Bede

This is a review I did and will eventually post on my website. This forum seems most appropriate for a review of a book that covers a lot of philosophical ground.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Modern Science, Ancient Faith by Stephen Barr

I have to admit to having something of a bee in my bonnet over the frequency that we hear the old myth about the conflict between science and religion. Today it is kept going by extremists on both sides of the evolution debate, but it has little historical relevance and may even be the opposite of the truth. Even so, to the man on the street, science has comprehensively taken over the turf of religion which he believes has been beating a retreat for centuries.

In this new book, University of Baltimore Professor of Physics, Stephen Barr, sets out to show that, in reality, there is plenty of room for God at the frontiers of modern physics. Along the way, he briefly debunks the idea of a historical conflict and shows us that many of the alleged victories of science were over straw men. He is at pains to demonstrate that the theologians of the Middle Ages were a good deal more subtle and circumspect than they are usually given credit for as well as showing that atheists have had their fair share of defeats at the hands of science too.

Barr has not written a philosophical monograph but a piece of first class popular philosophy. He is quite honest that the argument is not about proof but about credibility. Most people know almost nothing about modern science but still feel they are justified in thinking it has debunked theism. Barr shows them just how wrong they are and his book will come as a terrible shock to those complacent atheists who think that God is so disproved and that they do not even have to bother thinking about him themselves. Hence, Barr is trying to throw a spanner into the works of materialism by showing that it is almost certainly unable to deal with much of the latest work in quantum mechanics, mathematical logic and cosmology. This book, beautifully presented by Notre Dame and with a full index and copious notes, deserves to be as widely read as Dawkins, Atkins and those on the other side of the debate. Although Barr is a physics professor, he can communicate ideas to the layman even if he feels compelled to relegate some of the toughest concepts to the appendices.

I believe Barr is right. In a fair fight, without historical baggage, materialism would not get a look in among intelligent and informed people. As this book explains, the continuing success of this philosophy is a hangover from the nineteenth century when it looked like sweeping all before it. In an eternal Newtonian universe, the concept that only matter and energy existed was tenable. In today’s rather more mysterious world, it is not. Admittedly Barr is preaching to the choir in my case – I rejected atheism while actually reading for a Physics degree at university for much the reasons he delineates here.

After an introductory historical sketch, Barr organised his material into six broad arguments. These are roughly as follows:

 The Big Bang as the beginning of the universe;
 The requirement for a first cause;
 The fine tuning of the constants of nature;
 The failure of materialist ideas for the mind;
 Godel’s theorum showing the mind cannot be a computer;
 Quantum mechanics requiring a non-physical observer.

The Big Bang is essentially presented as an example of where materialists found their assumptions confounded and theists were vindicated. The development of this theory is outlined with particular attention to attempts by the likes of Fred Hoyle to avoid the uncomfortable implications of a beginning of the universe. The moral of this story is that materialists have a philosophical bias and are no more objective than theists in how they go about science.

The cosmological argument for a First Cause begins with the church fathers but is updated using the trends we find in science. Barr argues that where we see order, science tends to reveal even deeper underlying order. From this we can look to the source of all order being the ultimate cause. Peter Atkins in Creation argued that the ultimate reality had to be completely simple (Atkins is a militant atheist) which, of course, the theist would agree with. But whereas the theist sees ultimate order in God, Atkins finds he has to build order out of nothing and hence produces the least plausible creation account ever written. Barr knows when he cannot provide a definite answer and so leaves us with suggestions that point towards to theistic answer rather than his trying to become dogmatic. He does, in my opinion, make one mistake when he mentions that he is not convinced by the ability of the neo-Darwinian synthesis to fully explain evolution or the possibility of a chemical explanation for the origin of life. However, he says he will make no use of this argument beyond flagging it and pointing to the work of Michael Behe. Given this is outside his area of expertise, I would have preferred him to avoid this matter altogether rather than erect a marker that will certainly be used by atheists to attack him and thus enable them to avoid his main arguments.

