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The Christian Roots of Science and Why They Still Matter — Transcript

by Stephen Meyer · 3,267 words · 494 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00So we have been getting loads of
0:02questions.
0:04So uh a lot of them focused on the
0:06history of science, some specifically on
0:08Newton, some on math. And I know I think
0:10Steve would like to also talk about the
0:12the god of the gaps. But could we start
0:16maybe with some of the the um
0:20philosophy of the history um of science
0:24questions? So maybe we can just dispose
0:26of these quickly. What impact did the
0:28resurgence of neoplatanism in
0:30Renaissance Europe have upon the rise of
0:32science? Was it a major catalyst, minor
0:34catalyst, or impediment?
0:36Probably a bit of uh an impediment,
0:39though there's a lot to say in favor of
0:41neoplatanism philosophically, but it
0:44would have uh platonism. Plato even more
0:48than much more than Aristotle was less
0:50interested in the empirical world and
0:53more in the world of the forms. So I
0:55would I I um uh let's leave it there. I
0:59think it's a complicated question, but I
1:00would say probably it's a bit of an
1:02impediment. Okay. And then someone else
1:04asked, does a relationship exist between
1:06the Reformation and the subsequent
1:08scientific revolution? If so, can you
1:10briefly explain? Right. I think I think
1:12here I'm very ecumenical. um
1:14developments in late medieval Catholic
1:16philosophy uh especially at the
1:19universities of Oxford and Paris had a
1:21big role in laying the foundations for a
1:23number of the uh uh the the systematic
1:26methods of investigation figures like
1:29Robert Gest Roger Bacon um they
1:33developed methods very similar to our
1:35isolation of variables and but the
1:38reformation too played a big role in
1:40emphasizing the fallibility of man and
1:42the contingency
1:43of nature on the will of God. That's the
1:45what's sometimes called the tradition of
1:47theological volunteerism and that was a
1:49big break with the Greek way of thinking
1:51as I mentioned the necessarian theology
1:53that kind of got intermingled with some
1:56uh medieval theology. So both parts of
1:59the Christian faith tradition I think
2:01had a had a had a had a had an important
2:03role in the rise of modern science. Um,
2:06speaking of contingency, uh, someone
2:08asked, you said that also on the to be
2:11fully ecumenical on the on the
2:13reformation side, part of what was
2:14recovered was the emphasis on the Bible
2:17and the Old Testament in particular, the
2:20Hebrew Bible. And a lot of the concepts
2:21about the laws of nature came out of uh
2:24books like the book of Job where there
2:25was an idea of of of boundaries that God
2:28had set on nature that God was order
2:30actively ordering nature. So, uh, part
2:32of what the reformation recovered was
2:34the Jewish background. Okay. Uh,
2:37speaking of the idea of contingency and
2:39volunteerism, someone asked, you said
2:41that a pope advanced the argument about
2:43contingency. Which pope was it? Um,
2:47I was blanking on his name. 1277. It's
2:50Etien something. So, it's in my book
2:53chapter one. Go get the book. That's
2:55good. Subtle advertisement. Yeah. And
2:58then um maybe to round out the questions
3:00on the on the history of science. Uh
3:02well actually there are two more things.
3:04Uh someone actually asked you about the
3:07Galileo affair and its impact and um
3:11what's the most effective way to
3:12summarize how the Galileo affair is
3:14relevant or not to the supposed conflict
3:17of Michael Keys has done great work on
3:19this. Owen Gingerich has done great work
3:21on this. uh historians of science uh
3:23effectively it was a debate about uh
3:26Aristotilian philosophy not so much
3:28Christian theology the idea that the
3:30earth was at the center and the orbits
3:31were circular was a was a uh a a Greek
3:35concept from Aristotle and tom the
3:40church had adopted it probably in an
3:43ill-advised way and it became entwined
3:45with Christian orthodoxy and so when
3:47capernicus came along and Galileo came
3:50along challenged that some viewed it as
3:52a challenge to Christian theology, but
3:54it was really a challenge to uh uh a
3:57syncratism of Greek thought with with
3:59Christian theology and the empirical
4:03methods of the new scientists ultimately
4:05won out and disentangled the two. So I
4:08don't think it was ultimately a a fight
4:11about um uh between science and and
4:14Christian theology as much as it was a
4:16fight about the new science versus the
4:18old science of Aristotle. Um also
4:20Galileo was somewhat imprudent in um
4:24making fun of the pope in a famous
4:26dialogue that he wrote in which the
4:29words of the pope were put into the
4:30mouth of a character called simplitio
4:34which was not the smartest thing he
4:35could have done. Yeah would think so.
