Science claims to be about objective facts and, if the current scientific clangors are any measure, scorns any suggestion that the material world might be—just might be, mind you—only part of the big picture. The current spokesmen for a rigorous materialism go to great lengths to discredit any suggestion (even from their fellow scientists) that the scientific explanation of the universe simply cannot and will not be able to account for all that is.
However, every once in awhile, their studied and often rabid defense of scientific materialism reveals a noteworthy lack of self-knowledge. They seem blind not only to the implications of their own “discoveries” but to their metaphysically-laced language of description.
Case in point: The latest issue of Scientific American features an interview with astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter (“Dark Forces at Work”) whose Supernova Cosmology Project revealed that the universe is not only expanding but is, for unknown reasons, accelerating in its expansion. As interviewer David Appell summarizes it, “Some unknown force with negative pressure seems to be pushing the universe apart.” Moreover, the enigma of this “unknown force” is amplified by the nagging ignorance of most of what makes up the material universe. To account for this strange energy, astronomers conjecture that the universe consists of 72 percent “anti-gravity dark energy,” 23 percent dark matter “(unseen and uncharacterized),” and merely 5 percent “normal” matter (protons, neutrons, electrons). Again Appell summarizes: “We would be just a small part of totality, surrounded by perplexity.”
A philosopher would recognize in the language of this discussion a metaphysics that nearly tears any pretense of scientific materialism to shreds. What’s funny is that these scientists don’t seem to realize it. For example, assessing the current lack of scientific explanation for the accelerating expansion, Harvard astronomer Christopher Stubbs tentatively allows, “It could well be that there’s some big piece of reality that we don’t fully understand.” Gee. Ya think? Physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin bluntly calls it “a bone in the throat of theoretical physics.” It appears that this dang universe continues to resist being reduced to materialistic explanations.
Is this merely a temporary scientific ignorance soon to be erased by the next experimental revolution? Don’t count on it. The history of science is far less a tale of demystifying the world than many would have us believe. In fact the cutting edge of science, contrary to the frothing Dawkins of the world, points to an overwhelming chain of mysteries underlying our rather paltry collection of explanations, mysteries that beg metaphysical language from even the most rabid materialists (for example, Paul Davies). Our die-hard materialists keep running up against a decidedly slippery cosmos. “It’s true,” confesses Perlmutter, “the theorists right now are stuck.” Of course, the tow rope that theists offer our stuck scientists isn’t quite what they have in mind. Ah well.
Don’t get me wrong; I do not believe that science proves the existence of a god, let alone the Christian version of Deity. Science necessarily deals with the material, not the spiritual. By definition science cannot prove God; any effort to annex science to do that is woefully misled. Still, I find it fascinating that when confronted with the gaps between scientific theory and experimental observation our materialistic champions often resort to language that sounds suspiciously metaphysical. If they would only listen to themselves.
POSTSCRIPT:
—from “BREAKING THE GALILEAN SPELL” by Stuart A. Kauffman (who, by the way, is no theist)
“Even deeper than emergence and its challenge to reductionism in this new scientific worldview is what I call breaking the Galilean spell. Galileo rolled balls down incline planes and showed that the distance traveled varied as the square of the time elapsed. From this he obtained a universal law of motion. Newton followed with his Principia, setting the stage for all of modern science. With these triumphs, the Western world came to the view that all that happens in the universe is governed by natural law. Indeed, this is the heart of reductionism. Another Nobel laureate physicist, Murray Gell-Mann, has defined a natural law as a compressed description, available beforehand, of the regularities of a phenomenon. The Galilean spell that has driven so much science is the faith that all aspects of the natural world can be described by such laws. Perhaps my most radical scientific claim is that we can and must break the Galilean spell. Evolution of the biosphere, human economic life, and human history are partially indescribable by natural law. This claim flies in the face of our settled convictions since Galileo, Newton, and the Enlightenment.”
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Interesting. I read the article by Stuart Kauffman. He’s quite perceptive – especially with regard to breaking the Galilean spell – but yet incredibly naive, still believing in the myth of progress. But, he’s at least deluded himself into a nice “happy place.”