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February 03, 2010
God, Science, and Beauty
As an avid reader of Free Inquiry magazine, a Secular Humanist publication, I’ve learned over the years how much Christianity is disdained and science and reason are praised. So I decided to do a little open-minded research into the “science” scene to see if I could discover anything that could bury Christianity once and for all. Now I’d like to share exactly what I uncovered in my investigation.
First, let’s look at a colorful comment on science and objectivity from Paul Davies, a popular writer on science, especially physics:
There is a popular misconception that science is an impersonal, dispassionate, and thoroughly objective enterprise. Whereas most other human activities are dominated by fashions, fads, and personalities, science is supposed to be constrained by agreed rules of procedure and rigorous tests. It is the results that count, not the people who produce them. This is, of course, manifest nonsense. Science is a people-driven activity like all human endeavor, and just as subject to fashion and whim. In this case fashion is set not so much by choice of subject matter, but the way scientists think about the world.”
I found Davies’ quote in the introduction to Richard P. Feynman‘s book Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics. Since physics is the king of the sciences, I decided to begin my homework there. Davies names Richard Feynman as the one physicist who stands out among twentieth century physicists!
Yes, there was Paul Dirac, who, according to John C. Taylor at the University of Cambridge, “was one of the finest physicists of [the twentieth] century. The development of quantum mechanics began at the turn of the century, but it was Dirac who, in 1925 and 1926, brought the subject to its definite form, creating a theory as compelling as Newton’s mechanics had been.”
Taylor also summarized Dirac’s philosophy of physics, saying, “Physical laws should have mathematical beauty.” So science includes the concept of beauty in addition to imagination, experimentation, and “guess work” (Feynman).
Another physicist, Steven Weinberg, actually says that modern day “string” theory will “survive in the final underlying laws of physics” because the theory is “beautiful.” (The Taylor and Weinberg quotes are both found in Richard P. Feynman and Steven Weinberg’s Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics.)
If “beauty” plays a role in physics, why then are Christians ridiculed for believing the “heavens declare the beauty [the Hebrew word kabod can be translated glorious, splendor, beautiful, stately, magnificence] of God, and they are a marvelous display of His craftsmanship” (Psalm 19:1)?
Let me explain why I chose Feynman as the focus of my research. According to Davies, there have been three major icons in the realm of physics—Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman. Davies says, “Richard Feynman has become an icon for late twentieth-century physics—the first American to achieve this status.” Davies also believes it “is unlikely that the world will see another Richard Feynman.”
So what did I do? I ordered and read the following works by Feynman: The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist; Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics; Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics; The Pleasure of Finding Things Out; Theory of Fundamental Processes; and The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Apart from the 1001 equations sprinkled throughout Feynman’s work, e.g., (h2/2s)+(nh2/2s’)=(b-1)h2/2R (I think that translates “earth,” but I could be wrong!), I actually began to understand what the world of particle physics is all about. (Don’t worry, though — it won’t go to my head because somewhere I read that if you begin to think you understand it, you really don’t understand it!)
However, since my academic background is philosophy (unfortunately, Feynman does not like philosophers, psychologists, or for that matter, the National Academy of Sciences), I knew there was some challenges ahead, but in all honesty, not exactly what I expected.
Reading Paul Davies alerted me to the fact that Feynman walks, eats, drinks, sleeps and dreams “subatomic particles, atoms and nuclei, molecules and chemical bonding, the structure of solids, superconductors and superfluids” (just a few areas of his expertise), and also the fact that Feynman exhibits another quality lacking in much of science today — when he doesn’t know something, he admits it!
For example, in Six Easy Pieces, Feynman says, “It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is” (p. 71). That got my immediate attention!
If we don’t know what energy is, what do or don’t we know about gravity, magnetism, weak forces, strong forces, dark matter, or dark energy? This line of thinking brought to mind an article in which a Harvard astronomer admitted that we use terms like dark matter and dark energy because we don’t know anything about them. This admission should strike us immediately because the latest word is that over 90% of the universe consists of dark energy!
This knowledge immediately brings to mind an obvious question for the Free Inquiry brethren: if we don’t know such things, how do they know with absolute certainty that God does not exist? In every issue, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens pontificate on why God doesn’t exist, telling their readers they are basing their certainty claims on “science.”
I think Paul Kurtz would be wise to have a little chat with his atheist writers to question them about the source of their “proof.” My wild guess is they get it from from 90 proof Jack Daniels!
After I discovered that energy isn’t yielding up too much information about itself even for Feynman to grasp definitively (and if he can’t grasp it, I’m quite sure Dawkins can’t), I began wondering what else physics can’t tell us.
Here is Feynman in his own words on what we don’t know:
First, we do not yet know all the basic laws [of physics]: there is an expanding frontier of ignorance. (p.2)
Where do the laws that are to be tested come from?(p.2)
The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics . . . actually, we do not have all the rules now.(p. 24)
The calculations that are involved in this theory [quantum nucleodynamics] are so difficult that no one has ever been able to figure out what the consequences of the theory are . . . we do not yet know where it fits. (p. 39)
Everything works exactly the same for the muon as for the electron, except that one is heavier than the other. Why is there another heavier, what is the use for it? We do not know. (p. 43)
We do not know how the universe got started, and we have never made experiments which check our ideas of space and time accurately. (p. 44)
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of sub-atomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task. (p. 44)
We do not know the patterns of motions that there should be inside the earth. (p. 66)
It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of particles inside the nucleus, and we have formulas for that, but we do not have the fundamental laws. We know that it is not electrical, not gravitational, and not purely chemical, but we do not know what it is. (p. 71)
We do not understand energy as a certain number of little blobs. (p. 84)
We do not understand the conservation of energy. (p. 84)
Galileo discovered a very remarkable fact about the principle of inertia — if something is moving with nothing touching it and completely undisturbed, it will go on forever, coasting at a uniform speed in a straight line. Why does it keep on coasting? We do not know. (p. 93)
None of these nuclear or electrical forces has yet been found to explain gravitation. (p. 113)
The gravitational attraction relative to the electrical repulsion between two electrons is 1 divided by 4.17x10 to the 42nd power. The question is, where does such a large number come from? . . . This fantastic number is a natural constant so it involved something deep in nature. (p. 110)
The quantum-mechanical aspects of nature have not yet been carried over to gravitation. (p. 113)
What is the machinery behind the law [regarding quantum behavior]? No one has found any machinery behind the law . . . no one can ‘explain’ any more than we have just ‘explained’ . . . we have no idea about a more basic mechanism from which these results can be deduced. (p. 134)
These “we don’t knows” are from just one book — Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics.
In The Meaning of It All, Feynman says something that should interest Hitchens and Dawkins, Harris and Dennett: “Science cannot disprove the existence of God” (p. 36). To that he adds, “I also agree that a belief in science and religion is consistent.” He insists that science cannot produce “the meaning of life” nor can it tell us “the right moral values.” These must come from somewhere else.
Now if science and physics cannot tell us what or who is behind the machinery of the laws of the universe, then why is it so illogical for Christians to suggest John 1:1–3 for starters? And if science cannot tell us the meaning of life or what is right and wrong, then why is it so illogical for Christians suggest Paul’s epistle to the Romans?
Why doesn’t Feynman get the attention he deserves? My guess is that he’s way too honest for a scientific world hung up on government grants. He would never say global warming is based on “settled” science. In fact, he says, “all scientific knowledge is uncertain.” He would never have agreed with the scientific powers that destroyed the career of Dr. Richard Stemberg for publishing a peer-reviewed article by Steven Meyer on natural selection and mutations in a Smithsonian publication. Since Feynman is never at a loss for words, he probably would have referred to those responsible for such an outrage as “dishonest scientific hacks.”
Feynman also believes that Western Civilization is based primarily on two things: science and Christian ethics — “The other great heritage is Christian ethics — the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual — the humility of the spirit.” This statement would never pass muster at Free Inquiry! (This reminds me of the atheist Bertrand Russell acknowledging that what the world really needs is love, “Christian love.” You can find this quote on Google under “Bertrand Russell Quotes.”)
Feynman is way too conservative for the hierarchy of the National Academy of Sciences. In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, he says, “I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will be fully appreciated that the power of government should be limited; that government ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that that is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the various descriptions of history or of economic theory or of philosophy”(p. 115).
Richard Feynman is not a Christian, but he reminds me of Sir Isaac Newton, who said, “I was like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Would that this were the mindset of Free Inquiry‘s Richard Dawkins!
- Posted at 11:27 am by David A. Noebel
- Join the Discussion (2)
March 07, 2010 // 10:07 pm // #
I have not read Feynman, but I’ll put him on my list. I was struck years ago when I first read “A Brief History of Time” how often Hawkings used the transition that went something like this: “There are two ways we can go from this point, and if we take this path we can avoid the need for a Creator. . .” I understand what Hawkings was trying to do, but it seems to me that Dawkins and Hitchens and their colleagues are actually blind. Your essay points to profound problems for the materialist: First, the stunning complexity of the natural world (it shouldn’t be that way); second, the hiddenness of first causes; and third, (which you don’t actually mention), the existence of libraries of design data in DNA. It is as if at some point scientists confront an abyss where reason fails. What would be expect? God is infinite, we are finite.
April 27, 2010 // 08:22 pm // #
Introduction to Isaac Newton’s book
OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL, AND THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN
By Sir Isaac Newton
London 1733
Reprinted by:
The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
2251 Dick George Road
Cave Junction, Oregon 97523
(c) September, 1991
INTRODUCTION
by Arthur B. Robinson
Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist who has ever lived. It is, in fact, generally accepted that he is probably the greatest scientist who ever will live, since no one, no matter how brilliant, will again be in such a unique historical position.
Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day in 1642 and died in 1727. His most famous work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, was published in 1687.
His discoveries span all aspects of the physical world with special emphasis on experimental and theoretical physics and chemistry and on applied mathematics. He invented virtually the entire science of mechanics and most of the science of optics. During this work, he invented such mathematics as he needed or as interested him including the discipline known as calculus.
Isaac Newton was both an experimental and theoretical scientist. He personally constucted the models and machinery with which he carried out extensive experiments in chemistry and physics. For example, when he invented the reflecting telescope, he first built a brick oven. In that oven he carried out metallurgical experiments to formulate the composition of the mirror. He then made the mirror with which he constructed the telescope.
Of unequaled mental ability during his entire adult life until his death at age 85, Newton’s powers are legendary. It is often told, for example, how later in his life a problem in mathematical physics posed by the great mathematician Bernoulli, was forwarded to Newton from the Royal Society. The problem, to determine the curve of minimum time for a heavy particle to move downward between two given points, had baffled the famous 18th Century mathematicians of Europe for over six months. Receiving the problem in the afternoon, Newton solved it before going to bed.
Although the solution was sent to Bernoulli anonymously, he is said to have exclaimed upon reading it, “tanquam ex ungue leonem - as the lion is known by its claw” in reference to his recognizing Newton’s method.
In addition to his scientific work (Newton would have said as a part of his scientific work.), he devoted a substantial portion of his enormous energy to the study of the Bible and Biblical texts and history. He read the Bible daily throughout his life and wrote over a million words of notes regarding his study of it.
Isaac Newton believed that the Bible is literally true in every respect. Throughout his life, he continually tested Biblical truth against the physical truths of experimental and theoretical science. He never observed a contradiction. In fact, he viewed his own scientific work as a method by which to reinforce belief in Biblical truth.
He was a formidable Biblical scholar, was fluent in the ancient languages, and had extensive knowledge of ancient history. He believed that each person should read the Bible and, through that reading, establish for himself an understanding of the universal truths it contains.
Newton’s strong belief in individual freedom to learn about God without restraints from any other individual or church or government, once almost cost him to give up his position as Lucasian Professor at Cambridge. The matter was resolved when King Charles II made the exceptional ruling that Isaac Newton would not be required to become a member of the Church of England.
Regarding both science and Christianity, Isaac Newton spent his life in intense scholarship, but he left the publication of his work to Providence. Much that he wrote has still never been published.
His (and the world’s) greatest scientific work, the Principia, was published only after his friend, Edmund Halley, accidentally learned of the existence of Part I which Isaac Newton had written 10 years earlier and put in a drawer. Halley convinced him to finish PartsII and III and allow Halley to publish the work.
Only one book of Newton’s about the Bible was ever published. In 1733, six years after his death, J. Darby and T. Browne, published Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John.
In 1988, having learned of this book in the rare books card catalogue of the Library of Congress, I asked to read it. I was astonished when, a few minutes later, I was handed Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy. (The book is in excellent condition and has Thomas Jefferson’s initials on pages 57 and 137. Two hundred and fifty years ago it was common practice for printers to label the page signatures with capital letters at the bottom of the actual text. Jefferson would turn to the “J” signature and add a “T” before the “J” and then turn to the “T” signature and add a “J” after the “T.” In this way he identified his personal books.)
With his prodigious knowledge of ancient history and languages and his unequaled mental powers, Isaac Newton is the best qualified individual in this millenium to have written about the prophecies. His study of the book of Daniel began at the age of twelve and continued to be a special interest throughout his life. Moreover, hewrites of the prophecies with a modesty that indicates that he, himself, is in awe of the words he has been given an opportunity to read.
Isaac Newton concluded that it is intended that Revelation will be understood by very few until near the end of history, the time of judgment, and the beginning of the everlasting kingdom of the Saints of the Most High.
Isaac Newton states his belief that these books of prophecy were provided so that, as they are historically fulfilled, they provide a continuing testimony to the fact that the world is governed by the Providence of God. He objected to the use of the prophecies in attempts to predict the future.
On page 251, for example, he writes:
“The folly of Interpreters has been, to fortel times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.”
Through these 323 pages, he traces human historysince the writing of the prophecies. He shows that, according to his scholarship and at his time in the early 18th Century, part of the prophecies had been fulfilled and part remained to be fulfilled. In accordance with his evaluation, this is still true in 1991.
Decorated (as are his scientific works) with interesting asides such as derivations of the exact dates of Christmas and Easter and of the number of years during which Jesus taught, and permeated with a depth of scholarship that no longer exists amongmodern scholars, this book by Isaac Newton may be the most important work of its kind ever written.
The central message of this book for modern readers may not be so much in what it says but in what it is. During his entire life, Isaac Newton continually compared his experimental and theoretical understanding of science with his reading of the Bible. He found the content of these two sources of truth to be so completely compatible that he regarded every word in the Bible to be as correct as the equations of mathematics and physics.
Therefore, throughout this book, Isaac Newton takes each word of the Prophecies to be exactly correct. He never doubts the content. He only seeks to understand it.
He never strays from his determination not to present predictions of the future based upon the Biblical Prophecies. On pages 113 and 114, he does give an identification of the last horn of the Beast and a numerical evaluation of his reign. He also gives the approximate time of the beginning of this reign, but does not add the numbers or make a prediction.
Addition of these numbers, however, places the time of judgment and the beginning of the everlasting reign of the Saints of the Most High approximately in the time period between the years 2000 and 2050.
Are there errors in Isaac Newton’s evaluation of the Prophecies? He would reply that he would not have written this evaluation unless he beieved it to be without error, but that it is the obligation of Christians to study the Bible and to reach their own conclusions.
In recent years it has become fashionable to say that Newton’s laws of motion contained an error (the error of assumption that mass is a constant), and that this was corrected by Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. As Petr Beckmann has pointed out in his book, A History of Pi, this error never existed.
In the Principia Newton writes,
“Lex I. Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.”
“Lex II. Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressae, & fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimatur.”
“Lex III. Actioni contrariam semper & aequalem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse aequales & in partes contrarias dirigi.”
These are the famous three laws of motion. In translation, the second law reads “The change of momentum is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.” Newton defines momentum as follows: “The quantity of momentum is the measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjointly.”
Or, in the symbolic terms of Newton’s calculus, F = d(mv)/dt Newton did not know whether or not mass was constant, and he was too careful a scientist to assume so by placing it outside the differential. During the next 200 years, physicists assumed, for convenience, that mass was constant and began to write F=ma or F=m dv/dt. It is this later day shortcut which proved to be incorrect, not Isaac Newton’s original law.
Isaac Newton said of himself near the end of his life, “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
To Dr. Bentley, he had written, “When I had written my Treatise about our system, I had an Eye upon such Principles as might work with considering Men, for the Belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.”
Isaac Newton’s pebbles and shells formed the basis forthe scientific revolution and the industrial revolution which created our current civilization. This demonstration of the incredible power of his discoveries is, however, itself minor in comparison with their role in 17th and 18th century miracles that serve as a continuing testimony of the literal truth of the Bible and of the remarkable creations of the Lord.
In my own scientific work, I also have continually compared the Bible with the findings of modern experimental science. Like Isaac Newton, I do not know of any verified scientific facts that are inconsistent with the literal truth of every aspect of the Bible.
I am grateful to have had an opportunity to read Isaac Newton’s book about the Prophecies and am publishing this reprint so that others may have this experience.
Thanks are due to the Manley Foundation and Dr. Richard Pooley who helped finance this reprint; to Bruce Tippery who gave essential help with its production; and also to Andy Hopkins whose similar and independent desire to reprint this book is hereby fulfilled.
This reprint has been made as an exact photographic duplicate of Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy. This reprint is dedicated to my wife, Laurelee, whose death in November 1988 delayed it for these past two years, but whose life caused me to undertake it.
As Isaac Newton wrote in the second edition of the Principia:
“The true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being. His duration reaches from eternity to eternity; His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things.”
Arthur B. Robinson
Cave Junction
July, 1991
By Permission
JFB