November 21, 2006

Dobson Can Just Bite Me.

As should be moderately clear from reading this blog, I'm a strong believer in reality, and science (logic and method) as something that points to reality. This isn't to say that there isn't a place for religion and faith, but that there is a clear line between questions that science is capable of answering, and questions that faith is capable of answering.

Moreover, that line is clear, bright, vivid, and glowing. Some scientists are starting to realize this:

In the end it was Dr. Tyson's celebration of discovery that stole the show. Scientists may scoff at people who fall back on explanations involving an intelligent designer, he said, but history shows that "the most brilliant people who ever walked this earth were doing the same thing." When Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" failed to account for the stability of the solar system - why the planets tugging at one another's orbits have not collapsed into the Sun - Newton proposed that propping up the mathematical mobile was "an intelligent and powerful being."

It was left to Pierre Simon Laplace, a century later, to take the next step. Hautily telling Napoleon that he had no need for the God hypothesis, Laplace extended Newton's mathematics and opened the way to a purely physical theory.

"What concerns me now is that even if you're as brilliant as Newton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God and then your discovery stops - it just stops," Dr. Tyson said. "You're no good anymore for advancing that frontier, waiting for somebody else to come behind you who doesn't have God on the brain and who says: 'That's a really cool problem. I want to solve it.' "

"Science is a philosophy of discovery; intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance," he said. "Something fundamental is going on in people's minds when they confront things they don't understand."

He told of a time, more than a millennium ago, when Baghdad reigned as the intellectual center of the world, a history fossilized in the night sky. The names of the constellations are Greek and Roman, Dr. Tyson said, but two-thirds of the stars have Arabic names. The words "algebra" and "algorithm" are Arabic.

But sometime around 1100, a dark age descended. Mathematics became seen as the work of the devil, as Dr. Tyson put it. "Revelation replaced investigation," he said, and the intellectual foundation collapsed.

He did not have to say so, but the implication was that maybe a century, maybe a millennium from now, the names of new planets, stars and galaxies might be Chinese. Or there may be no one to name them at all.

I'm not arguing that we throw out religion (as Dawkins does, in the NYT article); one's own choice about matters of faith is (and should be) one's own choice. But it is time to clearly articulate that science answers questions about reality better than faith and there are societal costs to choosing faith over science in answering those questions.

Thus, if you want to listen to Dobson (and others) for influence in how you answer questions of faith, feel free. That's your decision. Dobson - as a person of faith - is not at all qualified to answer questions of fact any more than my pet dog. To assume otherwise is wrong; to act as if Dobson has qualifications is more than wrong, it's insane and irrational.

Posted by baltar at November 21, 2006 01:07 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Crunchy Nutbars | Culture | Extremism | Science


Comments

questions that faith is capable of answering

...

science answers questions about reality better than faith

To the former, I would respond: "and those would be exactly none."

To the latter: "of course it does, because faith has nothing to do with reality."

Posted by: binky at November 21, 2006 01:31 AM | PERMALINK

Brings to mind the classic (almost Three's Company-esque) misunderstanding of the line "faith is not a fact" on Arrested Development.

And the article in last week's NYT on evangelical power within Republican circles and evangelical leaders going to the White House to lobby for Israel (on behalf of "God's foreign policy").

Posted by: Armand at November 21, 2006 09:56 AM | PERMALINK
Post a comment









Remember personal info?