On fine tuning, Barr gives many examples of both physicists who have been concerned about the anthropic coincidences and the coincidences themselves. This chapter is generally well argued with the weak anthropic principle explained and refuted together with many of the other common objections. Again, this is a question of credibility rather than proof so while the fine tuning argument does not conclusively demonstrate an intelligence behind the universe, it does put that idea in pole position.

We then moves onto the question of freewill. This takes Barr outside his professional sphere but he remains a reliable guide. He runs through the arguments for freewill and how this cannot be a function of matter alone. Ultimately, materialism must deny freewill and rationality as neither of these are explicable as purely physical processes. Barr insists that denying these is far more irrational (and indeed must be as rationality itself is denied) than believing in a non-physical mind.

Roger Penrose popularised the difficulties that Godel’s theorum causes for those who claim that the brain in a computer. Barr picks this argument up and explains it in a fashion clear to the layman while giving a more rigorous treatment of the proof in an appendix. I would have liked to have seen more engagement with Penrose’s opponents, especially Daniel Dennett, but Barr is more interested in ensuring that the argument is well stated than a detailed critique of all objections. I particularly enjoyed this section of the book as I have long been looking for an accessible introduction to the issue.

Finally, Barr examines the implications of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Philosophers of science will find his treatment somewhat shallow while very possibly agreeing with his conclusions. Scientists will just find it quite disturbing that Kantian idealism has managed to creep into physics. Barr argues that as the observer cannot be included in the model of quantum mechanics, we are left with needing the mind as an entity outside physics in order to do this job.

This book is intended as a clear statement from one side of the argument between theism and atheism/materialism. It is not a philosophically nuanced monograph but a clear exposition of important issues intended for non-specialist readers. As Barr repeatedly makes clear, he is dealing in issues of credibility and not proof. With this book, the credibility of theism has increased markedly and it deserves both a wide readership and a full response.

Bill Snedden

Nicely written, Bede. Have you considered posting it on Amazon? I noticed that the only review so far was a rather non-substantive one from none other than Bill Dembski.

I'm not sure that this really belongs in the Philosophy forum, but inasmuch as we have no "book reviews" forum and it might spark some philosophical debate, I think we can leave it here for the time being.

I'll start:

Like I noted in my "post subject", I'm sufficiently intrigued by your review that I'm adding this to my reading list. If Barr's writing style is as accessible as you indicate, it should be enjoyable and provide some nice counterpoint to some others I'm reading. However, is Barr really saying anything all that different than moderate thinkers have been saying for some time, but then attempting to draw a conclusion not supported by the evidence?

I don't suggest that strong atheists like Dawkins make no bones about what they see as the ineluctable conclusions of scientific endeavor, but I've read a number of more or less popular books that deal with the "frontiers" of science and while I definitely see a materialist "slant", most are unequivocal in stating that they don't have all the answers. To use but one example, research in neurology and the philosophy of mind have all but eliminated Cartesian dualism from the range of possibilities, but the continued intractability of "the hard problem" has driven many researchers to wonder if it will ever be solved.

This doesn't equal the downfall of materialism, but neither does it signal the triumph of theism. It seems to me that most serious thinkers concede that they don't know everything. Is Barr suggesting that we shouldn't keep an open mind (in which case he's in the same category as Dawkins) or is he saying something else?

In other words, and to borrow from your writing, it would seem that, to Barr, the mere fact that we don't have answers to some of humanity's most difficult scientific and philsophical questions leads to a marked increase in the credibility of theism. But this would seem to suggest that the lack of evidence for one theory is evidence for another. But that's plainly untrue. "Materialism" and "theism" are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive worldviews. Even a complete failure of materialism wouldn't make theism automatically true. It is indeed amusing that Barr cites Behe as it is precisely this tactic of modern creationists that seems so confounding: a complete failure of evolution does not render creationism automatically the case.

At any rate, I think I'll still buy the book, if for no other reasons than to see what theory of mind he would support given where all the evidence actually lies, and his discussions of cosmology and quantum mechanics which look equally interesting.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Bede

Bill,

Thanks for your post.

Two points I'd like to make to address your concerns. On the minus side, this is quite a polemical book which is arguing against a fairly naive materialism but that is widely shared by the scientifically literate. Certainly that is my experience. On the plus side, Barr is very careful never to state that theism is proved (or even probable) although, as a Catholic, he does admit to believing it. As a theist, I was left a bit thirsty by the book as I was waiting for the killer punch that never came.

