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Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: The Interplay of Science, Reason, and Religion
The history of the interaction between science and religion is fraught with tension, although, as philosopher Phil Dowe demonstrates, many thoughtful and religious people have also found harmony between these two crucial fields. This fascinating book insightfully surveys the relationship of science, reason, and religion, giving special attention to the most contentious topics -- cosmology, evolution, and miracles.
Providing a superb introduction to the philosophy of science, Dowe's Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking contends that there are four basic ways to relate science and religion. Two of them, naturalism and religious science , present these endeavors as antagonistic. By contrast, an independence view understands them as wholly unrelated. Finally, an interaction account sees religion and science as complementary -- perhaps even dependent on one another. Dowe finds this last perspective the most historically and philosophically compelling. He argues his case by exploring the history of science, highlighting the life and work of three scientific Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, and Stephen Hawking.
Providing a superb introduction to the philosophy of science, Dowe's Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking contends that there are four basic ways to relate science and religion. Two of them, naturalism and religious science , present these endeavors as antagonistic. By contrast, an independence view understands them as wholly unrelated. Finally, an interaction account sees religion and science as complementary -- perhaps even dependent on one another. Dowe finds this last perspective the most historically and philosophically compelling. He argues his case by exploring the history of science, highlighting the life and work of three scientific Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, and Stephen Hawking.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Phil Dowe
6 books1 followerPhil Dowe is a senior lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Queensland and formerly of the University of Tasmania. His book, Physical Causation, was published in 2000 by Cambridge University Press. His research interests, besides causation, include chance, identity, time and the interaction between science and religion. He is currently writing a book on Time Travel.
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March 24, 2021
The main objective of this book is to explore the interaction between the scientific method of inquiry and theological speculation, with the ultimate aim to demonstrate that there is no real conflictual relationship, but full compatibility and even an often fruitful interaction, between the two approaches.
The author's theory is that we need to distinguish between social conflict and epistemological/methodological conflict: in order to support his thesis, the author uses Galileo's case as an example of the former type of conflict, a case which has frequently been depicted (retrospectively and erroneously, according to the author), as a glaring example of the latter.
The author highlights what he thinks are some of the more significant areas of commonality between science and religion: in particular, he claims that the scientific method is fundamentally based on systematic "inference to the best explanation" (essentially, Bayesian statistics), and that in this is it quite similar to the theistic approach (the author also uses such Bayesian approach to support a theistic explanation of the "cosmic fine tuning debate"). He also claims that the Judaeo-Christian religion, by its very nature, is conducive to scientific development and innovation, as it underlies a fundamentally positive perspective of the capacity of the human mind (as created in the image of God) to understand his Creation.
The author's analysis is based exclusively on a comparison between the Judaeo-Christian religion and the practice of modern science; he follows an allegorical interpretation of the Bible (he proposes very convincing arguments in favour of the hypothesis that the Bible had been written from the beginning with a symbolic, non-literal, even poetic meaning), while his position with regards to the epistemology of science is that of “scientific realism”, which he supports with equally compelling arguments.
Apart from the author's well developed and convincing arguments in favour of scientific realism and in support of the complete un-sustainability of a literal interpretation of the Bible, I must say that the author's methodological approach is deeply unsatisfactory and utterly unconvincing.
Here is a brief summary are some of my main observations:
- Bayesian approach:
a) Firstly, any use of Bayes’s theorem to reconstruct scientific reasoning depends on the fundamental assumption that all pertinent probabilities (the prior probabilities, and the probabilities of the available evidence conditional on various hypotheses) can be meaningfully defined and assigned, and that they are not of a purely subjective or arbitrary origin. In particular, we should always ask ourselves if we are dealing with a context where hypotheses can be actually assigned any meaningful probability values at all: this is a particularly applicable issue, for example, when we are treating all-encompassing cosmological questions of great generality, and thus verging on the metaphysical (like in the case of the fine-tuning argument and origin of the Universe, located as they are at the very boundary of our current knowledge).
In general, there is a number of potential problems that arise when trying to assign such probabilities; as a result of this, Bayesian inference techniques require skills and caution in order to translate subjective prior beliefs into a useful mathematically formulated prior. If not used with caution, misleading results can be very easily generated by the careless adoption of this otherwise powerful method.
b) Secondly, while the Bayesian statistical approach can be (and has been) successfully adopted in some guise by many scientists (more or less formally), it is important to highlight that such technique is only one of many tools, procedures and systems that are available as part of the overall scientific methodological toolkit. A Bayesian approach (also because of its potential weaknesses, some of which I have highlighted in the point immediately above) is normally only used in conjunction with other methods.
