As Any True Scientist Should

[Thedrin]

... . Some very prominent scientists espoused the possibility of God (as any true scientist should) ...

This was posted in a recent thread. I've removed the context since it's just these words that I'd like to focus on, and the fact that I agree with them.

I studied physics through college, though I wouldn't call myself a scientist. I respect the scientific method greatly. On topics where there is a scientific consensus I am happy to accept that consensus as being a reasonable explanation of observed phenomena, even if I haven't taken the time to understand what's going on myself.

I'm not religeous but I'm also not an atheist. I lean towards the idea that a god of some form exists though I make no specific claims about the nature of that entity. I don't worship in any form, but I do have a certain amount of admiration for people who have a firm belief in a god.

My opinion for a long time has been that the scientific method is not a tool that can be used to make assertions about the existance of a god, so - as stated above- I agree with the quoted statement.

Am I wrong about this?

Richard Dawkins, a respected scientist, seems to have made a second career out of arguing against the possibility of a god, and he seems to have a large enough following. I have not read any of his works but based on the rather poor arguments made by people who cite Dawkins as a source (online and in real life) I've largely ignored the notion that he's produced anything significant in that second career. Am I wrong to have ignored his books on theology?

 

[Theige]

There is obviously the possibility of "god" in the universe. But "it" is almost assuredly nothing like any religion on this earth professes "it" to be.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

As a scientist the only way to test the hypothesis of God is to try to validate or falsify it. This is impossible. So a scientist should acknowledge being agnostic about the existence of God. From there it becomes a personal unscientific decision.

Based purely on science the equation is simple. There is no evidence for the hypothesis, reject the hypothesis and revert to the null hypothesis "there is no God".

 

[civ-addicted]

As a scientist the only way to test the hypothesis of God is to try to validate or falsify it. This is impossible. So a scientist should acknowledge being agnostic about the existence of God. From there it becomes a personal unscientific decision.

Based purely on science the equation is simple. There is no evidence for the hypothesis, reject the hypothesis and revert to the null hypothesis "there is no God".

I mostly agree on the first one, but you can easily revert the second one; there is no proof that there is no god, so go back to the null hypothesis "there is a God". That's a far too easy approach you're trying to do here.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

There's no proof there is no god and there's no proof there is a god.
Why should the automatic assumption be that there could be a good ?
We also dno't assume there could be a teapot orbiting the sun.
I'm not an atheist, but I'm with Bertrand Russel on this one.

 

[civ-addicted]

There's no proof there is no god and there's no proof there is a god.
Why should the automatic assumption be that there could be a good ?
We also dno't assume there could be a teapot orbiting the sun.
I'm not an atheist, but I'm with Bertrand Russel on this one.

If that was appointed to me; The first line is basically what i think. I didn't say that the null hypothesis can be used to proof God. Wouldn't that be too easy after all?

The basic question of this thread is still if you need to consider God for science. I think that whether you believe in him or not is hardly related to the results of your studies. You can find good examples of people for both sides.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I mostly agree on the first one, but you can easily revert the second one; there is no proof that there is no god, so go back to the null hypothesis "there is a God". That's a far too easy approach you're trying to do here.

"There is a God" is not a good null hypothesis. You can't prove "There is no God" so you can't reject the null-hypothesis "there is a God".

edit: Example. On the question whether I am God. What null-hypothesis would you pick?

 

[Leoreth]

There is no conclusive evidence either way, so everyone who says something like that is subjectively way too certain about the existence of God, or doesn't know what the scientific method is about.

Seriously, I thought belief in God was about faith?

 

[civ-addicted]

"There is a God" is not a good null hypothesis. You can't prove "There is no God" so you can't reject the null-hypothesis "there is a God".

edit: Example. On the question whether I am God. What null-hypothesis would you pick?

"not a good null hypothesis"? In statistics, anything can be a hypothesis, and it's surely not divided into "good" and "bad".

EDIT:

Seriously, I thought belief in God was about faith?

^this.
The problem is to mix faith and science up. And it's not any better when people not believing in God doing it.

 

[Souron]

Seriously, I thought belief in God was about faith?

If people who believe in God do so out of faith, then they cannot know God to exist. Knowledge requires some reason or "justification." Faith is belief without reason. Ergo faith cannot lead to knowledge.

 

[El_Machinae]

I didn't really enjoy Dawkins' work on theology. The best part of his book was proving that God didn't exist because it was most impressive to create something if you don't exist (and God is the most impressive thing ever).

The arguments against 'God' are more theological and physical, but there's obviously no conclusive evidence. It's only specific instances of "God" that can be disproven, only once it is given enough testable characteristics (by the definer) can we test for it. This is why the number of testable characteristics associated with 'God' diminishes over time. As well, I think that the problem of evil is insurmountable

 

[civ-addicted]

If people who believe in God do so out of faith, then they cannot know God to exist. Knowledge requires some reason or "justification." Faith is belief without reason. Ergo faith cannot lead to knowledge.

If you're a creationist and you have to research the Big Bang, that's possibly true. But me being a Catholic doesn't handicap my mathematical abilities.
If your faith and your studies aren't related, there's no problem. It's like saying "a gay guy can't do chemistry" or "a socialist can't do computer studies". That's just bollocks.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

"not a good null hypothesis"? In statistics, anything can be a hypothesis, and it's surely not divided into "good" and "bad".

Ok, explain how one would reject the null-hypothesis by trying to prove a negative "there is no God".

Anything can be a hypothesis, sure, but we are talking about a null-hypothesis. Which is not just any other hypothesis.

 

[Souron]

God is used to explain nature. Nature is the domain of science. If the scientific method is taken to be a the only properly reasoned approach to studying nature, and it does not lead to the conclusion that God is part of a viable scientific theory, then God cannot be said to exist.

With God the reason it does not make a scientific theory is not just a lack of testable claims, but that the idea of God is not minimalist. In science a theory must explain observation, and no more; each facet of the theory must be directly backed by observation. An anthropomorphic God does not fit this criteria. And if God is not anthropomorphic, why call it Him? Why call it God?


So there's the contention. If a scientist believes in the legitimacy of the scientific method as the way to justify ideas about the working of nature, then he cannot with self constancy justify the belief in God.

 

[civ-addicted]

Ok, explain how one would reject the null-hypothesis by trying to prove a negative "there is no God".

Anything can be a hypothesis, sure, but we are talking about a null-hypothesis. Which is not just any other hypothesis.

That's how i know it from statistics:
H0: There is a God and H1: There is no God
and
H0: There is no God and H1: There is a God
What's the difference between the two and why should one be better than the other
I really don't want to argue about it because this approach is useless. Really.

And why do you want this thread to be dragged into a "theist vs. atheist" direction?

 

[Souron]

If you're a creationist and you have to research the Big Bang, that's possibly true. But me being a Catholic doesn't handicap my mathematical abilities.
If your faith and your studies aren't related, there's no problem. It's like saying "a gay guy can't do chemistry" or "a socialist can't do computer studies". That's just bollocks.

I'm not sure what you're talking about but I was making a reference to epistemology.

Plato reasoned that knowledge is justified true belief. He reasoned that these are each necessary for knowledge. To know something, it is not enough for you to believe it, as an optimist might of his fate. Not even if that belief happens to be true. To claim to know something you must also have reason to believe it to be true. Plato suggested that true justified belief with an account may be sufficient reasoning to call something knowledge. But faith surely does not qualify. It isn't a justification, it's just belief that might incidentally be true. But just as an optimist doesn't know that everything will turn out wonderfully, how can a priest know that God exists?

 

[Souron]

That's how i know it from statistics:
H0: There is a God and H1: There is no God
and
H0: There is no God and H1: There is a God
What's the difference between the two and why should one be better than the other
I really don't want to argue about it because this approach is useless. Really.

Null hypothesis are used to test deviation from a norm. For instance whether a particular change in a process effect a particular variable. In such a case the null hypothesis is always that there was not change, and the alternative hypothesis that there was a change, or that there was a change in a particular direction.

Without a norm to compare to, data is not subject to that particular kind of statistical analysis. The question of the existence of God a comparison of a norm to a change, or anything like it. It is not subject to null hypothesis testing.

 

[Leoreth]

But in statistics you often encounter situation where you don't know what the norm is. And whether "God exists" or "God doesn't exist" is the norm is the whole question here, the answer depends on which you believe to be ultimately true.

God is used to explain nature. Nature is the domain of science. If the scientific method is taken to be a the only properly reasoned approach to studying nature, and it does not lead to the conclusion that God is part of a viable scientific theory, then God cannot be said to exist.

With God the reason it does not make a scientific theory is not just a lack of testable claims, but that the idea of God is not minimalist. In science a theory must explain observation, and no more; each facet of the theory must be directly backed by observation. An anthropomorphic God does not fit this criteria. And if God is not anthropomorphic, why call it Him? Why call it God?

So there's the contention. If a scientist believes in the legitimacy of the scientific method as the way to justify ideas about the working of nature, then he cannot with self constancy justify the belief in God.

It's possible to believe in a god who doesn't interfere with the physical world at all. One could interpret the process of science as trying to understand how God does things. You seem to argue specifically against the Christian notion of God, which is only one possibility among many.

I agree that "God simply made it happen" shouldn't be considered a valid explanation in science, though.

 

[Souron]

But in statistics you often encounter situation where you don't know what the norm is. And whether "God exists" or "God doesn't exist" is the norm is the whole question here, the answer depends on which you believe to be ultimately true.

Not really. It's just not subject to that kind of statistical test.

It's possible to believe in a god who doesn't interfere with the physical world at all. One could interpret the process of science as trying to understand how God does things. You seem to argue specifically against the Christian notion of God, which is only one possibility among many.

I agree that "God simply made it happen" shouldn't be considered a valid explanation in science, though.

Firstly asserting that God is not physical does not remove his existence from the domain of science. Science is the study of nature, regardless of whether nature is "physical" or not.

Secondly, I am arguing against a mystical God. This requires classifying God as "being", which is a way of ascribing humanity to God. If you don't define God that way then the definition may be compatible with science. For instance you can define God as "the thing that caused the world to be." This is a lovely poetic definition of God that allows us to talk about the world in a particular way. But it is not a religious claim. It's just a term. There's no mysticism to it.

Thirdly, my claim is a bit stronger than "God simply made it happen" isn't a valid theory. I also assert that the scientific method is the way to justify claims about nature. Specifically if a claim does not provide a minimalist explanation of observed phenomena, then we are not justified in believing that claim. The scientific method is the only properly reasoned way to make claims about nature.

 

[Arakhor]

It's possible to believe in a god who doesn't interfere with the physical world at all. One could interpret the process of science as trying to understand how God does things.

It's certainly possible to believe that and I would imagine that most scientists prior to Darwin believed in that set-up. It's just a shame that a belief in the Christian God comes with a vast selection of baggage, added to more and more by certain fundamentalists intent on changing scientific knowledge to fit the Bible.