Professor Anthony Gill, a political scientist at the University of Washington, talks to particle physicist Dr. Stephen M. Barr in a Research on Religion podcast. The casual, hourlong discussion veers from such topics as determinism and the role of the observer (get ready to reopen the catbox), why “the God particle” is an inane name for Higgs boson, and why quantum mechanics does not make faith easier, but does make pure materialism less tenable. Some of the discussion may be familiar to longtime readers of this publication, but much of it is helpful refresher material, especially for those of us who are generally not as well attuned to developments in physics as we ought to be.
Near the end of the audio, Barr also reflects on his own faith and upbringing, and dispenses advice to religious young people thinking of making a career in academia–particularly in the hard sciences where, he says, believers might find surprising tolerance, or at least an unexpected equality, thanks to the uniform and putatively objective nature of their work.
You’ll find the Barr interview, and all one hundred previous Research on Religion podcasts, here.
October 17th, 2012 | 11:03 pm
Thanks for the mention. We do have a number of great episodes that will be of interest to readers of First Things, including many discussions on religious liberty (with Tim Shah, Tom Farr, and Philip Muñoz), Rod Stark talking about his work, and and interesting interview with Justin Barrett on the inherent tendency of humans to believe in God. My personal favorite is the one on cowboy churches and a discussion of why “Amazing Grace” did not make the list of all-time favorite American hymns.
October 18th, 2012 | 9:32 am
Dr. Barr suggested (I was just taking notes as I listened so these aren’t exact quotes) that if deep ideas govern the world there must be a deep mind behind it. He says that beautiful math is the guiding light of physics and suggests that even atheist physicists admit to this. He says that the discoveries of modern physics ought to have every physicist down on their knees. These and other remarks of his seem to be another way of saying that the Universe is obviously the result of the work of a supremely intelligent designer.
Yet Dr. Barr is known for his opposition to ID. I don’t understand that. Since intelligence is a known reality it is legitimate for science to consider it as a causal factor in a given phenomenon coming about. We know some phenomena are not going to come into being without the involvement of an intelligent agent, phenomena like computers, television sets and so on. Since the nanotechnology of life is far more functionally complex than the technology found in computers, televisions sets and all the rest of our modern technology, it seems very reasonable – in fact, it seems like a “no brainer” – for science to consider the involvement of an intelligent agent as one of the causal factors in its coming about. What is Dr. Barr’s problem with that, in light of those remarks of his I just mentioned?
October 18th, 2012 | 2:15 pm
harry –
What if ideas don’t govern the world, but help us understand the world? I mean, Euclidean geometry is a beautiful set of ideas, and was thought to ‘govern the world’ for a millennium or so. But then Einstein came along and showed that hyperbolic or elliptical geometry were better models.
A map can be very accurate and act as a ‘guiding light’. It can even help guide us to new discoveries. But the map is not the territory.
October 18th, 2012 | 2:51 pm
Not only a link to a great podcast, but a They Might Be Giants reference in the post’s title?
Mr. Cantirino, you have outdone yourself.
October 18th, 2012 | 4:34 pm
Dear Harry,
The ID movement does not just say that the world is the product of an intelligent Creator. All Christians say that. All theists say that. To deny that wouldn’t just make one an opponent of the ID movement, it would make one an atheist.
The ID movement goes far beyond saying that there is an intelligent Creator to make certain specific claims about biology. In particular, it says that certain structures found in the biological world cannot be given a conventional scientific explanation. To reject that claim is not at all to reject the claim that God is intelligent and the Creator of all that exists.
This would be more obvious if it were anything other than evolution that was being discussed. It seems that the subject of evolution causes people to lose their perspective — and in some cases their common sense. Suppose someone said that thunderstorms could not be accounted for by any conventional type of scientific explanation — or comets, or fire, or the aurora borealis, or the formation of mountains, or some other natural phenomenon? Would we be obliged to agree with such a person because we believe in an intelligent Creator? That is just a non sequitur.
Steve Barr
October 18th, 2012 | 11:40 pm
Hello, Dr. Barr,
Thank you for responding to my comments.
Right. As you pointed out, Christians and theists say that, too, and the ID movement is saying more than just that.
By “conventional” I assume you mean a mindless, accidental, “natural” explanation. What if the laws of physics combined with chance were just not capable of mindlessly and accidentally assembling nanotechnology that is light years beyond the technology the best minds of modern science know how to build from scratch? Isn’t it a possibility that assembling such nanotechnology is simply beyond their capabilities, just as it appears it would be for that combination to accidentally assemble much less sophisticated technology like our own?