4:37Okay. To round out these questions
4:39specifically on history of science that
4:40actually brings things to today and
4:42actually probably connects to your book.
4:44Um someone asked philosophy can be
4:46argued to have its roots in ancient
4:48Greece and the diversity of thought was
4:50enable enabled by the flexibility of its
4:53pagan ideology. Philosophy matured past
4:57its roots in Plato, Aristotle,
4:59Pythagoras, etc. What do you say to the
5:01argument that science has now matured
5:04past its Christian origins? Um I say
5:07read return of the God hypothesis.
5:10The that that's right on point for the
5:12book is the book tells a big story. It's
5:14the rise of modern science during the
5:15period of the scientific revolution as
5:17the result of or in consequence of these
5:20Judeo-Christian presuppositions that are
5:22in the minds of the early scientists. We
5:24lose that perspective in the late 19th
5:26century with the rise of figures like
5:29Darwin, Marx, Freud, Heckle um and many
5:33many others. Scientific materialism
5:34becomes the dominant worldview that's
5:36associated with or attached to science.
5:39I think the major discoveries of 20th
5:41century science, especially about
5:43biological and cosmological origins, are
5:46bringing back that theistic perspective.
5:48And if not, if they're not bringing it
5:50back, they they should be bringing it
5:52back. That's the argument of the book
5:54that that the evidence we now have the
5:56concerning the origin of the universe
5:58and the origin of life, the finetuning
6:00of the universe, these three big
6:02discoveries, I think, have profoundly
6:04theistic implications. So I don't think
6:06theism is in any way irrelevant to the
6:09scientific project. Instead, I think a
6:11theistic view provides the best overall
6:14explanation of the uh the big facts we
6:18have about biological and cosmological
6:20origins. So science is again I think
6:23pointing to God and the theistic
6:25presuppositions that made science
6:27possible are still implicit in
6:29everything we do in science. Right?
6:30Nature is intelligible. It is ordered
6:32and that order is contingent. Great. We
6:35have a couple people who are interested
6:37in mathematics. So, I'm going to sort of
6:39combine their questions. Uh, did God
6:41create a universal language and is that
6:43language mathematics? And then someone
6:45else added on, is math primary or just a
6:48confirmation to natural processes?
6:52These are all fantastic questions. I
6:54think many of the sci the great
6:56scientists have seen that the natural
6:59world is written if you will in a
7:01language of mathematics that math it's
7:03it's really quite mysterious um there
7:06was a great article by Eugene Vner in n
7:09Nobel lauring laurate Hungarian
7:11physicist called the unreasonable
7:13applicability of mathematics to the
7:15physical world why is it that
7:17mathematics that we sometimes invent as
7:20we're thinking theoretically
7:21mathematically hundreds of
7:24earlier later applicable to describing
7:28actual physical processes. It's very
7:30eerie in the it suggests that same
7:32principle of correspondence that there's
7:33a there's an intellect there there's a
7:36an intelligibility to nature that is
7:39revealed in mathematics that also seems
7:41to reveal a great mind behind nature
7:44written in the language of mathematics.
7:45So yeah I would answer simple answer the
7:47first question is yes I I I'm inclined
7:49to that view. Second question was uh
7:54um really is is math um primary or just
7:58a confirmation to natural processes? I
8:00think sort of well I I think most of the
8:02great physicists would say it's primary
8:04that when you get to the thing that
8:06really helps us understand the order or
8:09perceive the order it's expressed
8:11mathematically that there is that so
8:13that we see order in nature but the
8:16order can be described precisely with
8:19mathematical equations oftentimes
8:21differential equations and it's quite
8:23extraordinary it suggests ma math in our
8:26experience comes out of minds it is
8:29stored in minds. It's used by minds and
8:32at the foundation of reality we have
8:34this profoundly
8:37mental or intellectual feature uh in
8:41that in that the physical world conforms
8:44to mathematical patterns. So I think
8:46it's it's very fundamental to our
8:48understanding of nature and is therefore
8:50primary in that sense. So we had quite a
8:52few people who were intrigued by the
8:53last part of your talk and so here are a
8:56few questions from that. Can you comment
8:58on the ether and dark matter and dark
9:01energy?
9:03Um,
9:05ether
9:07see Bill Demsky out there. I'm maybe see
9:10if he can help out. Um, okay. Uh, the
9:13ether was always a theoretical
9:16construct. It was never observable or
9:18directly detectable. Uh, was special
9:21relativity. The Michaelelsson Mole
9:23experiments. Uh we finally once and for
9:26once and for good got rid of it. Um and
9:30um we do now have unobservable matter
9:32that's posited in cosmology called dark
9:36matter. Um and it's um posited as a way
9:40of explaining things that we can see.