Moreover, while I do not necessarily share Karl Popper's very negative view of the low epistemological value of Bayesian reasoning, I think it important to stress that, if used alone and without proper caution, such technique is prone to the same circular reasoning pitfall (in essentially assuming what it attempts to justify) as any other "justificationist" epistemology.
- compatibility between religion and science
a) the author claims that the Bayesian approach is a distinguishing feature of the religious discourse too, in commonality with the scientific method. I find this claim quite strange, and definitely difficult to reconcile with the historical reality of a religious approach that is ultimately based on a revealed and static message codified in a corpus of sacred texts not subject to revision. Yes, the Bayesian approach has been used by some theists in modern times, in order to claim the fine-tuning argument in favour of theistic arguments: but this does not justify any claim that science and religion share the same techniques. This point seems extremely artificial and very difficult to defend.
b) even if we accepted point a) above, the author conveniently omits to highlight the very deep methodological differences and very different epistemological value of the two approaches. Even if we accepted the extremely questionable point (see above) that religion and science share the same Bayesian approach, the scientific method is ultimately based on the overall conceptual milieu defined by dynamic, falsifiable, open-ended, evidence-based, experimentally supported, replicable, mathematically consistent, complex and inter-related networks of reciprocally-supporting and mutually-coherent set of physical theories. This is fundamentally different to any other epistemological approach, and to religion in particular.
There is therefore a fundamental and deep methodological tension between the two approaches, and the fact that Newton and Galileo held theistic views, and both supported the idea of a complete compatibility between religion and science, does not negate such tension at all. To compound this, the necessarily teleological outlook of any theistic religious discourse differs substantially from the essentially anti-teleological perspective of modern science. Moreover, religion is normative in character, while science is descriptive.
c) the author claims that the Judaeo-Christian religion has provided the ideological underpinnings of the epistemological optimism that proved a catalyst for modern scientific inquiry. He bases his claim on the fact that, according to him, such religion provides a fundamentally positive view of the intellectual power of the human mind: this is because it is seen as created by God in His image, so there is no reason why it should not be able to understand His Creation. The author also refers to the work by Needham on the analysis of the differences between Western and Chinese development after 1500 AD, supposedly resulting from a difference in religious approach.
My personal view here is that the determination of the factors that have played an important role in the relative divergence of the pace of scientific and technical innovation (after 1500 AD) in China versus the so-called Western World is a highly contentious, complex and hotly debated subject matter: much recent scholarship has veered away from religious or even cultural explanations as a direct cause, identifying other classes of causes (geographical, climatic, geopolitical, and even purely contingency factors) as primary explanatory elements. Moreover, if we look at the comparative historical development in these two areas of the World, it is clear that for most of historical time the Chinese civilization has actually outpaced the Western World, and the contemporary trends do clearly give the impression of a reversion to historical mean (with China poised to surpass the economies of the Western World in the not so far future, like it or not, and regardless of the increasingly desperate rearguard actions of successive US administrations). I must also add that I found the author's approach here quite arrogantly and insufferably Judaeo-Christian-centric and Western-centric.
To conclude this point, I would also like to stress that the supposed “optimistic” view of Judaeo-Christian religion can be subject to some important qualifications, as there are plenty of historical examples where Christianity has clashed frontally with scientific progress and also developed a quite pessimistic view of the overall capabilities and the very nature of humankind. For instance, as a counter-example to Aquinas one could refer to Bernard of Clairvaux, and as a counter-example to Pope Pius XI (who established the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences), one could refer to Pope Pius IX and his anti-science, anti-modernity "Syllabus of Errors" . And how about Luther, when he thus describes Copernicus' science: "The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."
I also find quite extraordinary that the author completely ignores the very remarkable scientific developments of the Islamic Arab civilization at its cultural apogee during the European High Middle Ages (of course, this is counterbalanced by many historical and contemporary examples of Islamic obscurantism and pernicious fundamentalism) – religious parochialism might be the culprit (as evident in the author's ill-informed attempt to insinuate a supposed "inferiority" of Chinese religious thought in relation to scientific progress).
- cosmic fine-tuning justification of theism, and “rational order” of the Universe
Parts of the section of the book dedicated to this important debate are quite interesting, as they are the only parts where the author bothers to actually take into some serious account the outcomes of contemporary scientific developments.
I strongly agree with the author here that there is a very legitimate question to be asked here, as suggested by the extraordinarily particular sets of boundary conditions and fundamental physical constants, both conducive to the evolution of intelligent life. I also share the author's disagreement with Stephen Jay Gould's view that there is no need for any explanation because all outcomes (all individual sets of boundary conditions and physical constants values) are extremely improbable, and “something had to happen anyway”.
