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Hutcheson’s Grammar School
RMPS Conference
Dr. Peter Vardy
“The certainties of reason, however real and tangible, eventually come to an end, and thus one is forced to rely on
other certainties, based on a different scale of values regulated by love and illuminated by faith.” (John Paul 11
9/1989)
“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of
true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as
dead, a snuffed-out candle.” (Einstein ‘The world as I see it’)
‘Religion without science is blind,
Science without religion is lame.’
(Albert Einstein)
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition. (The Sufi mystic Jalal-uddin Rumi)
Most scientific breakthroughs do not come from logic but from intuitions. Einstein said that his theory of relativity
arose from imagining riding on a beam of light. Kekule, the leading chemist, realised that benzene is a string-like
structure through his famous dream of a snake holding its own tail.
The Catholic Church, as part of combining the wisdom of the ancients with Christianity, accepted the Ptolemaic
view – God was seen to have made the earth as the centre of everything. Copernicus (1473-1543) pointed out that
many of mathematical difficulties with the Ptolemaic view would evaporate if the sun was at the centre and not the
earth. He kept emphasising that this was only an hypothesis – and only published his views in the year of his death
and dedicated the book to the Pope! This flatly contradicted Church teachings of a thousand years and also Ps. 93:
“Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm”.
Catholic and Protestants were united in rejecting Copernicus and Galileo “People who give ear to an upstart
astrologer who strove to show that the earth resolves round, not the heavens of the firmament, the sun and the
moon…. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth.” (Luther) “Who will venture to place the authority of
Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” (Calvin)
THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY WAS CENTRAL – THE WHOLE ESTABLISHED ORDER WAS UNDER THREAT.
Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) built up the best set of observations of the solar system and handed these over to
Kepler. Copernicus considered that orbits were circular – Kepler showed that the orbits were eliptical.
However it was Galileo who was actually condemned by the Inquisition for two things: (1) for holding that the earth
rotates on its axis, and (2) that it revolves round the sun. He was condemned privately in 1616 and publicly in 1633.
The ideas were 100 years old, but they almost cost Galileo his life. He was forced to recant and never again to
uphold the sinful view that the earth moves. As he signed the recantation he was heard to say: “BUT IT STILL
MOVES, JUST THE SAME.”
Galileo , in spite of the vulnerability of his position, nevertheless said that all power and authority, including the
authorities of the Christian Church, should have no right to interfere with the search for the truth. “Why, this would
be as if an absolute despot, being neither a physician nor an architect, but knowing himself free to command,
should undertake to administer medicines and erect buildings according to his whim – at grave perils of his poor
patients’ lives, and speedy collapse of his edifices.” GALILEO WAS SAYING TO THE CHURCH: MIND YOUR OWN
BUSINESS!
How does science advance?
Aristotle’s philosophy dominated science for nearly 1500 years. He was the first to use observation to work out the
nature of different species of plants and animals and also to observe the nature of the earth. He considered that
the earth was the centre of the Universe and, around this fixed point, the stars and planets moved in perfect circles.
The Aristotelian Universe was divided into two distinct regions – the sub-lunar region was the inner region
extending for the central earth to just inside the moon’s orbit. The supra-lunar region was the remainder of the
finite universe, extending from the moon’s orbit to the sphere of the stars which marked the outer boundary of the
universe. Nothing existed beyond the outer sphere, not even space. Unfilled space is an impossibility in the
Aristotelian system. All celestial objects in the super-lunar region are made of an incorruptible substance called
aether. Aether possesses a natural propensity to move round the earth in perfect circles. This approach was
endorsed by the Christian Church as it placed the earth at the centre. No-one today accepts Aristotle’s view – so
HOW DOES SCIENCE ADVANCE?
