, it becomes even more important to become convinced in the existence of the toy, and to cling to it with your life. It is not too hard to believe in a toy that exists (although not forcing others to play with it still very much stands put) but it takes a lot of faith indeed to believe in a toy that is made up. And then it becomes even more of a compelling reason to invite, convince, and then to obstinately force others to believe in that toy and play with it. Even if someone does not do it himself, he is much more likely to at least tacitly support someone else who does it.

That is the reason why, even if having personal beliefs and faith may seem perfectly reasonable, in my opinion, having those beliefs and not forcing them or at least trying to convince others to have them, is largely a self-contradictory condition. A person who has those beliefs and still believes that only he believes it and that it does not exist at all, needs to have a schizophrenic paradoxical mentality of believing and not believing in something at the same time, as harsh as it sounds, based on simple reason. Or as Richard Dawkins says, someone like that would be rather easily called delusional. This is not at all a personal attack on anybody, but an objective definition of this self-contradictory condition.

This is a very unfortunate state of affairs, because I surely would like everyone to have their own faith if they keep it to themselves. I just don't think that such a situation can exist. Not because of intolerance, not because of some inner obduracy that people would have, but because of a simple psychological inconsistency that I see in it. For those who believe it does exist and soundly practice it, I enormously respect them, but would like to look at the results of an MRI of their brain. No offense, seriously.