Well, not all outcomes are "equal", especially if we consider aspects such as the development of complexity and complex information processing structures, including consciousness (yes, admittedly this is a subjective, normative or anthropic approach, if you wish): so there is something extremely unsatisfactory (and it feels like an intellectual cop out) to simply pretend that all possible outcomes are of the same nature and that therefore there is no question to be asked.
I wonder: why is it that humans are so terrified to admit that there are perfectly legitimate questions to be asked, to which we still have no answer yet? Why so we tend to run away from them (for example, by rushing into postulating some metaphysical, all-explaining superior entity, or by pretending that the question does not have any merits), rather than confronting them in an open-ended fashion? It must be probably something deeply ingrained in our human mental and intellectual apparatus, something that derived from our natural evolution-developed need for finding identifying patterns whenever possible (even when this eludes our current knowledge and investigative capabilities).
Now, while the “intelligent design” argument might gain some plausibility as a potential answer to such question (and I do not discount it apriori), I very strongly disagree with the author's conclusion that, according to his pseudo-Bayesian “inference to the best explanation” process, this is the best answer. Simply put, it is not, and I would also add that author's argument here represents the best example of how the Bayesian method, if stretched beyond its appropriate and cautious use, can quite easily derive unwarranted conclusions.
It is actually quite ironic that the author states here that “we must draw conclusions based on the evidence we have” when the available evidence does not support, in any shape or form, the existence of anything of a “supernatural” nature. Yes, there is remarkable beauty in the order and patterns in the Universe, and one can fittingly express awe and wonder at how an extraordinarily concise and small set of physical laws can adequately describe it; and the idea that the Universe, through intelligent species such as humans on this planet, can "understand itself" is definitely thought-provoking. But this does not necessarily entail anything supra-natural. I am not saying that there is no such "entity", but I do not see any evidence that supports it.
I therefore take the personal position (which I think is the only tenable one, at the light of the information we currently have at our disposition) that, epistemologically speaking, the case is still wide open due to our insufficient knowledge, and that there are several potential alternative hypothesis and possible plausible explanations.
The area where an interesting and honest debate may ensue is in the evaluation of the relative degree of plausibility of each such alternative: unfortunately, however, the author doesn't provide a fruitful context to such discussion, as he does not even seriously consider the possibility that an underlying scientific explanation for cosmic fine tuning may be discovered in the future. There is nothing to exclude, for example, that a most fundamental physical law (or a "minimal set" of physical laws) might explain the current physical constants and the initial boundary conditions of this Universe, as the only possible physically realizable and self-consistent set of values. We simply don't know.
As a concluding remark, I must say that, while the book does present some interesting points (and some parts are of interest, well-argued and developed), on the other hand the incomplete, unbalanced and occasionally disingenuous nature of the treatment of several subjects (some of which I have highlighted above) does impact the overall reading experience and the overall usefulness of this book. As a result, I think that a 2-star rating (possibly a 2.5 rating), is warranted.
The author's theory is that we need to distinguish between social conflict and epistemological/methodological conflict: in order to support his thesis, the author uses Galileo's case as an example of the former type of conflict, a case which has frequently been depicted (retrospectively and erroneously, according to the author), as a glaring example of the latter.
The author highlights what he thinks are some of the more significant areas of commonality between science and religion: in particular, he claims that the scientific method is fundamentally based on systematic "inference to the best explanation" (essentially, Bayesian statistics), and that in this is it quite similar to the theistic approach (the author also uses such Bayesian approach to support a theistic explanation of the "cosmic fine tuning debate"). He also claims that the Judaeo-Christian religion, by its very nature, is conducive to scientific development and innovation, as it underlies a fundamentally positive perspective of the capacity of the human mind (as created in the image of God) to understand his Creation.
The author's analysis is based exclusively on a comparison between the Judaeo-Christian religion and the practice of modern science; he follows an allegorical interpretation of the Bible (he proposes very convincing arguments in favour of the hypothesis that the Bible had been written from the beginning with a symbolic, non-literal, even poetic meaning), while his position with regards to the epistemology of science is that of “scientific realism”, which he supports with equally compelling arguments.
Apart from the author's well developed and convincing arguments in favour of scientific realism and in support of the complete un-sustainability of a literal interpretation of the Bible, I must say that the author's methodological approach is deeply unsatisfactory and utterly unconvincing.