There is now a rich field of philosophy of science which explores the issue. Naïve inductionism is the way most nonscientists think science works – this holds that there are careful observations and general rules are framed based on
these observations (this was Aristotle’s view). However this is simply wrong. Observations are not neutral. What is
seen depends on the framework belief that is in place. ‘Seeing’ is not theory-neutral. Michael Polanyi gives the
example of a medical student looking at an x-ray. At first the student is puzzled – he can see nothing of what the
experts claim to see. Over weeks of study, a tentative understanding will begin to dawn. He will forget the ribs and
see the lungs. Eventually, if he perseveres long enough, a rich range of detail will emerge for him that was not
present at the beginning. Many tribal cultures cannot see in 3-dimensional terms.
OBSERVATION STATEMENTS ARE ALWAYS MADE BASED ON A PRIOR THEORY. They are not neutral.
The Vienna Circle, the logical positivists and the work of A.J. Ayer led to the dominance of a philosophic movement
named VERIFICATIONISM between the two world wars. Verificationism holds that a statement is MEANINGLESS
unless it can be:
A) Empirically verified – i.e. the observations that would verify the statement can be stated, or it is
B) A tautology
All religious statements, therefore, were considered to be meaningless (NB – not the same as false!) as no empirical
statement would verify claims like ‘God exists’, ‘God loves me’ or ‘prayers are answered’. TO be part of science, a
statement MUST be verifiable.
FALSIFICATIONISM is the other side of verificationism. Associated with Popper and Anthony Flew, it holds any
statement to be meaningless unless the observations that would falsify it can be stated. Thus ‘God loves me’ is held
to be a meaningless statement as the believer will not accept the possibility that ANYTHING could happen which
would render this statement false. Formerly, some scientists were verificationists – holding that if statements could
not be verified or falsified they were vacuous or meaningless. Only statements that could be falsified were
considered to be scientific statements. The falsificationist sees science as a set of hypotheses that are proposed as a
way of accounting for the behaviour of part of the whole of the universe. Science advances by proposed theories
being falsified. In this way, failed theories are of great value than confirmed ones as they show which hypotheses
are mistaken. Scientists learn from their mistakes. Falsificationists reject certain disciplines as not scientific at all as
they cannot be falsified. Popper claimed that Marx’s theory of history, Freudian psychoanalysis and Adler’s
psychology are not scientific as their hypotheses cannot be falsified. A successful theory, on this view, is one that
has not yet been falsified. FOR FALSIFICATIONISTS, ALL THEORIES ARE TENTATIVE.
Aristotle’s physics could explain a great deal. Heavy objects fall to the ground (seeking their natural place at the
centre of the universe); syphons and pumps worked because of the impossibility of a vaccum. However eventually
Aristotle’s physics were falsified as, for instance, the moons of Jupiter orbited Jupiter not the earth. Newton’s
theory could account for everything that Aristotle explained but also for those things that Aristotle failed to explain.
It was therefore a superior theory. For 200 years it was successful (i.e. it was not falsified) but at the end of the
19th century it was getting into difficulties and was falsified. Einstein’s theory explained everything that Newton’s
could, but also could account for those areas where Newton failed. Einstein’s theory is currently successful as it has
not yet been refuted.
PROBLEMS WITH VERIFICATIONISM / FALSIFICATIONISM
When a new theory is produced, it may often be refuted by the technology available at the time and, if
falsificationism was right, it would be dismissed. But this is not what happens – and it is fortunate for science that
this is the case. As an example, when Maxell first published the first details of the kinetic theory of gases in 1859, in
the same paper he acknowledged that the theory was falsified by measurements on the specific heat of gases. It
was not till 18 years later that the measurements which would have falsified it were shown to be mistaken.
Most poetry and statements about morality are rendered meaningless on this view. How does one verify ‘Killing
innocent people is wrong’? The verificationist principle (‘Any statement that cannot be empirically verified is
meaningless’) cannot itself be verified and is, therefore, meaningless. Many scientific statements cannot be verified
by empirical observation (e.g. the existence of black holes, dark matter or theories about the origin of the universe.
