I think the opposite. Science may well explain most if not all perceived miracles. Radio would be miraculous to people in Christ’s time. The fire on Mt Carmel could be explained by coating the sacrifice in Magnesium or some other volatile substance that heats when doused in water. Explaining a miracle today does not diminish it, because at the time the knowledge was not, or should not have been there.
Until or unless a scientist decides that something is beyond the scope of science they will not consider God or the supernatural.
That’s a bit of a semantic Gordian knot, in my experience. If God interacted in a way that science could study then it could be included in science. In some ways, whatever science can study is deemed to be natural while anything that can’t be empirically measured is defined as the supernatural.
The other problem I see is that there are nearly infinite supernatural claims that could be inserted into the gap.
The history of these explanations is also worth considering. There have been many, many examples of supernatural explanations being usurped by natural mechanisms. I am unaware of a single case of a verified supernatural explanation replacing a natural explanation.
Even more, what would a God hypothesis even look like? How would you test it?
That doesn’t stop many theoretical physicists and atheists from viewing the apparent fine-tuning of our universe as a problem the multiverse solves. I just read parts of a book from 2022 that does exactly this. Lays out the remarkable evidence for the fine-tuning of carbon based life then points out this is why the multiverse is attractive. Rationality continues where science ends. Scientists are not immune to the theological implications of the big bang and fine tuning. If you look at the history of cosmology, philosophical beliefs have played a huge role in it. There is often a battle between science and philosophy but that certainly means the latter influences the former until the evidence becomes overwhelming for something.
Its the same for academic history. Please let Christian apologists know. Now, if we had a higher ontological perspective/understanding of things we might be able to understand how supernatural miracles are possible but from our perspective, by definition they are not scientifically understandable.
We can’t scientifically analyze Jesus’s death in specific. But we can analyze human physiology, chemistry, biology and the death of a bazillion other things. From that science might want to extrapolate and draw the inference and say Jesus rising from the dead is nonsense as a bunch or apparently irreversible changes need to be reversed. Is that science or philosophy in your view?
There is also no reason to invent untestable nonsense and call it science. The big bang and apparent fine-tuning might very well be science-stoppers. There is no logical necessity assuming that we can reasonably talk about “other universes” or “time before time” or any of that silliness. There is no reason to assume that science will not or cannot hit an observational and testable wall at the big bang. We already know of an observational one based on the expansion of the universe and light never being able to reach us from distant galaxies. Whether the big bang does or not remains to be seen but it is only intellectual hubris and a priori philosophical beliefs that suggest it necessarily will. That is just opinion. Imagine that, the brain gas in the heads of a freak cosmic accident is going to be able to comprehend and explain the totality of all existence to the point where God is completely superfluous. I’ll pass. Maybe we can come up with an inflationary pre-history but we are just extending the ultimate questions back, not answering them. The fine tuning of our universe is as real as science gets. Testing the implications of that are generally beyond science. The Bible repeatedly tells me God is our creator (Jesus as well) and Genesis 1 tells me the form and function of the universe was designed and created by God. We are made in his image with purpose and meaning. I am comfortable saying that the findings of modern cosmology, including the big bang and apparent fine-tuning are extremely and remarkably congruent with Christian belief. For many people at the highest levels of science its either God or multiverse. Pretending that isn’t a real issue by trying to use strict definitions of science to rule out God doesn’t work for me. History cannot work with miracles. Science cannot work with the supernatural. To me that means both are only approximations of reality. Neither science or the Bible are the fourth member of the Trinity. My beliefs are informed not just by science but also by my relationship with the Creator of science.
We will definitely not find any solutions if we never look for one.
All of our current understanding of nature and technology is based on understanding proximal causes.
That seems to be worth doing. Understanding how the weather works seems useful, and we don’t need to understand the origin of the universe in order to put it to use.
Yes, looking through the lens of science and inventing untestable nonsense are not the same thing.
Neither is denying fine-tuning because you don’t like the implications of it. It all reminds me of the static universe Hubble, Hoyle and many others held to long after people like Einstein and de Sittercame around. The “repugnant” notion of an expanding universe with a beginning took a while to catch on. I tend to see fine-tuning in the same regard.
I am not suggesting we stop science. But appealing to a multiverse to explain fine-tuning isn’t science to me. Whether we like the implications or not, the apparent fine-tuning of our universe is real. Why should we be bothered if what we learn about the universe implies human life really does have purpose and meaning? Isn’t this a cause for celebration? Why are so many scientists unnerved by this and feel the need to show we are a cosmic accident through dubious inventions masquerading as science?
Here is a lengthy snippet from a recent (2022) book I am perusing: Black Holes, Cosmology and Extra Dimensions, 2nd Edition by Kirill A Bronnikov and Sergey G Rubin
They then goes on to talk about the Fermi constant (Gf) in 12:1.3 and what it should be like for intelligent life and slow reactions in stars:
The weak interaction should be really very weak in order that the neutron live long enough. In addition, during supernova explosions, neutrinos, owing to the weak interaction, are able to carry away the main part of energy from the central part of the star, allowing its inner layers to rapidly contract. But on the other hand, the weak interaction constant cannot be too small. Otherwise, first, the number of neutrinos created in an exploding star would be too small, and second, the outer layers of such a star would not receive sufficient energy from the neutrinos to fly away in space.
