Comment on BHL Blog: Science, Religion, and the Great Stagnation
Originally published at Quantum Matrix Scribe. Please leave any comments there.
Seems to be the comment system over at BHL is eating up my comments. Ah well. Here is what I’ve been trying to say on this post:
Original comment got eaten. Aaargghhh….
1 - I’m not sure if science and theistic religion are really all that compatible. Theism, in all its myriad ways, purports that there is an omniscient deity that not only created the universe, but gets involved in humanity on a daily basis (or some other time interval.) As the intelligent design argument has shown, science has effectively ruled this out completely. You can’t really talk about physics and biology and then say there is some deity pulling all the strings so we look exactly how we are now.
2 - *Deism*, on the other hand, may be a different matter, because all deism is about is that there is a god, who created the natural laws that lead to the universe, and then was never seen again. Although there are problems with this view too (Austin Cline notes that the universe appears much more dynamic and chaotic than one would suppose it would be if it were designed) I think deism and science are fairly compatible, and indeed, deism could easily become the new religion of the US as trends continue.
3 - As for the social status of scientists, I don’t really think that’s the basis for the problems we face today. Leaving aside the matter of if we have a great stagnation or not, it seems clear to me that the problems really stem from cronyism, fiat monetary systems, and special interests gaming the market to the point where it is more like participatory fascism, as Randall Holscomb puts it. While there are certainly problems with science today-namely how it has been politicized over climate change and environmentalism, to the point where it has sustained serious damage to its credibility-I don’t think the lack of “Likes” on scientists’ Facebook fan pages is the reason for the problems and difficulties we’re facing today. I mean, we’re churning out new products and technologies all the time. Hell, in 20 years, we might even have an outpost on Mars, for all we know.
EDIT: Aha! And now the comment system is back, meaning my original comment is up there, but this one, which retrospectively feels superior, is not. Blast it, Zwolinski, are you trying to confound me?