Also general rules such as ‘all points on a Euclidean circle are equal distant for the centre’ .Given that the majority
of the world’s population are religious, there is no reason why such people should accept a definition of meaning
that renders their most cherished beliefs meaningless and, also, these theories fail to explain science.
The film ‘Contact’ well portrays the tension between a scientific and a religious perspective on life – appealing to
‘OCCAM’s RAZOR’. That the simplest explanation is to be preferred. Jodie Foster (the scientist Ellie) appeals to
Occam against her male friend who is a theologian and who believes in God – maintaining, as many scientists do
today, that God is irrelevant. She is working on a simple VERIFICATIONIST model – if a statement cannot be verified,
it cannot be true……
Ellie is an astronomer involved in SETI and receives a signal from an extra-terrestrial race which give instructions for
the building of a huge machine – designed to take one person. She goes on this machine through a series of
wormholes and arrives at the Vega star system where she is met by her father (downloaded from her memories,
the extra-terrestirals say, to make communication easier). They tell her the galaxy is connected by these worm
holes and there are huge numbers of civilisations. The aliens are benign and she returns excited BUT WITH NO
EVIDENCE. What is worse, although she thought she was away for 18 hours, on earth only a few seconds have
elapsed. She is called before a Congressional session to testify in the face of considerable scepticism.
Until quite recently, many scientists have considered their understanding of the world to be ‘right’. Newton is a
good example – he and his followers considered that Natural Laws were absolute. Indeed at the end of the 19th
Century, some physicist were forecasting that soon there would be nothing left for them to do. Then came Einstein,
chaos theory and quantum mechanics. The old understandings had to be rejected. YET Newton’s law still function
very effectively at the macro, every day level. It is at the micro level that problems arise. Science does NOT advance
by steady progress. Rather a paradigm is developed and then explored and then a sudden shift of paradigm takes
places which is generally resisted
It was Thomas Kuhn who developed the crucially important idea of paradigm shifts which is a particularly significant
way of seeking to understand how science advances. Scientists, he held, work within a given paradigm which is
generally accepted and explored. A new paradigm represents a rupture of the understanding. It challenges many of
the old ideas. It is not a development but a total shift of perspective and understanding. The shift from one
paradigm to another comes suddenly – as a result of an insight or intuition rather than progressive development.
Both paradigms can make sense of the observations, but one will come to command wider acceptance and
therefore will be adjudged ‘true’.
Quotes from Kuhn: ‘The Structure of scientific revolution’
 ‘If anomalies become serious and numerous, a scientist will sense a crisis for the paradigm. Typically they
will begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives. They do not renounce the paradigm that has led
them into crisis.’ (p.77)
 ‘The scientist in crisis will continually try to generate speculative theories that, if successful, may disclose
the road to a new paradigm’ (p.87)
 ‘A new paradigm emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply
immersed in crisis. (p.90).
 ‘When making the revolutionary change from one paradigm to another, scientists often speak of ‘the scales
falling from the eyes’ (p.122) ‘The conversion experience that I (Kuhn) have likened to a gestalt switch
remains, therefore, at the heart of the revolutionary process.’ (p.204)
Four key figures underpin the modern tension between science and religion: Feuerbach,
Darwin, Marx and Freud.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a German philosopher, who explained religion in psychological terms. He was
an atheist and developed one of the first approaches to philosophy based entirely on materialism. In his youth he
was a pupil of the eminent German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whose philosophical approach he later rejected. In
his most important book, The Essence of Christianity (1841; trans. 1854), Feuerbach argued that the existence of
religion is justifiable only if it satisfies a psychological need. He maintained that a person's main preoccupation is
with the self - the worship of God is actually worship of an idealized self. Feuerbach's materialism is arguably more
important that his approach to religion. He argued that people and their material needs should be the foundation
of social and political thought. Individuals as well as their minds are the products of their environment. The
consciousness of a person is the result of the interaction of sensory organs and the external world. Being essentially
a materialist, he argued “Der Mensch ist was er isst” (Man is what he eats), and advocated better food to improve
humankind.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw in Feuerbach's emphasis on people and human needs a movement toward an
entirely materialistic understanding of society. Feuerbach was to influence Freud and Marx to a profound degree
and Darwin was seen to confirm Feuerback’s conclusions. Freud is considered by many as the founding father of
modern psychology – even though many of his insights are rejected by modern psychologists. He particularly
argued for the importance of sexual development stages in adult personality. People who fail to navigate these
stages successfully will have psychological problems later in life. Marx’ social analysis and his claim the religion was
the ‘opium of the people’ has also profoundly affected modern popular culture.
Darwinian Natural Selection and creation by God.
The genius of Darwin, after his voyage on board H.M.S. Beagle to the Galapagos islands, was not to discover
evolution – it was to discover the mechanism by which evolution was brought about. The fittest to survive in the
conditions in which they find themselves will breed and, in so doing, will pass on the genes which explained their
parent’s success. Failure brings extinction, success bring offspring – and thus the successful genes are perpetuated.
The title of Dawkins’ book, ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, refers to Paley’s argument and draw directly on Darwin. He
claims that natural selection is ‘blind’, it has no aim, no purpose. It is a ‘unconscious automatic process’ completely
without purpose:
‘Evolution has no long term goal. There is no long term target, no final perfection to serve as a criteria for
selection… The criteria for selection is always short term, either simply survival or, more generally, reproductive
success. The ‘watchmaker’ that is cumulative natural selection is blind to the future and has no long term goal.’
In ‘The Selfish Gene’ Dawkins claims that humans only act so that their genes may survive. All we are is mechanisms
to pass on our genes in competition with other species. We are simply the mechanisms used by our genes to
replicate themselves:
‘We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.’
Human beings have evolved to meet the conditions available. There is no purpose and no meaning to our existence
– we are simply what has evolved and our ability to understand our place in the Universe is remarkable and fills
Dawkins with awe.
Dawkins understands human beings strictly in terms of biology - we have about 5 billion cells each containing 46
chromosomes and 23 base pairs. Each chromosome contains tens of thousands of genes. Dawkins describes DNA
as follows:
‘It is raining DNA outside. On the banks of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree and it
is pumping downy seeds into the air.... not just any DNA but DNA whose coded characteristics spell out specific
instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. These fluffy specks are
literally, spreading instructions for making themselves. They are there because their ancestors succeeded in doing
the same. Its raining instructions out there. Its raining programmes; its raining tree-growing, fluff spreading
algorithms. This is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be plainer if it were raining floppy discs.’ Dawkins
‘The Blind Watchmaker’ 1986 p. 111
Dawkins often attacks Christians who take a literal view of the Bible and hold that God created the universe literally
in seven days. However no serious theologian or philosopher in Britain thinks this – the creation stories are
myths.... But myths can convey deep and important truths. They claim that the universe depends on God and that
God is responsible for the origin of the universe. The issue is not: “Are the creation stories literally true?” But “Is
God a more rational explanation for the existence of the universe than pure chance?”
Can science can provide a complete explanation?
This is a key issue. Of course science can explain a huge amount. It can explain natural selection, it can explain how
stars and galaxies form, it can explain much about animal and human behaviour.... HOWEVER all this is not the
same as saying it can provide a complete explanation. Every scientist – atheist or believer – will agree about the
incredible complexity and sophistication of the universe. Every scientist will be filled with a sense of awe and
wonder at this complexity. What explains this?
To answer this, let’s focus on the singularity in which the universe came into existence. Almost every scientist
(there are still some exceptions) will agree that the universe came into existence about 13.7 billion years ago with
the singularity or ‘big bang’. Matter and energy, time and space all came into existence with the unbelievable
ferocity of the initial explosion. We can measure the heat left as a result of this explosion and the precise conditions
that had to exist for their to be any galaxies, stars or, indeed, life. The Hubble space telescope seems to have
confirmed these findings. The precision of the Big Bang had to be very, very, very great indeed.