9:42And I think this is a common thing in in
9:44physics. So there's nothing inherently
9:46wrong with positing an unobservable
9:48entity to explain something observable.
9:50It's just that the ether turned out to
9:52not be very good at explaining what we
9:55actually see. So, physics is often
9:59indirectly inferential in that we posit
10:02unobservable entities
10:04in so far as they help us to explain
10:06things that we can't observe or measure
10:08or detect which I think is an
10:10interesting point about the God
10:11hypothesis in that there's no intrinsic
10:14disreputility.
10:15There's nothing intrinsically
10:16disreputable about positing a past
10:19action of an intelligent agent or of a
10:21designing agent or even of God. If in so
10:24positing we can provide a more
10:26comprehensive and or parsimmonious
10:29explanation of the observables. Um dark
10:32matter is a physics is is posited on the
10:36basis of its ability to help us explain
10:37certain phenomena in cosmology. Um and
10:41there's a cosmological model called the
10:43oscillating universe that depends upon
10:47um that that has been refuted because
10:51there's not enough energy even the and
10:54dark matter even the dark unobservable
10:57matter to cause a recolapse of the
10:59universe. Um and any anyway there's a
11:02lot more to say about all of that but
11:03yeah that's a great question. Someone
11:04else asked do you see any relationship
11:06between quantum fields and constant
11:08spirit action? Ah well the modern uh
11:11view of gravity is that gravitons are a
11:15manif uh if you go to the the standard
11:17model of particle physics the idea that
11:20elementary particles are manifestations
11:22of underlying fields and but fields are
11:26oddly defined operationally in terms of
11:28what they do. So fields in physics to me
11:31and to other philosophers of physics uh
11:34not all but many have a kind of occult
11:37quality. We don't know really what a
11:38gravitational field is other than it
11:40creates a warping of space. So it's the
11:43thing that causes the curvature of
11:44space. What is the curvature of space?
11:46Well, it's the thing that causes matter
11:48to move in a a particular kind of curved
11:51trajectory. But what is curved space
11:54when space is empty? Um well that's a
11:58harder question to answer. It's it's
11:59it's occult in the sense that we define
12:01it in relation to what it does. Okay. In
12:04which which was the very thing that
12:05bothered linenets in that seemed to him
12:08to be the return to the the prop the the
12:11explanatory strategy of the medievals.
12:13So physics has never really gotten away
12:15from these occult properties. And the
12:18particular question was about oh yeah in
12:21quantum field theory there's a new
12:22theory called quantum gravity which
12:24attempts to synthesize general
12:27relativity which is sort of the the
12:29second theory of gravity after Newton's
12:32with fundamental quantum phenomenon
12:34because there are points for example
12:36very early after the beginning of the
12:38universe when the universe when quantum
12:41effects would have predominated. So we
12:43need to have some account of how gravity
12:44would have worked in that domain or that
12:46period of time. So there's been this
12:48attempt to synthesize and one of the
12:51idea what one of the um theoretical
12:55constructs which produces out of which
12:58comes the notion of gravitons is the
13:00quantum gravitational the concept of a
13:02quantum gravitational field. And the
13:05weird thing about gravitons is that
13:08whether they are um proposed as a result
13:12of quantum field theory or as a result
13:14of string theory which was an attempt to
13:15shore up some mathematical problems with
13:17quantum field theory. Gravitons are
13:20massless
13:21entities which transmit gravitational
13:24force not at not instantaneously but at
13:28the speed of light and they transmit
13:31gravitational force by warping spaceime.
13:33So you have a massless thing that warps,
13:35a completely massless thing, and that
13:37explains how matter moves. It's still
13:40occult. That's the Okay. Um in our last
13:43five minutes, I'm going to try to
13:44sandwich in three things, which one of
13:46which includes asking about um the the
13:49god of the gaps, but we have someone who
13:52asked, I think question maybe a little
13:54bit more technical for some people, but
13:56I we hear this a lot. Uh methodological
13:58naturalism was developed by Christian
14:00scientists. So why is methodical
14:03methodological naturalism not the
14:05preferred method for Christians today?
14:07Um I dispute the premise of that
14:09question. Um it's a common view and I
14:12understand where it comes from but um in
14:15the boil the mechanical philosophy is
14:18the first attempt to formulate where God
14:22is an appropriate and not appropriate
14:25explanation.
