Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-lymph!arndt From: arndt@lymph.DEC Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Science as Religion Message-ID: <3158@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 12:30:43 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.3158 Posted: Wed Jul 17 12:30:43 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 20:22:59 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 42 Just a passing quote to comment on my statements that doing Science is a bottem a 'religious' task. I am finishing an interesting book, SCIENCE AND CREATION, by Stanley L. Jaki, a Phd in physics and theology. The premise of the book is that 'science' as we know it rose only under the Christian world-view. A statement Whitehead, Oppenheimer and others have made as well. Anyway, it is not light reading and seems to be well researched. Food for thought at least. The interesting passage is as follows: Speaking of the missuse of science (atom bomb, etc.) he says, "Some of the most sensitive of these physicists have become so much appalled by the diabolical transformation of the products of science into tools of destruction as to hint that were it possible for them to start their career anew it would not have anything to do with science." "Out of such dispair arose, however, a more comforting symptom as well. It is the steadily growing realization that the man of science, no less than his counterpart in religion, lives ultimately by faith. With the mirage of positivism now being unmasked, it is easier to recognize that the scientific enterprise rests on a conviction which presupposes far more on man's part than the mere juxtaposition and correlation of the data observation. The conviction in question is nothing short of a faith which, like religious faith, consists in the readiness of going beyond the immediately obvious. The step is not simplya glib conjecture about a deeper layer. (a la Rosen's claims!) It is rather a recognition of the indispensible need of such a layer if the scientific enterprise is to make any lasting sense. It is in that deeper layer that notions like the intelligibility, simplicity, and lawfulness of nature are taking on a meaning which demands absolute, unconditional respect and acceptance. It is that deeper meaning which science must command if its laws should be considered not merely clever manipulations of terminology and data, but a concrete encounter with the real structure of nature." P356. See also (someone - I haven't looked it up yet. Anyone care to do so and give us a report???) his article on the "The Role of Faith in Physics", ZYGON,2 (1967):187-202. Keep chargin' Ken Arndt