I expect those like you who have already given these issues considerable thought might find the argumentative tone a tad annoying at times. But I don't think you will fault the book as a statement of the case against materialism as informed by modern science.

Barr is a professional physicist (who appears to work in cosmology) so does buy into the scientfic worldview 100%. Hence, to some extent the argument will by-pass those with a less realist view of the world. The epistimological basis of science is never addressed and always just assumed.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Bill Snedden

Most likely not. Polkinghorne did some similar work in his Belief in God in an Age of Science and I found his POV quite interesting, if not wholly convincing. However, that wasn't his goal and, it appears, neither is Barr's. I think that science books that demonstrate that one can be a scientific realist and a theist are valuable indeed as demonstrations that science and religion need not be enemies...

I still think you should post your review on Amazon if you've not done so already. It needs something more than Dembski.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Hugo Holbling

I'll second Bill's comments: that was a nice review, Bede. However, i'm also curious as to whether Barr is accepting the same old science vs. theism view that makes errors in the former supportive of the latter - is his case subtler than that? On a wider note, do you think the issue of how sound or otherwise materialism is should be separated from the historical question of whether or not the conflict hypothesis can be sustained?

You should definitely post the review on Amazon.

madmax2976

Some points:

This of course would depend on what science and which religious ideas are being addressed. Such claims as demon-possession, resurrection from the dead, supernatural creation of the earth in six days, faith healing, and Flood geology, do conflict with science.

I’d say that science has demonstrated a knack for finding out facts about the universe. The methodology it employs is the best we have for discerning fact from fiction.

There seems to be “room for God” whenever we are unable to actually explain some phenomena.

Since the sole claim of atheism is the lack of belief in or denial of the existence of any Gods, I tend to doubt this. I suspect you meant naturalists rather than atheists here. If so, I’m not sure what “defeat” you’d be referring to such that naturalism itself has been disproved. That certain hypotheses have been discredited or falsified or even improved upon is simply part of the scientific process.

I must not be reading the right books. I’ve yet to read anything from science that purports to have “disproven” God or any experiment that has even tried or bothered to do so.

What has happened is that science has demonstrated itself to be the best methodology for finding out how things are and how they work. Over time it has replaced various purported deities as explanation for certain phenomena. No longer do we find that the Egyptian God Happi as the suitable explanation for the workings of the Nile eco-system. No irate deity is found as the cause of some plague. Nor is Thor any longer the accepted explanation for thunder and lightning.

So he’s arguing for immaterialism? Supernaturalism? I have to wonder what evidence he brings to the table to support such historically poor methods of investigation. Does he present any evidence of immaterial/supernatural forces or entities? Or does he simply rely on arguments from ignorance?
It does sound interesting, even if what you’ve presented of it so far appears highly questionable.

I’m not sure how such a claim can be justified. The vast majority of the reality around us is demonstrably materialistic. It is only in those areas in which we are ignorant that immaterialism seems to thrive. These areas have been and are constantly changing as our knowledge increases.

I’ve yet to see anything that has stopped the process. The only thing that has changed is the areas in which we are ignorant – its changed from mental disorders, disease, weather, and the operation of the sun, to the workings of quantum phenomena and the cause of the universe. The pattern hasn’t changed though – immaterialists see room for the immaterial in whatever phenomena cannot currently be explained in naturalistic terms - not that they can actually explain the phenomena .

Really? Again, what evidence for the immaterial does Barr present? This appears to be quite an exaggerated and unjustified claim at this point. I only wish you had mentioned what it was that Barr presented that could justify such a conclusion.

Again, on what basis is this extraordinary claim made? What assumptions are you referring to? Which theists were vindicated and how?

Sweeping accusations of bias are unimpressive regardless of who they are levied against. I suspect there are many materialists who can be objective and many theists who can be as well.

And there are many arguments and criticisms against the First Cause argument as well. This is nothing new.

