Science does not require Faith
My reply to enegim (which, for those of you who cannot read that entry, was a comment on an op-ed piece by Paul Davies about religion and science titled Taking Science on Faith) came out better than I expected, so I thought I'd share it here, somewhat improved (or at least lengthened) with another day of thought and rereading behind it. Feel free to reply with comments on its (lack of) clarity and correctness.
This is yet another case of people who didn't pay attention in school trying to pretend that they did. What is missing (or purposely blurred) is the distinction between Physics and Metaphysics.
Physics (and all science) is about measuring things, thinking about it, and making up rules that predict what we'll measure tomorrow. Cause and effect. If we predict correctly, we keep trying. If we predict wrongly, we throw out those rules and make new ones, and then keep trying. In so doing, we may employ Occam's Razor, which says one should use the simpler explanation. To me, the main reason for that is not that any simpler explanation is necessarily more likely to be right, but that between equally correct simple and complex explanations, the simpler one is easier to use, so why work harder for no benefit? As Albert Einstein said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.".
Metaphysics is for Religion and the Philosophy of "why" and "meaning". You cannot measure any of it, because if you could then it would be Science. You can, however, reason about it and with it to determine the logical consistency of a Philosophy. I may point out that some who omit that exercise are the same ones who would wish their Religion to be treated as an alternative Science.
Science and Philosophy/Religion are not incompatible, nor are they equals, parallel, comparable, or competitive. They are both activities which we perform in our minds, but neither is absolutely better or more important than the other in any way that we can truly and objectively decide. Science/Engineering helps us deal with how we do what we do; Philosophy/Religion helps us decide which things we should or should not do. They are about different aspects of reality. Where they may overlap, it is more a case of which point of view you wish to take at the moment rather than which is correct.
There is a sense in which the blurry edge of what we "know" in Science borders on Metaphysics/Religion, because we do not yet know of it and may not even have a way to measure it (yet!). But as Science progresses, this boundary keeps moving, so it is difficult to maintain the belief that everything that is not Science (today) is (and will always be) in the realm of Philosophy/Religion. I think there are clearly (and there may always be) some things that are unknowable. Gödel proved that there are things in Mathematics that are neither provable nor disprovable. What is Science but applied Maths? The trouble is that it is difficult to sort our current unknowns into knowable versus unknowable until we get very close to them.
As for the missing answer from his physicist colleagues for the question of "why the laws of physics are what they are", I think he just didn't talk to enough scientists. I'm sure that someone would have said, "Because if they were otherwise, we would not be here to talk about it.". There may be (or may have been) many universes with different rules. We are in this one with these rules because we can be. That's not the only possible reason, but it is a valid one. However, his reference to this "Goldilocks" condition is reversed. We did not select this universe by our existence, this universe selected us by having conditions in which we came to exist.
His attempt to bring Religion and Science into a parallel relevance by claiming that Science is also founded on "faith" in the existence of an "unexplained set of physical laws" is also flawed. The universe appears to exist, and we use our reasoning powers to devise simple equations to explain and predict its behavior. As I pointed out in my opinion of Occam's Razor, it is not that we necessarily expect to find additional elegant mathematical order, but that we hope to find additional mathematical order as we have before, because then we can use our Maths to write simpler rules of how more of Nature works. Further, as to why the Laws of Physics are what they are, That does not require "the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way". The universe may in fact be "a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed" at the root of it. But so long as we can use our Maths to fabricate an explanation that is so close that we cannot tell the difference, then that is useful to us.
Newton's laws of motion were very useful for centuries, and still are today, even though they are wrong! They are just close enough for everyday purposes. Einstein's theory of relativity is useful for those extreme cases where Newton's rules fail, but Einstein is wrong too! It's just that he got so much closer to the actual behavior of the universe. Mendel discovered inheritance of variations of characteristics, and Darwin described evolution based on selection of mutations of those characteristics. They were really close, but recently we've discovered that there are more things going on in the cell than just direct propagation of DNA information into creation of proteins which beget physical characteristics. There are master genes and reverse transcriptase and other exceptions, but the main concept still applies. That is the way Science goes. Every theory is probably wrong in some extreme cases, but so long as we measure and test to validate what we think we know, and admit when it needs to be changed, that is useful Science.
We can wonder whether we will ever know the complete and precise True Theory of Everything (after all, forever is a very long time), but that is not necessary for Science as it is now to exist and make progress.
PostScript: If the point of TFA was, as it seems to me, to justify Religion or denigrate Science, he was barking up the wrong tree. It may reveal more about his insecurity about his Faith than it does about what Science and Religion might have in common. I am comfortable with both my Science and my Religion, and they do not need to battle in my head to prove their worth.