There are three current theories to explain the incredible precision of the singularity:
1. It just happened. The odds of it happening are astronomically high but improbable things do happen, we
are here so it must have happened and that is all there is to it (Dawkins).
2. There is a multiverse. There are an infinite number of universes and it just so happened that we are in one
of the very few where life is possible. Given that, in an infinite number of possible universes, all possibilities
would be realised, this would explain why there is a world suitable for life.
3. There is an intelligence behind the universe.
Professor Keith Ward argues that it is a good scientific principle that if a postulated explanation is simpler and has
greater explanatory power than alternatives, then it should be taken seriously. If the hypothesis of God is included,
then the incredible precision of the singularity is not surprising – by contrast to say that it is just an unbelievably
improbable fluke seems very improbable. This is not a proof that God exists – but it does point to God as being a
hypothesis that needs to be taken seriously. At the least, it means that religion and science need to engage with
each other and not see each other as opponents.
Certainly science can explain a great deal but to claim it can explain everything is an assertion for which there
seems little clear basis. It tends to be based on a verificationist approach to truth which, as we have seen, is at least
suspect.
Can psychology provide a complete explanation of what it is to be human?
Evolutionary psychology is a new and growing field of psychology. Just as ‘survival of the fittest’ explains a great
deal about the evolution of the bodies of animals, plants and humans, why should not evolution also explain how
human beings behave. Evolutionary psychology claims that the way human beings behave has evolved over
hundreds of millions of years...
There is a very old debate as to whether adult personality is largely determined by the NATURE one inherits from
one’s parents (e.g. Through genetics), or by the NURTURE one receives as a child (e.g. Through the environment in
which one grows up). Many studies of identical twins that have been separated at birth have been carried out and
these all indicate a strong link with nature and background in terms of adult behaviour – however the influence of
nurture cannot be denied. Freud tended to emphasis nurture more than nature, but both seem to be important.
Evolutionary psychology is new. It has been around for less than 20 years as a discipline but its insights are already
having a profound effect in psychology. The term was, perhaps, first used in a 1973 article published in the journal
‘Science’ but it is only in recent years that the discipline has taken off. Some psychologists see it as providing
comprehensive and convincing answers to human behaviour in ways that have not previously been understood.
Evolutionary psychology argues that psychology needs to be seen as a part of biology. Human beings are animals
and biology can explain human behaviour as much as it can explain animal behaviour. E.P. is, therefore, a part of
SOCIOBIOLOGY
It can be argued that social science can now merge with ordinary science since biological development can be used
to explain human behaviour. Just as lungs, heart and tissue have evolved – so has consciousness and human
reactions, reason and behaviour. Evolution is NOT progress – the crocodile and the cockroach are both incredibly
successful and have not needed to evolve in order to survive and prosper.
For any form of behaviour, the Evolutionary Psychologists (like sociologists) seek to determine: The FUNCTION that
the behaviour serves (in this respect EP is influenced by sociology – all human and social behaviour has a function:
the task is to determine what it is). The EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS which has brought this behaviour about. Just as
sociologists from Auguste Compte onwards have sought to understand the function of different groups in society,
so the Evolutionary Psychologists seek to understand the function of varieties of human behaviour.
"Evolutionary psychology is the long-forestalled scientific attempt to assemble out of the disjointed, fragmentary,
and mutually contradictory human disciplines a single, logically integrated research framework for the
psychological, social, and behavioral sciences—a framework that not only incorporates the evolutionary sciences on
a full and equal basis, but that systematically works out all of the revisions in existing belief and research practice
that such a synthesis requires.” (Tooby & Cosmides 2005, p. 5)
Evolutionary psychology is held to have been anticipated by Darwin who said:
“In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new
foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be
thrown on the origin of man and his history.” (Charles Darwin ‘On the Origin of Species’)
Evolution is creating – responding to changing environmental conditions. EP argues that, similarly, human
psychological processes have evolved to meet changing situations and conditions and natural selection creates
appropriate psychological responses. Evolutionary psychologists argue that, to understand the way our minds work,
we need to go back to the times when our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. The claim is that our brains have not
evolved significantly since those times. We still retain phobias that were present from stone age times for instance
fear of the dark and fear of spiders and snakes. Belief in God, it is held, falls into this form of phobia.
The things our brains were designed to do by evolution are things that were needed by hunter-gatherer humans to
respond to the environment in which they lived. We retain ‘out of date’ phobias. Rather than the mind being one
multi-purpose supercomputer, it's a set of 'modules', each of which is adapted to a particular task, like interpreting
the messages from our eyes, ears and noses, using language, looking for food and attracting a mate.
Evolutionary Psychology considers the techniques developed by males and females to find mating partners – given
the centrality of natural selection. It seeks to analyse, from the male and female viewpoints, the crucial factors in
determining the best possible genetic outcome. Haselton and Miller (2006) showed that highly fertile women
prefer (a) creative but poor men and (b) those who display social presence as short-term mates. Creativity may be a
proxy for good genes (G.F. Miller, G. F. The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature.
Anchor Books: New York. 2000)
The factors behind female selection of mates is a major study area. Males have been split into various groups – two
examples will illustrate the point:
1. GROUP A are high achievers. They tend to have a number of sexual partners, are not faithful but are
successful
2. GROUP B are faithful but less successful.
Research in the U.S. indicates that when a woman is fertile, she will choose Group A partners, but for the rest of the
month she will choose Group B. She will also spend far more time on make up when she is fertile to attract an
appropriate mate.
Evolutionary Psychology is not simple. Traits may evolve that may seem against evolution. The peacock’s tail is a
good example. The tail is cumbersome, makes the peacock more vulnerable to predators but is a good ‘sexual
selector’. Sexual selection can be divided into two types:
1. INTERSEXUAL SELECTION – this refers to the traits that one sex generally prefers in the other sex, (e.g. the
peacock's tail).
2. INTERSEXUAL COMPETITION - this refers to competition for mating access to the opposite sex, (e.g. two
hares fighting in spring).
If evolutionary psychology provides a complete explanation then the idea of moral praise and blame disappears.
Freedom is also seriously undermined and we are effectively determined by our past biology and psychology.
Individual autonomy and the idea of a ‘self’ is radically undermined. HOWEVER some modern philosophers have
challenged evolutionary psychology as it makes claims that cannot be substantiated .
Whether religion can explain things that science cannot?
It can be argued that religion can provide explanations that science cannot – although some scientists will dispute
this. For instance, can science explain the following:
Human Freedom?
The idea of being a self?
Angst?
Depression?
Love?
Self-sacrifice?
The near universal religious sense?
Some scientists will tend to say that, in principle, all these can be explained or will be explainable but this is in the
nature of a faith statement. At present science has no idea at all how something as simple as a human moving their
arm is achieved and consciousness is a very very long way from being explained. We really understand very little
about the human brain and the claim that science will be able to explain everything is, at best, dubious.
Whether there is any life after death?
‘There is no scientific evidence for life after death.’ This statement MAY be true – but it depends on what one
means by ‘scientific’. It is often taken to mean evidence that can be replicated in the laboratory. If this is accepted,
then there is, indeed, no scientific evidence. However most people around the world DO believe in life after death.
They may, of course, be wrong... But there is more evidence than is often acknowledged. Not least the many
recorded accounts of near death experience – the case of Pam Reynolds is but one of many noteworthy examples.
The evidence of the very widespread phenomenon of religious experiences also needs to be taken more seriously
than some scientists tend to do.
Dr. Peter Vardy
University of London
May not be copied or reproduced.