It would be reasonable to consider the possibility that what appeared to be an abandoned alien spacecraft that had crashed landed on planet Earth, probably came to be through the involvement of intelligent agents. It would be unreasonable to instead just assume that such an object was a very, very unique natural phenomenon, but still as natural as a meteorite that had crashed into the Earth. Science wouldn’t just assume the latter was the case, because intelligence is a known reality that would be in this case a very likely causal factor in this phenomenon having come about. If the object under consideration really was extraterrestrial, we couldn’t be absolutely positive that it wasn’t just a very unique natural phenomenon, and science should remain open to that possibility. Nonetheless, it would still be entirely reasonable to consider intelligence as a causal factor in the spacecraft, or the very unique meteorite – whatever it is – having come about.
Just as with the extraterrestrial “whatever,” it is entirely reasonable to consider that intelligence might have been a causal factor in bringing about the astounding functional complexity of the nanotechnology of life. The reasonableness of considering that that may be the case is supported by the fact that every other instance of significant functional complexity of which we are aware, we know came about through the involvement of an intelligent agent. This is why, as we studied our extraterrestrial “whatever,” if we found more and more functional complexity, that would indicate to us that it was indeed intelligently designed. That should also be the case with the nanotechnology of life, the depth of the functional complexity of which we continue to discover, as was indicated recently by ENCODE project leaders reporting their finding that most DNA is functional, debunking the notion of “junk DNA.”
It seems to me that the problem is that, even though intelligence is a known reality and therefore it is entirely legitimate for science to consider it as a causal factor in a given phenomenon coming into being, science perverted by atheism scoffs at this approach when it comes to the nanotechnology of life simply because the implications of that being the case do not appear to them to bode well for atheism.
But why are you resisting that approach, Dr. Barr, Catholic that you are?
October 19th, 2012 | 2:21 pm
Let’s go back to the example of the object that appears to many to be some some kind of alien spacecraft. We are sure it is genuinely extraterrestrial, but we aren’t sure if it is an intelligently designed vehicle or just some kind of extremely strange, very, very unique natural phenomenon. Such uncertainty could be the case considering that intelligent life, if it is out there somewhere, could be very different from that on Earth, and if it is, their technology would likely be very different as well.
Would true, relentlessly objective, utterly neutral science just assume, despite its appearance, that this extraterrestrial object was just a very, very strange, but entirely natural phenomenon? I don’t think so. And if science did arbitrarily rule out the possibility that it was intelligently designed, one could justifiably conclude that that was not the decision of true science, but of science that had been tainted by some agenda of its own.
The nanotechnology of life exhibits functional complexity that is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch. Our common experience is that significant functional complexity is only arrived at through the involvement of intelligent agents, so it is only reasonable to conclude that massive functional complexity might have come about through the involvement of an intelligent agent. To arbitrarily dismiss that possibility suggests that, for some reason, one has lost the relentless objectivity and neutrality that true science requires.
October 20th, 2012 | 8:12 pm
Dear Harry,
I am well aware of the arguments of the ID movement, which are repeating at some length. I have read a great deal of their literature, including books by Mike Behe, Bill Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and others, not to mention reading articles and listening to lectures by them. Have you, by any chance, read anything I have written on the subject — such as “The End of Intelligent Design” and the lengthy responses I gave to many readers’ comments, which appeared here on the FT website some time ago? If you had, you would know my criticisms of the ID movement, and you would understand why all the points you are making have no relevance to my criticisms of ID.
Steve Barr
October 21st, 2012 | 3:53 pm
Hello, Dr. Barr,
Thank you again for your responses to my remarks.
I have found the works of Behe, Dembski, Phillip Johnson, Stephen C. Meyer, and Don Johnson (PhD in computer science from Univ. Minnesota, another PhD in chemistry from Michigan State) to be very compelling, especially those of Don Johnson, since he makes extensive use of his background in computer science, to which I can relate since I have worked with hardware and software (software much more than hardware) most of my adult life. If you haven’t already checked it out, you might enjoy Don Johnson’s, Probability’s Nature and Nature’s Probability.
I have read some of your comments on the First Things website. I will go back and look at The End of Intelligent Design and see if I can reconcile that with your remarks to Professor Gill, which I found to be very impressive, although they did not seem to me to be the thought of the same Dr. Barr I remembered from comments of yours that I had read previously on First Things — which is what prompted my original post here.
Thanks again,
harry
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact