God and Science
by Rod Jackson
Science involves studying nature. Now nature is either ordered or it is disordered. There either exists natural laws, that can be discovered or there do not.
If nature is disordered then there must be an appearance of order for science to proceed.
Science assumes the consistency of nature. For example -
Scientists developing a theory of gravity might have 4 different options open to them. Let us suppose they are -
1) Gravity is a force that pushes.
2) Gravity is a force that pulls.
3) Space-Time is curved and Gravity waves exist.
4) Aristotelian concept of a "natural resting place".
Now a scienitist does not say that one day gravity works according to 1) then the next day according to 2), then the next day according to 3) and the last day according to 4). Rather they presuppose that nature is constant across time and space, so they select one of the theories and say that it works generally across time and space. Therefore scientist presuppose the consistency of nature.
Now, some form of order is seen in nature. Thus if nature is inheritly disordered it still has the appearance of order. But is someone who believes in the appearance of order, rationally justified in doing science?
I say they are not rationally justified in doing science.
Consider two books (b1 and b2) these books were written by two different means. One (b1) was written by Shakespear and is a work of art. The other (b2) was made by 1000 monkeys typing on 1000 typewriters. Now suppose that after reading the first 10 pages of both books, they were exactly the same. Is a person rationally justified in expecting, b1, to make sense after reading the first 10 pages and is about to turn to page 11? Well the answer should obviously be "yes". When one gets a book that is ordered then one is justified in assuming that the order will continue. However, what about when reading the book b2, is a person rationally justified to expect the 11th page of the book to make sense? Since the book came from disorder (i.e. is random) then the order seen in first 10 pages of the book must only be the appearance of order, not actual order. Hence the next page could very well look like
kjf 098 2ven 80 o2ieh0 82foj2 v97 b rv9gh1 rb1 yc7 8yv4v78 v734tv7yfv27 f83 g409837b- 8h jeb 3 q8 v 8rievb8 034890vb vg qpgbriuvqbqe9v -q33qhvqgh[ 83 8h90h 9q3hg3q78h 9h- 9q8h4g-98qhg- 98hg-98h g-983hgoqi 3rhg3u4 0917gf ibv97 34 g8h2947t4t789g789 tgc97 c89 hvo24o4b23ubv l ror jreb
Thus they are not rational in expecting order from disorder. Thus for rational scientific enquiry to occur we must believe that the "laws of nature" actually exist and are not merely the "appearance of laws".
I should make a note about Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory is purely deterministic in nature. It is just that the calculations are too difficult for us to solve. Therefore Chaos Theory does not imply there are no laws of nature.
But what about Quantum Indeterminacy?
Quantum Mechanics has about 5 or 6 different philosophical interpretations. All make the same basic predictions and hence there is no scietific way (that we know of) to determine which is correct. However, some interpretations include the belief that the universe is inheritly indeterministic at the quantum level. Does Quantum Indeterminacy mean that there do not exist natural laws? The answer, obviously is "no". Quantum Mechanics is our most successful scientific theory in terms of predictive power, being able to predict accurately up to 26 decimal places. Also there has been no prediction that Quantum Mecahnics has made that can be tested that has turned out false. Predictability means that laws of nature must exist, even if they are indeterministic (i.e. if A then B or C). For example, if a radioactive isotope is about to decay then we cannot know if that individual isotope will decay or not. But if it does decay we can know what it will decay into (hence there must be laws governing that).
So neither Chaos Theory or Quantum Mechanics gives us reason to think that there are no "laws of nature".
Now these laws of nature must be consitent across space and time (as this is a presupposition of science, as shown earlier). They can be universally constant via two different means. I shall call these -
1) Subjective Laws
and
2) Objective Laws
Consider two people playing a board game, say Chess, now the only thing that keeps the laws of the game are the two players. This is what I mean by "Subjective Laws" (they are kept by one or more subjects). However if a person plays against a computer and then person cannot violate those laws. This is what I mean by "Objective Laws" (since they do not depend on any subjects).
If natural law is objective then rationality is an illusion as no one really contemplates anything, rather antecedent causes make certain chemical reactions in the brain etc. Thus for there to be rational scientists the laws of nature must be subjective.
Thus we have seen that of the 4 options
1) Intelligent Design (Subjective, Ordered Laws)
2) Intelligent non-Design (Subjective, Disordered Laws)
3) Non-Intelligent Design (Objective, Ordered Laws)
4) Non-Intelligent non-Design (Objective, Disordered Laws)
2 & 4 were shown to not to lead to rational scientific enquiry since the appearance of natural laws is not sufficent but what is needed are actual laws. And 3 was shown to be insufficent on the basis of determinism or indeterminism not leading to rationality (hence there cannot be rational scientific enquiry). This leaves only 1.
Thus for a scientist to do rational scientific enquiry they must believe in the existence of a Creator....