Dr Le Sueur writes that ‘the whole essence of God is, although
believers might deny it, that he can overrule causal processes, reverse or
abolish natural law, and indeed answer prayer.’
Not this believer. Because causal processes and natural law are not
the rock-solid foundations Dr Le Sueur thinks they are.
Firstly, causal processes and natural ‘law’ are concepts imposed by
us on the mishmash of raw experience in order to assimilate experience
into understanding. By analogy, my ability to use English has just imposed
certain rules on the concept I was trying to communicate in the previous
sentence. That concept can never be known by anyone else (perhaps even by
myself) without first being formatted by language. Along with cause and
effect, we can add space and time, substance, and possibility (as opposed
to reality) to the list of ‘formatting’ concepts. Subsequently, Lo and
Behold! we discover science and then build up a picture of natural ‘law’
and guess what? It is ruled by cause and effect, linearity of time,
continuity of space, matter and energy and so on and so forth. Natural law
fits pre-existing rules defined by us. At the fringes of physics we see
the authority of these ‘laws’ begin to unravel.
Secondly, in the Venn diagram of life, science is a small domain and,
sorry to say, is not as important as contemporary society thinks. Above
all, science has no overlap with the domain of ethics. Science can tell us
nothing about the really important questions to do with right and wrong.
‘Should I invade Iraq, should I give £1 to this beggar, etc.’ These days,
science is a still a little useful, but mainly at the fringes of things.
Just look at all that bleating about what a revolution the complete
sequencing of the human genome would bring. These days, science is all
mouth and no trousers.
Competing interests:
Clearly in a small minority of scientists
Rapid Response:
Re: Re: more propaganda, not science
Dr Le Sueur writes that ‘the whole essence of God is, although
believers might deny it, that he can overrule causal processes, reverse or
abolish natural law, and indeed answer prayer.’
Not this believer. Because causal processes and natural law are not
the rock-solid foundations Dr Le Sueur thinks they are.
Firstly, causal processes and natural ‘law’ are concepts imposed by
us on the mishmash of raw experience in order to assimilate experience
into understanding. By analogy, my ability to use English has just imposed
certain rules on the concept I was trying to communicate in the previous
sentence. That concept can never be known by anyone else (perhaps even by
myself) without first being formatted by language. Along with cause and
effect, we can add space and time, substance, and possibility (as opposed
to reality) to the list of ‘formatting’ concepts. Subsequently, Lo and
Behold! we discover science and then build up a picture of natural ‘law’
and guess what? It is ruled by cause and effect, linearity of time,
continuity of space, matter and energy and so on and so forth. Natural law
fits pre-existing rules defined by us. At the fringes of physics we see
the authority of these ‘laws’ begin to unravel.
Secondly, in the Venn diagram of life, science is a small domain and,
sorry to say, is not as important as contemporary society thinks. Above
all, science has no overlap with the domain of ethics. Science can tell us
nothing about the really important questions to do with right and wrong.
‘Should I invade Iraq, should I give £1 to this beggar, etc.’ These days,
science is a still a little useful, but mainly at the fringes of things.
Just look at all that bleating about what a revolution the complete
sequencing of the human genome would bring. These days, science is all
mouth and no trousers.
Competing interests:
Clearly in a small minority of scientists
Competing interests: No competing interests