Next its on to stellar lifetimes:
12.1.4 Stellar lifetime: Heavy elements are formed in the stars but they must be eventually ejected to space, in order that future stellar generations with planetary systems could form. Therefore the parameters of the theory should be selected in such a way that at least a certain part of the first stellar generation have a short lifetime ending with an explosion. But the next stellar generations should live for a long time (10 billion years) to make possible the emergence of intelligent life. Nature has been able to satisfy these contradictory requirements. The long life of the next stellar generation rests on the slow proton-proton cycle (here is where the weak interaction is necessary). The short lifetime of the first stars takes place due to large masses plus primordial helium burning. But how to create the primordial
helium?
They go on to talk about how primordial helium came to be created and preserved. After discussing the fine tuning the authors go on to talk about what a good theory of everything would be like:
(A) The laws of Nature are strictly derived from an initial postulate and simply cannot be different. The whole history of science can be viewed as an approach to this postulate.
(B) There are many universes with different laws, and we live in one of them. This approach is gaining more and more adherents, but is it constructive? Suppose that somebody wishes to create a universe like ours, at least purely theoretically. The above examples are designed to convince the reader that it is not a simple task. Indeed, the number of problems to be encountered by the brave creator is immense. Starting from the beginning she (he) must choose properties of all particles and their interactions keeping in mind the future evolution. The sketch looks as follows.
For me I see philosophical prejudice against fine-tuning, against a designer masquerading as science, not “the beginnings of a hypothesis” as you claim. After listing all this evidence this is what they say (the bold is mine):
It seems evident that the idea of a “multiverse” is a good basis for solving the fine-tuning problem, be it “science” or not.
Yes, the fine-tuning problem. That life has purpose and meaning and our universe was fine-tuned for us is a problem. I wasn’t aware life having purpose and meaning and the universe being designed for life is a problem.
After briefly listing 16 other examples of fine-tuning the authors write (the bold is mine):
All the above considerations were aimed at convincing the reader that choosing the parameters for forming complex structures in the Universe is a task of formidable difficulty. Admissible ranges of their variation are extremely narrow. Whatever the future theory, the latter statement will refer to it and its parameter set. All that means that the probability of a random implementation of such a parameter set is close to zero. From this viewpoint, the idea of multiple universes with different properties is more attractive. The question is “only” the mechanism of their formation.
Fine-tuning is very real…so real some scientists engage in desperate flights of fancy to get around its obvious implications. Welcome to “atheism of the gaps.”
Perhaps you misunderstood my post? I am saying that the multiverse idea isn’t scientific. At best, it is the beginning of a hypothesis.
I am not discounting fine tuning at all. I also don’t see why it implies a designer or deity. There is so much we don’t understand about the origin of the universe, and I don’t see how we can find any implications from such ignorance.
It’s not a surprise that many are able to see a correlation between big bang cosmology and the Creator revealed in the Bible. I continue to like the idea that quantum mechanics may be hinting that the fundamental reality of the universe is information.
This is a good point, and one that I’ve seen offered as an argument for (metaphysical) naturalism. Where id push back is many arguments previously thought to point to a natural, mechanistic universe (the Aristotelian idea of an eternal past, a Laplacian/Newtonian picture of causal determinism) has turned out to be too simplistic. Consciousness, life, and ethics are three examples where reductive natural explanations seem to continually fail (though that’s not to say natural explanations will always fail, simply that predicted natural understandings of each have fallen short of predictions for centuries).
Let me offer a slightly different perspective: I agree with Thomas Nagel that the fundamental difference between Theism and Atheism is the precedence of mind and matter. Under atheism, matter is ultimate reality that causes mind. Under theism, mind (God) is the ultimate reality that gives rise to matter. Science proceeds based on the assumption of the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability for things to be understood by mathematics (and I’ll note these are philosophical/metaphysical assumptions and not scientific ones). Notice that this fits with either picture.
Some theists will object here and argue the scientific picture fits better under theism than naturalism for philosophical and historical reasons. While I do lean in this direction I will say atheists and naturalists have proven they can do science with equal quality to theists so I would never make this point scientifically (though perhaps it can be made philosophically).
So long as we do not have a plausible naturalistic account for the existence of mathematics and logic, theism will always remain a plausible alternative to ’naturalism. Naturalism cannot justify the truth of its epistemic assumptions without resorting to logic and the ability of the mind to think rationally, so until it provides a natural explanation for logic and mathematics itself (which it cannot do with science or it will fall into circularity), theism remains on the table. Science presupposes logic and mathematics as a starting point, so scientists can reasonably start from a theistic point as well as a naturalistic one.
The other thing I’ll add is that mind and matter form a kind of “chicken and egg” problem that poses difficulties for theism and atheism. We typically think mind needs matter as a medium so under theism, the he challenge is how can a disembodied mind/spirit exist outside of the material world. Under atheism, the difficulty is how mine can emerge from a purely physical process, especially considering the laws of nature describe both matter itself and also how matter “behaves” or responds, which does seem very “mind-like.”
I say all this as a non-philosopher who knows best to nothing about philosophy so perhaps someone more qualified to talk about these things can offer their perspective too
I guess I don’t understand the problem. Neurobiology seems to have that covered, and brain development is covered by embryonic development and more generally by evolutionary developmental biology.