Here is a brief summary are some of my main observations:
- Bayesian approach:
a) Firstly, any use of Bayes’s theorem to reconstruct scientific reasoning depends on the fundamental assumption that all pertinent probabilities (the prior probabilities, and the probabilities of the available evidence conditional on various hypotheses) can be meaningfully defined and assigned, and that they are not of a purely subjective or arbitrary origin. In particular, we should always ask ourselves if we are dealing with a context where hypotheses can be actually assigned any meaningful probability values at all: this is a particularly applicable issue, for example, when we are treating all-encompassing cosmological questions of great generality, and thus verging on the metaphysical (like in the case of the fine-tuning argument and origin of the Universe, located as they are at the very boundary of our current knowledge).
In general, there is a number of potential problems that arise when trying to assign such probabilities; as a result of this, Bayesian inference techniques require skills and caution in order to translate subjective prior beliefs into a useful mathematically formulated prior. If not used with caution, misleading results can be very easily generated by the careless adoption of this otherwise powerful method.
b) Secondly, while the Bayesian statistical approach can be (and has been) successfully adopted in some guise by many scientists (more or less formally), it is important to highlight that such technique is only one of many tools, procedures and systems that are available as part of the overall scientific methodological toolkit. A Bayesian approach (also because of its potential weaknesses, some of which I have highlighted in the point immediately above) is normally only used in conjunction with other methods.
Moreover, while I do not necessarily share Karl Popper's very negative view of the low epistemological value of Bayesian reasoning, I think it important to stress that, if used alone and without proper caution, such technique is prone to the same circular reasoning pitfall (in essentially assuming what it attempts to justify) as any other "justificationist" epistemology.
- compatibility between religion and science
a) the author claims that the Bayesian approach is a distinguishing feature of the religious discourse too, in commonality with the scientific method. I find this claim quite strange, and definitely difficult to reconcile with the historical reality of a religious approach that is ultimately based on a revealed and static message codified in a corpus of sacred texts not subject to revision. Yes, the Bayesian approach has been used by some theists in modern times, in order to claim the fine-tuning argument in favour of theistic arguments: but this does not justify any claim that science and religion share the same techniques. This point seems extremely artificial and very difficult to defend.
b) even if we accepted point a) above, the author conveniently omits to highlight the very deep methodological differences and very different epistemological value of the two approaches. Even if we accepted the extremely questionable point (see above) that religion and science share the same Bayesian approach, the scientific method is ultimately based on the overall conceptual milieu defined by dynamic, falsifiable, open-ended, evidence-based, experimentally supported, replicable, mathematically consistent, complex and inter-related networks of reciprocally-supporting and mutually-coherent set of physical theories. This is fundamentally different to any other epistemological approach, and to religion in particular.
There is therefore a fundamental and deep methodological tension between the two approaches, and the fact that Newton and Galileo held theistic views, and both supported the idea of a complete compatibility between religion and science, does not negate such tension at all. To compound this, the necessarily teleological outlook of any theistic religious discourse differs substantially from the essentially anti-teleological perspective of modern science. Moreover, religion is normative in character, while science is descriptive.
c) the author claims that the Judaeo-Christian religion has provided the ideological underpinnings of the epistemological optimism that proved a catalyst for modern scientific inquiry. He bases his claim on the fact that, according to him, such religion provides a fundamentally positive view of the intellectual power of the human mind: this is because it is seen as created by God in His image, so there is no reason why it should not be able to understand His Creation. The author also refers to the work by Needham on the analysis of the differences between Western and Chinese development after 1500 AD, supposedly resulting from a difference in religious approach.
My personal view here is that the determination of the factors that have played an important role in the relative divergence of the pace of scientific and technical innovation (after 1500 AD) in China versus the so-called Western World is a highly contentious, complex and hotly debated subject matter: much recent scholarship has veered away from religious or even cultural explanations as a direct cause, identifying other classes of causes (geographical, climatic, geopolitical, and even purely contingency factors) as primary explanatory elements. Moreover, if we look at the comparative historical development in these two areas of the World, it is clear that for most of historical time the Chinese civilization has actually outpaced the Western World, and the contemporary trends do clearly give the impression of a reversion to historical mean (with China poised to surpass the economies of the Western World in the not so far future, like it or not, and regardless of the increasingly desperate rearguard actions of successive US administrations). I must also add that I found the author's approach here quite arrogantly and insufferably Judaeo-Christian-centric and Western-centric.
To conclude this point, I would also like to stress that the supposed “optimistic” view of Judaeo-Christian religion can be subject to some important qualifications, as there are plenty of historical examples where Christianity has clashed frontally with scientific progress and also developed a quite pessimistic view of the overall capabilities and the very nature of humankind. For instance, as a counter-example to Aquinas one could refer to Bernard of Clairvaux, and as a counter-example to Pope Pius XI (who established the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences), one could refer to Pope Pius IX and his anti-science, anti-modernity "Syllabus of Errors" . And how about Luther, when he thus describes Copernicus' science: "The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."
I also find quite extraordinary that the author completely ignores the very remarkable scientific developments of the Islamic Arab civilization at its cultural apogee during the European High Middle Ages (of course, this is counterbalanced by many historical and contemporary examples of Islamic obscurantism and pernicious fundamentalism) – religious parochialism might be the culprit (as evident in the author's ill-informed attempt to insinuate a supposed "inferiority" of Chinese religious thought in relation to scientific progress).
- cosmic fine-tuning justification of theism, and “rational order” of the Universe
Parts of the section of the book dedicated to this important debate are quite interesting, as they are the only parts where the author bothers to actually take into some serious account the outcomes of contemporary scientific developments.
I strongly agree with the author here that there is a very legitimate question to be asked here, as suggested by the extraordinarily particular sets of boundary conditions and fundamental physical constants, both conducive to the evolution of intelligent life. I also share the author's disagreement with Stephen Jay Gould's view that there is no need for any explanation because all outcomes (all individual sets of boundary conditions and physical constants values) are extremely improbable, and “something had to happen anyway”.
Well, not all outcomes are "equal", especially if we consider aspects such as the development of complexity and complex information processing structures, including consciousness (yes, admittedly this is a subjective, normative or anthropic approach, if you wish): so there is something extremely unsatisfactory (and it feels like an intellectual cop out) to simply pretend that all possible outcomes are of the same nature and that therefore there is no question to be asked.
I wonder: why is it that humans are so terrified to admit that there are perfectly legitimate questions to be asked, to which we still have no answer yet? Why so we tend to run away from them (for example, by rushing into postulating some metaphysical, all-explaining superior entity, or by pretending that the question does not have any merits), rather than confronting them in an open-ended fashion? It must be probably something deeply ingrained in our human mental and intellectual apparatus, something that derived from our natural evolution-developed need for finding identifying patterns whenever possible (even when this eludes our current knowledge and investigative capabilities).
Now, while the “intelligent design” argument might gain some plausibility as a potential answer to such question (and I do not discount it apriori), I very strongly disagree with the author's conclusion that, according to his pseudo-Bayesian “inference to the best explanation” process, this is the best answer. Simply put, it is not, and I would also add that author's argument here represents the best example of how the Bayesian method, if stretched beyond its appropriate and cautious use, can quite easily derive unwarranted conclusions.
It is actually quite ironic that the author states here that “we must draw conclusions based on the evidence we have” when the available evidence does not support, in any shape or form, the existence of anything of a “supernatural” nature. Yes, there is remarkable beauty in the order and patterns in the Universe, and one can fittingly express awe and wonder at how an extraordinarily concise and small set of physical laws can adequately describe it; and the idea that the Universe, through intelligent species such as humans on this planet, can "understand itself" is definitely thought-provoking. But this does not necessarily entail anything supra-natural. I am not saying that there is no such "entity", but I do not see any evidence that supports it.
I therefore take the personal position (which I think is the only tenable one, at the light of the information we currently have at our disposition) that, epistemologically speaking, the case is still wide open due to our insufficient knowledge, and that there are several potential alternative hypothesis and possible plausible explanations.
The area where an interesting and honest debate may ensue is in the evaluation of the relative degree of plausibility of each such alternative: unfortunately, however, the author doesn't provide a fruitful context to such discussion, as he does not even seriously consider the possibility that an underlying scientific explanation for cosmic fine tuning may be discovered in the future. There is nothing to exclude, for example, that a most fundamental physical law (or a "minimal set" of physical laws) might explain the current physical constants and the initial boundary conditions of this Universe, as the only possible physically realizable and self-consistent set of values. We simply don't know.
As a concluding remark, I must say that, while the book does present some interesting points (and some parts are of interest, well-argued and developed), on the other hand the incomplete, unbalanced and occasionally disingenuous nature of the treatment of several subjects (some of which I have highlighted above) does impact the overall reading experience and the overall usefulness of this book. As a result, I think that a 2-star rating (possibly a 2.5 rating), is warranted.
October 8, 2008
This books is full of interesting historical scientific and religious insights, but was told from one frame of mind - that unfortunately did not quite sit right with me. I didn't read the book in its entirety because I disagreed with the author's statements and felt to pursue it any further would not be in my interest. On to better books for me....
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