{"id":2547,"date":"2008-04-29T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2008-04-29T11:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/04\/29\/god-and-physics\/"},"modified":"2008-04-29T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2008-04-29T11:32:28","slug":"god-and-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/04\/29\/god-and-physics\/","title":{"rendered":"God and Physics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via the Zeitgeist<\/a>, the Templeton Foundation has asked a bunch of famous smart people “Does science make belief in God obsolete?<\/a>” I wouldn’t ordinarily note this, but if you scroll down a little, you’ll find my thesis advisor, Bill Phillips, who offers an “Absolutely Not!”:<\/p>\n

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[A] scientist can believe in God because such belief is not a scientific matter. Scientific statements must be “falsifiable.” That is, there must be some outcome that at least in principle could show that the statement is false. I might say, “Einstein’s theory of relativity correctly describes the behavior of visible objects in our solar system.” So far, extremely careful measurements have failed to prove that statement false, but they could (and some people have invested careers in trying to see if they will). By contrast, religious statements are not necessarily falsifiable. I might say, “God loves us and wants us to love one another.” I cannot think of anything that could prove that statement false. Some might argue that if I were more explicit about what I mean by God and the other concepts in my statement, it would become falsifiable. But such an argument misses the point. It is an attempt to turn a religious statement into a scientific one. There is no requirement that every statement be a scientific statement. Nor are non-scientific statements worthless or irrational simply because they are not scientific. “She sings beautifully.” “He is a good man.” “I love you.” These are all non-scientific statements that can be of great value. Science is not the only useful way of looking at life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, most of the attention will go to Christopher Hitchens, who does his usual act somewhat farther down the page. This is the problem with being smart, sensible, and decent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the Zeitgeist, the Templeton Foundation has asked a bunch of famous smart people “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” I wouldn’t ordinarily note this, but if you scroll down a little, you’ll find my thesis advisor, Bill Phillips, who offers an “Absolutely Not!”: [A] scientist can believe in God because such belief is… Continue reading God and Physics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,30,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","category-religion","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}