Or as I would argue, its completely off track based on an unjustified view – that being that the universe was finely constructed so that we could exist in it, rather than humans being fine-tuned by evolutionary processes to fit in the universe that exists.

Additionally, no theist has yet to demonstrate the assumed wide range of variability for the cosmological constants at or just prior to the Big Bang. The simplest probability equation requires actual data on which to run any computation. Without actually knowing how many possible universes there could have been and how many there could have been to support life of some kind, the fine-tuning argument can go nowhere.

I suspect he argues this from the perspective of determinism. If so, then I would argue that only under a deterministic framework does the concept of making choices appear at all rational. The alternative is a framework of randomness (whether it be material or immaterial) which would eliminate the possibility of choice by any definition that I am aware of.

Of course Barr may have some other definition for “free will” in mind than that of simply making choices. If so, then this would have to be explicitly layed out. Depending on the usage he adheres to, there may be no argument at all as “Barr-freewill” might very well not exist, and I would not contend otherwise.

But what is his insistence based on? Both appear to go against what we know, with no evidence indicating one is more probable than the other.

Sounds like a classic argument from ignorance. If we don’t understand something – there must be an immaterial/supernatural explanation for it. Or some supernatural hypothesis is to be considered more probable, though we are given no reason outside of philosophical assumptions as to why this would be so.

It may be that someone will give it a “full response”, though I haven’t seen anything new here. First cause, fine-tuning, freewill, and arguments from ignorance, are all old arguments, each having numerous critiques and refutations. However, I do like having a library of works consisting of those from both sides of the aisle, so I’m intrigued enough to pick up a copy when I get a chance. It may fit nicely beside Paul Davies, “The Mind of God”.

I suppose it could be examined in opposition to other works such as: “Has Science Found God” by Victor Stenger and “The Ghost in the Universe: God in the Light of Modern Science” by Taner Edis. (I’ve read the former but not yet the latter)

bd-from-kg

Bede:

Bede, of course there’s a conflict between science and religion, and it’s irreconcilable. Religion is fundamentally based on the idea that truth is to be found in revelation – either the revelations in some purported “holy book”, or in the sayings of some purported “holy man”, or one’s own personal revelation. Science is based on the idea that truth, so far as it can be found at all, is to be found in verifiable observations and experiments that are accessible (at least in principle) to anyone who cares to check them. In religion, while it’s OK to question things at the margin, one must not question the basic, fundamental tenets on penalty of being cast into the outer darkness. In science one is not only permitted, but encouraged and even enjoined, to question absolutely everything. The religious mindset is fundamentally incompatible with the scientific mindset.

It’s true that the more sensible religious people will abandon beliefs based on supposed revelations when they come to be clearly contradicted by science. But the point is that they had the beliefs in the first place, when there was no scientific (i.e., rational) basis for them.

And religion tends to create a deep reluctance to accept scientific conclusions that imply a fundamentally different picture of the world than the one the religion was originally based on – evolution being Exhibit 1 in this respect. While evolution can be worked into a religious worldview, it takes a lot of pushing and shoving to make it “fit” – witness the Catholic’s Church’s insistence, even today, that evolution is an “acceptable” theory only if extraneous, totally unjustified assumptions are added (“directed evolution”). To a scientist this is simply bizarre. Ridiculously unparsimonious assumptions like this are completely out of place in science. And I know perfectly intelligent, otherwise well-educated people who believe in the total nonsense known as “Scientific Creationism” simply because their religious beliefs are incompatible with evolution in any form.

Religious people make much of intuition. They often explain that this or that belief seems plausible to them because it conforms to their intuitions about how things are, and reject other ideas because their intuition tells them that it “can’t be so”. Those with a scientific cast of mind seek to recognize that a belief is based on (hitherto unrecognized) intuitions precisely for the purpose of questioning them, because they know that human intuition is a totally unreliable guide to truth.

Religious people find William James’s “Will to Believe” type thinking attractive. If an idea seems plausible and has not been positively disproved, they feel free to believe it if it makes them feel good, provides comfort, or makes them feel that they are “tuned” in to some transcendent reality. Scientific people regard this kind of thinking with disdain, if not incomprehension. “What has any of this to do with whether the idea in question is true?”, they ask. “And what kind of person would base his beliefs on anything but his best judgment as to what’s true?”