14:26And the charge against Newton is that he
14:29violated Boille's rule which is that we
14:32shouldn't be invoking episodic actions
14:35of the divinity to explain regul things
14:38that we observe as regular processes in
14:40nature. And it turns out that Newton
14:43didn't do that. It's a common common
14:46story. I have a whole module on it that
14:48I knew I wasn't going to get time to do,
14:50but maybe next year. Um it's in the
14:52book. It's in chapter 20. I've always
14:55been suspicious of this story because
14:57Newton's whole theological project was
15:00to show the principles of mathematics at
15:02work in nature. In other words, he he
15:04was reing in the grand regularities of
15:06nature as an expression of divine
15:08action. Why would he then invoke God's
15:11episodic action? He didn't believe in a
15:14capriccious God. So why would he be
15:16invoking that? It never made sense. And
15:19yet you hear this story over and over
15:20again. Neil deGrasse Tyson told it in
15:22the cosmos. uh reboot that he did on
15:25Fox. Um it's it's on the Bologos
15:28website. It's in numerous historians of
15:30science. So in researching the book, I
15:33just went back and read the relevant
15:35parts of the Principia on this. And not
15:38only does Newton not make that argument
15:41that God or the angels step into the the
15:44claim is that that the outer planets
15:46made the the you know Jupiter's orbit
15:50was was irregular and and that there was
15:53a need to to tweak things so that Newton
15:55said well every once in a while God just
15:57jumps in and and and and somehow tweaks
15:59the planetary orbits. He did not say
16:02that. He said that the planetary orbits
16:04that that were stable on an order of
16:08millions of years and that this and that
16:11everything was stable about the the the
16:12stable center of the sun. So he didn't
16:15invoke it's just it's in if you want to
16:18the chapter and verse it's in the
16:20prinipia book 12 um chapter 12 theorem
16:2512 it's and I've got I've got a slide on
16:27it. It's in the book it's a commonly
16:29told story. What Newton did believe was
16:31that God was the constant he was
16:35constantly sustaining the universe by
16:36the word of his power that in him all
16:38things are held together. They they in
16:40him they have their being and they are
16:41moved. So he believed that God what we
16:43call the laws of nature are a mode of
16:46divine action. But he didn't think God
16:48was acting willy-nilly to adjust things
16:50and fix things that he hadn't gotten
16:52right in the first place which was
16:53lineness's argument against him. And
16:56then secondly, he also made initial
16:59condition fine-tuning arguments. He
17:01believed that the eye was initially and
17:03beautifully designed to and he made a
17:06beautiful design argument in the optics
17:08based upon the the the fact that the eye
17:11seemed to anticipate the properties of
17:13light. So he perceived in that a great
17:16mind behind the whole system. And in
17:18that argument from the general scholium
17:20about about the initial condition
17:22fine-tuning of the planets that's very
17:23similar to the modern kind of design
17:25arguments but this is not God acting to
17:29in a in in a capriccious way to
17:31intervene in nature which was what boil
17:32was against. So um anyway, it's a big
17:36it's again a big story, but the the
17:38prohibition against invoking divine
17:40action was invoking a particular kind of
17:43divine action that would have been a
17:44science stopper that would have kept us
17:46from getting to an an understanding of
17:49the causal powers that God had built
17:51into nature. And that was the
17:54prohibition that came from Bole. That
17:56was not methodological naturalism in its
17:59modern form which says that you can't
18:01invoke divine action to explain anything
18:04including the origin of the universe or
18:05its fine-tuning or the origin of life
18:08which are different classes of question
18:10not classes about the nature of
18:12regularities and what underlies them but
18:14rather classes about causal origins what
18:17caused something in the first place.
18:18Bole made those kinds of arguments and
18:21affirmed their legitimacy in their own
18:23domain. And in my work, I've made a
18:25distinction between historical science,
18:27which asks questions of ultimate or
18:29initial causal origins versus um the
18:33sciences of the what what the Greeks
18:34called nomological the the science of
18:37law-like regularities or experimental
18:39science which is concerned with law-like
18:41regularity. So in one category of
18:43science, invoking God
18:45prevents us from understanding the the
18:49material interactions that are that
18:51underly certain regularities. In another
18:53type of science, it may be absolutely
18:55necessary to get a true understanding of
18:56what caused things to come into being in
18:59the first place.
19:01I think that is a great place to wrap up
19:03except we have one comment from someone
19:06uh named Alex I wanted to read as an
19:08ending which is return of the God
19:11hypothesis is the best and easiest to
19:13understand overview of science history I
19:15have ever read. Meer does a great job
19:18making cosmology concepts easy. So if
19:21that's not an endorsement and we didn't
19:23pay for it and Dr. M didn't know about
19:25it was going to be a troll. No. No. So
19:29what you should we're going to break in
19:30just a moment but as as I give the final
19:33announcements Dr. Meyer you're going to
19:35pick up yourself and go out and get
19:37ready to sign books. Very good. Thank
19:38you. In the fellowship hall.
19:40[Applause]
19:50[Music]

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