From: aull@ll.mit.edu (Brian Aull)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.bahai
Subject: Science and Religion article - Part 2
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:25:36 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems of Canada, Inc.


Religion as a Scientific Method

Only three-and-a-half centuries ago, Galileo was subjected to house arrest.
He had committed the crime of contradicting Catholic Church doctrine.  He had
peered through a telescope of his own making and had seen the moons of Jupiter
orbiting the giant planet.  The Book of Genesis states that the earth was 
created
first and that the lights of the heavenly firmament were placed there by God to
divide day from night.  Therefore, the Church taught, everything moves around
the earth.  Galileo had dared to suggest otherwise by embracing the Copernican
theory of the solar system.

There are many other historical examples of the suppression of free critical
inquiry by ecclesiastical authority.  Because of this, the word faith has become
an anathema to many modem people who value rational investigation.  People
have also been justifiably disillusioned by the atrocities that have been 
performed
in the name of God.  The result is that many reject any system of belief
that relies upon the acceptance of assertions without logical proof or empirical
verification.  Religion is often categorized as such a belief system.  Bertrand
Russell wrote:

The harm that is done by religion is of two sorts, the one depending on the
kind of belief which it is thought ought to be given it and the other upon the
particular tenets believed.  As regards the kind of belief:  it is thought 
virtuous
to have Faith-that is to say, to have a conviction which cannot be shaken
by contrary evidence.  Or, if contrary evidence might induce doubt, it is held
that contrary evidence must be suppressed....  The conviction that it is 
important
to believe this or that, even if a free inquiry would not support the belief,
is one which is common to almost all religions and which inspires all systems
of state education.  The consequence is that the minds of the young are stunted
and are filled with fanatical hostility both to those who have other fanaticisms
and, even more virulently, to those who object to all fanaticisms.  A habit of
basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of
certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure
most of the ills from which the world is suffering....  I should wish to see a
world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning
the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them
through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.  The world needs open
hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or
new, that these can be derived.  (Why I Am Not a Christian, preface)

On the other side of the coin, science is often thought to command a flawless
logical rigor in its methods of verification, involving no trace of "faith."  
This
notion is reflected in questions such as, "How can one scientifically prove the
existence of God?"   "Science" and "proof " are often juxtaposed in this manner.

To understand why religion can be based on critical inquiry instead of being
opposed to it, the myth that science involves only pure logic must first be
exploded.  As an illustration of the scientific method, consider the parable of 
a
farm boy named Luke.  Luke has been trained always to milk his father's cows
from their right-hand sides, and he does so out of habit.  One day he wonders
why this is necessary and tries to milk several cows from the left.  Each time,
the cow becomes agitated and refuses to cooperate.  Luke then formulates his
first "law of nature":  cows will only tolerate being milked from the right-hand
side.  Sometime later Luke spends a summer on his uncle's farm, which is
several hundred miles away.  On his first day of work he tries to milk a cow
from the right-hand side; the cow gets upset and nearly kicks him.  When Luke
milks from the left, everything proceeds peacefully.  All his uncle's cows seem
to have the same prejudice.  Luke's first law of nature has been violated, and
he must formulate his second law: cows will only tolerate being milked from
the customary side.  It turns out that his uncle had always milked them from the
left, and they are used to this.  At school in the fall, Luke asks his 
classmates
about their experiences with dairy cows, and they report the same pattern of
habituation.

This story illustrates some essential elements of scientific inquiry, 
particularly the 
role of experimentation.  Science attempts to understand the observable
behavior of the universe-not why it behaves in a certain way from a metaphysical
standpoint, rather, just what the behavior is.  The process of gaining
this understanding relies on consistent patterns in the observations that are 
made.
These patterns are characterized by two attributes, which I label predictability
and objectivity for the sake of convenient reference.  Predictability refers to
predictable aspects of the observed behavior of nature.  I notice that the sun
always rises in the east every morning and sets in the west every evening, for
example, rather than appearing in the sky at random times and places.  
Objectivity 
refers to the fact that others can repeat such observations and reproduce
the results.  This assures me, for example, that my statement about the sun is
not based on a purely subjective experience.

Once there is predictability and objectivity, serious cooperative efforts can
be undertaken to formulate a model of the behavior of nature.  A model is a
conceptual framework with elements corresponding to the elements of the
observed phenomena.  The model must describe or mimic the phenomena that
have been observed and ideally should predict phenomena that have not yet
been observed.  The vaster the range of observations described by the model,
the better the model.  Two models that describe the known phenomena equally
well are equally good; neither can be judged "truer" than the other, even if
they make different predictions about yet-to-be-observed situations.  Atoms, for
example, are not a physical reality, but a conceptual model of physical reality,
and if an alternative model fits our observations just as well, it is just as 
good.
In my own opinion, two models that are incapable of differing in their 
predictions 
are really the same model.  For example, one does not really change the
atomic model by imagining the electron to be a tiny squirrel, unless this 
"squirrelness" is measurable in the laboratory.

The progress of science involves experiments that expand the range of 
observations
and the formulation or refinement of models that either accommodate
or predict the observations.  For the purposes of this discussion, the 
experimentation process is not viewed as passive observation but rather involves 
the
application of what I term a "stimulus" to the system under study and the
observation of the response.  I use the term "stimulus" very broadly.  For a
particle physicist, the stimulus is quite intrusive, as it involves accelerating 
and
smashing particles of matter.  For an astronomer, the stimulus is gentle and
indirect, as he merely points a telescope in the right direction.
Figure I shows the process involved in systematic scientific inquiry, and the
farm boy followed the steps shown.

					               Step 1: Stimulus

--------------------			--------------->			------------------
Step 3: Model	
formulation
and refinement
--------------------			<---------------			------------------

     SUBJECT								                        OBJECT
					               Step 2: Response


          Figure 1: The Scientific Method