From: Alan McGowen <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!hpindbu.cup.hp.com!alanm>
Subject: Re: Science and Spirituality
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:19:08 GMT

Original-Sender: Alan McGowen <hpindbu.cup.hp.com!alanm>

> Original-Sender: backbone.hsu.arknet.edu!TUMLISON
>
> > Not quite -- this "faith" is no more than the induction which any organism
> > performs when it makes a move based on filtered sensory input. You might
> > as well say that a monkey's leap is a leap of faith. It's stretching the
> > idea too far, I think. Action with less than perfect information can be
> > thought of as a calculated risk. It's when you delude yourself into thinking
> > it is really certainty that it becomes faith.
>
> Again, we may be toying with semantics.  I agree somewhat, and add
> that religion as practiced by some groups seems to be a form of
> calculated risk.  I also know of some theses that have been rejected
> by some professors because the data and results did not fit the
> professor's beliefs (hypotheses? faith?).  The distinction between
> scientific beliefs and protocol and religious ones may not be as
> great at the differences in protocol and primary tenets between some
> religions.  Perhaps as an example:  Humans are classified in the
> family Hominidae by science, although some scientists point out that
> the criteria for doing so are invalid (we should really be in the
> family Pongidae with great apes).  This is where the dualism
> appears - we, as humans, feel that we are special as set apart from
> other animals.  Generally, scientists that feel we should be Pongids
> don't have strong "religious" beliefs and those calling us Hominids
> do.  That is almost like choosing which belief system (religion) to
> uphold.  Note, I am speaking in generalities, which begin to
> dissolve once specifics are superimposed on the structure.

But this very example (humans classified in the same family Pongidae
as the other great apes or in a separate famility Hominidae as is
traditional) shows that scientific "faith" *is* revisable, based on
new knowledge. It used to be thought based on the fossil record that
the last common ancestors of humans and pongids were Dryopithecine apes
that lived some 15 million years ago. But genetic studies (DNA hybridization)
have shown that humans, gorillas, and the two species of chimpanzees are
extremely similar genetically -- about 99% similar -- and given the rate
at which differences enter the genetic code, must have had a common
ancestor something like 5-7 million years ago. With a common ancestor
that recent, and such similar genomes, the view that we all belong in
the same family has mushroomed. Had the DNA studies shown, say only a
75% homology, that would not have happened. Facts, observations, are
relevant to this shifting "faith". It is a revisable faith.

> > I'm not sure that faith is the essence of religion in any case. I
> > see no reason why there couldn't be a testable, provisiional religion,
> > a fusion of scientific cosmology and investigation with sacred
> > conciousness, a respect for the fact that the universe contains unknowns.
>
> According to the definitions usually presented in intro biology
> textbooks, religion is based on the non-testable.  Therefore, to
> develop a testable, provisional religion, is (if I interpret your
> statement correctly) to make a religion out of science.  Precisely my
> point?

Except that that phrase is taken negatively, I agree. To say that someone
is "making a religion out of science" could be misconstrued to mean that
science is just a matter of faith, exactly like (say) the view that the
Earth was made in 4004 B.C. I'm emphasizing the "spiritual" or sacred
appreciation aspect of religion over its dogmatic aspect when I suggest
that spirituality must emerge from science in the future. In fact it is
precisely because that looks as if it would be an opening for dogmatism
and rigidity that most scientists would reject the idea. This is why I
lay so much stress on revisability. Self-doubt, if you like, is the one
great western contribution to human conceptions of sprituality.

> > So, when I said that *we* weren't the point of the whole thing, it is
> > only because *no* one species is ever the point of the whole thing. If
> > it has a point which is visible to us, it is probably diversity -- at
> > least that increases with geological time.
>
> I agree from our point of view.  All I mean to suggest is that, if
> there really is a deity out there pulling the stings, is would be
> rather pompous of us to think that we could understand the design, in
> other words, it might be *our* limitations.  It is like a father
> telling his son not to do something that the father knows is
> dangerous, but the reason is one which the son cannot understand.
> Just because the son does not yet understand, does not mean his
> father does not orchestrate his son's safety.  Eventually (through
> science, or experiencial learning, so to speak) the son begins to
> fathom the father's plan.  I play off of the last line of your
> statement "If it has a point WHICH IS VISIBLE TO US. . ." : the
> question I make is whether it has a point *not* visible to us.

I did not include that phrase casually. But let's not forget that
we *are* able to see that evolution *doesn't* have certain kinds of
points -- optimal engineering design requiring forethought, for example,
is clearly *not* the point of evolution. There are far, far too many cases
where "just good enough to survive" is very different from "best possible
design" and evolution has produced the former, and not the latter.
Evolution has no forethought: if God is pulling the strings of evolution,
he appears to be doing it through Fisher's theorem, and not through some
other visibly different means.

> I believe you have made good points, and made some inroads to the
> though of these threads.  I also think we really share some similar
> views.  Obviously, there are differing thoughts as well.  My bottom
> line, and that which pertains to this list, is that western science
> could learn a lot by listening to the native knowledge (perceived as
> scientific or otherwise).

I wouldn't disagree. But let's not be too hasty about what counts as "native
knowledge". Members of modern industrial societies who think that because
of their ancestry their every belief is "native knowledge" should be viewed
with caution, especially when it becomes increasingly obvious that much of
their belief system is not only not pre-Columbian -- it's not even pre-Reagan.

------------
Alan McGowen
Newsgroups: alt.native