And that’s it in a nutshell. To a scientist the question is not “Is there still room for God?” but “Is the hypothesis that God exists part of the most parsimonious explanation for the totality of our observations and experiences?”

Now suddenly you change the subject from “science” to “materialism”. Science is a methodology; a way of thinking about things, of coming to conclusions about what exists and what doesn’t, and how the things that exist are related to one another. If the evidence does not allow a conclusion about a particular subject at this time, the scientific method requires that we modestly admit our ignorance and refrain from forming an opinion about it. Materialism is a philosophy – a comprehensive “theory of everything” which goes far beyond anything that is justified by the available evidence. Materialism is no more justified, from a scientific point of view, than religion is.

Some materialists were confounded by the Big Bang theory; others weren’t. Those with a true scientific turn of mind were neither confounded nor vindicated by it. Indeed, for a very long time had no opinion on the subject of the because they had not formed any opinions about the beginnings (if any) of the universe, there being insufficient evidence to justify any opinion. Eventually, when there was actual evidence on the subject, rival theories were formed, the best-known being Hoyle's and Gamow's Bid Bang theory. The discovery of the microwave background tilted the balance heavily in favor of the latter.

That's how science works. Rival theories are advances until new evidence decides the issue. Initial preconceptions are inevitable, but different people have different ones, and the preconceptions are discarded in favor of the theory that best fits the facts once enough facts are in. How does this favor the religious way of thinking, where the facts are ignored, suppressed, or subjected to absurdly fanciful interpretations to save the original preconceptions?

This is a typical example of religious thinking: a total non sequitur leading to a pre-formed conclusion. There is absolutely no logical path from “There is a deep underlying order” to “The source of all order is the ultimate cause”. The scientific conclusion is “There seems to be a deep order in this universe; I have no idea what the explanation for this is, or even whether there is an explanation.”

On the contrary, he’s perfectly right. Although current evolutionary theory seems to be a completely satisfactory explanation of how life evolved into the diverse forms we now observe one it began, there is currently nothing remotely approaching a satisfactory explanation of how life came into existence in the first place. But here again we see the divergence between the religious and scientific reaction to such facts. The scientist says simply “We don’t have an explanation for this yet. But stay tuned; we’re working on it. Maybe we’ll find one” The religious person tends to say, “Aha! Science cannot explain this! Don’t you see the Hand of God at work here?”

Yes, scientists have begun to talk about this because they are beginning to have a faint glimmering that it may be possible to find a scientific explanation for it. Scientists typically ignore problems that are clearly too far beyond the current “state of the art” to tackle. Considering such questions is just an exercise in idle speculation, and the chances of happening on the right explanation are essentially nil.

From what you say it seems clear that Barr is talking about “metaphysical” or “libertarian” free will. Since this is a logically incoherent concept, it’s doubtful that Barr is a “reliable guide” in this area.

Godel’s Theorem has nothing at all to do with whether the brain is a computer; it’s about the limitations of finitary formal axiomatic systems. A great many people have tried to read far more into this theorem than is really there. In any case, the brain is obviously not a computer, so what’s the point?

Most physicists regard the Copenhagen Interpretation as just a convenient way to think about QM. Most of them either have no opinion about whether it’s “true” or believe that it’s false. A good many of the brightest physicists think that some version of the Many-Worlds interpretation is more likely to be correct.

Anyway, it’s extremely dangerous to base philosophical conclusions on a current scientific theory. The current theory is the current theory only because it seems at present to be the most parsimonious way to explain the data. It’s there to be challenged, and no scientist will be surprised if it’s eventually superseded. Whether it “corresponds to reality” (in any sense other than that it gives good predictions) is anybody’s guess.

Not so. Penrose has argued that the (apparent) “collapse of the wave function” may be associated with gravitation, which is not currently integrated into the “standard theory”. There is certainly no need to suppose that the collapse is literally associated with the presence of an observer.

From a scientific point of view the credibility of theism is still essentially zero. There are absolutely no observations or experiments that require a non-natural explanation, much less an explanation involving an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent sentient Creator. This hypothesis is completely superfluous and a massive violation of Ockham’s Razor.

Dominus Paradoxum

Unfortunately, there is no logical reason that we are currently aware of as to why a simpler explanation would be more likely to be true. I doubt that any non-question begging arguement can be given for the the principle, and I think it would be fairly easy to give a Humean refutation of anyone who tried. But I'm not going to delve into that here.

As to the five points raised by Bede:

„h The Big Bang as the beginning of the universe;

No problem here
„h The requirement for a first cause;

Even assuming that there were a "first cause", why should this be anything like a personal agent? And just what, pray tell, is the explanation for the existence of the first cause?

„h The fine tuning of the constants of nature;

Question begging. And if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, all possible combinations of the constants of nature obtain, so it is inevitable that a universe capable of supporting life will exist.

„h The failure of materialist ideas for the mind;

Materialism does seem to have some trouble accounting for conscious experience, or "qualia", but I think it's still too early to tell one way or the other.

„h Godel¡¦s theorum showing the mind cannot be a computer;

Godel's theorem shows no such thing. If anything, it shows that our minds could not be a single formal system. If our mind could switch between mutiple higher order systems, we could easily see the truth of our Godel sentence. But as bd from kg said, it's irrelevant anyway since the brain is not a computer. And determinism, properly understood, in no way infringes upon rationality. You should read this book, which has a very legnthly discussion of that subject.

„h Quantum mechanics requiring a non-physical observer.

Unfortunately, the copenhagen interpretation is almost certainly false. And appantently doesn't realize that God couldn't be omniscient on this view, since the wave function only evolves when *nothing* observed it. If a quantum system is constantly observed, it can't change its state.

Dominus Paradoxum

Btw, if you want to know what's wrong with Behe-style arguments, go here.

Bede

Oh dear. The thread has been invaded by naive realists and postivists. They get everywhere...

bd said: "Anyway, it’s extremely dangerous to base philosophical conclusions on a current scientific theory." Which is entirely true and why those who try to use science as a weapon against religion or evidence for materialism are being silly. Barr is arguing against materiaism claiming to be vindicated by science. While he states theism is consistant with science as constructed today, he does not say that it is demonstrated by the same. In other words, he is being much more measured and careful than someone claiming that science has killed God or some such nonsense.

bd's reply was actually a big disappointment as I thought he had developed a more subtle view of science than he shows here. He seems to have slipped back into the boring old "Science is the truth, man" refrain. His definition of religion is simplistic too, but I'll take personal experience over a whole pile of science textbooks any day of the week.

Science is a construction based on a number of axioms - to pick some out the air:

- that the universe runs according to consistant laws;
- that the laws are constant over time and space;
- that humans are rational animals;
- that the laws of the universe are comprehendible to humans.

This lot all come from medieval theology (which got then from the Jews and a smallm proportion of the Greeks) which is why science grew up in Europe - the necessary axioms were already supplied and nearly universally agreed on (the last one was rejected by Ockhamists). Hence, science is based on axioms derived from theism. The materialist adds a further axiom (as well as taking the others as brute facts rather than following from something) that matter and energy are all there is. Quite where they dug this up from is anyone's guess as it follows from nothing and is inconsistant with the scientific construction built from the other axioms. So the materialist either has massive faith that science will eventually conform to his preconceptions or ditches the axiom as unwarranted. This leaves us only with the axioms derived from theology as required for science. Science is consistant with theism and follows from it. The whole lot might be false but its usefulness means we stick with it.

There is no conflict between science and religion. There is just a conflict between extremists like many of those who post here. Nearly all atheists rejected the big bang - it was proposed by theists who didn't have the baggage of atheism preventing them from accepting the science. Eventually, the evidence became so overwealming nearly all atheists (lately even Richard Carrier) accepted it and reinterpreted their philosophy to accept it - just like Christians reinterprete their ideas when new information comes along. That, as bg will know, is how theology works.

Rational does not mean scientific. Rational means based on the faculties of human reason which is capable of a whole lot more than narrow science. The most rational reason of all to believe something is personal experience. Science doesn't come close.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason