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Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion
Oracles of Science examines the popular writings of the six scientists who have been the most influential in shaping our perception of science, how it works, and how it relates to other fields of human endeavor, especially religion. Biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg, have become public intellectuals, articulating a much larger vision for science and what role it should play in the modern worldview. The scientific prestige and literary eloquence of each of these great thinkers combine to transform them into what can only be called oracles of science. Their controversial, often personal, sometimes idiosyncratic opinions become widely known and perceived by many to be authoritative. Curiously, the leading 'oracles of science' are predominantly secular in ways that don't reflect the distribution of religious beliefs within the scientific community. Many of them are even hostile to
religion, creating a false impression that science as a whole is incompatible with religion. Karl Giberson and Mariano Artigas offer an informed analysis of the views of these six scientists, carefully distinguishing science from philosophy and religion in the writings of the oracles. This book will be welcomed by many who are disturbed by the tone of the public discourse on the relationship between science and religion and will challenge others to reexamine their own preconceptions about this crucial topic.
religion, creating a false impression that science as a whole is incompatible with religion. Karl Giberson and Mariano Artigas offer an informed analysis of the views of these six scientists, carefully distinguishing science from philosophy and religion in the writings of the oracles. This book will be welcomed by many who are disturbed by the tone of the public discourse on the relationship between science and religion and will challenge others to reexamine their own preconceptions about this crucial topic.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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May 12, 2023
There was no consensus among scientists in human civilization as a whole when science pointed its finger against religion as it has been forcefully shown over the last few decades as if science have found and reached in a conclusion about the inexistence of God, which definitely is not the case. Rather the more the scientists explore the universe the more close they come to God. But surprisingly some of the medias playing rules, publishers came forward, activists raising voices as if science has become the only possible tool answering the objective truth of our life and it went so far that the existence of God is completely denied. Thus in the name of science a Godless society is being created which is purely scientism not science whatsoever. Any educated mind hopefully if look a little in depth in science, would surely find and surprise how scientism is in use to poison our mind to reject God sent religion so does God's existence ultimately.
But how we're so definite this claim is truth? The book "Oracles of Science" unlike many blind science believers went to dig further and return back with astonishment of how some so called celebrity scientists with their self contradictory ideas manipulating thousands of mind to raise them up against God. The writers from many listed six global reputed individuals we're much familiar with namely biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg who have become idols for thousands, articulating a fabricated version of science to pull out religion and God from human life. Let's explore some of their so called propositions, approach, opinions and deal it with reality as the writers said:
"Dawkins has become an increasingly aggressive and outspoken foe of religion, using science to discredit religious beliefs."
"As is typical, Dawkins does not address these problems all at once. Little by little he unfolds bits and pieces of his argument, carrying the reader where he wants, disclosing his arguments here and there, laying a foundation in this chapter and then building on it sometime later. This is a powerful rhetorical strategy, and Dawkins is an expert in the fine art of argument and persuasion."
"Most people accept Dawkins’s assertion that science at its best is testable, quantifiable, and generally in possession of the virtues above; but most do not think that it contradicts religion, or that religion is completely without any of these virtues. Dawkins argues that outside science we cannot find respectable truth; this, of course, is scientism, not science."
"English biologist Richard Dawkins has recently raised my hackles with his claim that genes themselves are units of selection, and individuals merely their temporary receptacles.’’ Gould identifies a fatal flaw in the selfish gene view: ‘‘No matter how much power Dawkins
wishes to assign to genes, there is one thing that he cannot give them—direct visibility to natural selection. Selection simply cannot see genes and pick among them directly. It must use bodies as an intermediary.’’"
So Dawkins's idea in the book is a not based on real science:
"Evolution is thus an atheistic, materialistic ideology, not a scientific theory.
Johnson writes, ‘‘Darwinism is not really based on empirical evidence. Its
true basis is in philosophy, and specifically in the metaphysics of naturalism.
. . . Naturalism does not have an answer for the ultimate question of why
there is something instead of nothing.’’ "
But even then we can see Dawkins far away from withdrawing his idea rather just like him science writer like Isaac Asimov came forward to shelter Dawkins:
"Isaac Asimov, who wrote over four hundred books and was an important science popularizer in
his own right, wrote that ‘‘creationists are stupid, lying people,’’ and insulted them as ‘‘cavemen’ on the back cover of one of Dawkins’s books. Elsewhere, Dawkins charged that people who did not believe in evolution were ‘‘stupid, wicked, or insane.’’
Stephen Hawking on the other hand is another celebrity but how did he got much popularity? Is his idea as a whole even accepted to the scientists even to himself in some cases? As the book goes on to say:
"Gribbin and White report, adding: ‘‘He wanted a lot of money for this book. . . . At their first organized meeting [with Simon Mitton, from Cambridge University Press] to discuss the book, Hawking opened the conversation by explaining his financial situation, making it clear
that he wanted to earn enough money to continue financing Lucy’s education and to offset the costs of nursing. He was obviously unable to provide any form of life insurance to protect the family in the event of his death or complete incapacitation.’’ Mitton criticized Hawking’s initial efforts, which had equations on every page, as too technical. But Cambridge University Press ended up offering a contract specifying a 10,000-pound advance and high-percentage royalties. In the meantime, in early 1983, a senior editor at Bantam Books at New York read an article on Hawking in the New York Times. He immediately realized that the combination of Hawking’s scientific fame and his physical condition was a great story. Just as Hawking was preparing to sign the contract with Cambridge University Press, Bantam offered him a $250,000 advance and a very favorable deal on royalties. This contract was signed. The result surpassed expectations and surprised even the publishers. In the tenth anniversary edition, published in 1998, we read that it has sold more than 9 million copies worldwide."
"Not everyone agrees with Hawking’s ideas, of course. His collaborator Penrose finds the Hartle-Hawking ‘‘no-boundary’’ proposal interesting, but notes that he has ‘‘considerable difficulties’’ with it. Hawking notes that the empirical confirmation of his proposal is very difficult and insists that his idea is only a proposal: ‘‘I’d like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite ‘without boundary’ is just a proposal:.."
"Coles notes a 1999 poll of the world’s leading physicists asking for the five physicists who made the most important contributions to their field: Only one of the 130 respondents put Hawking on the list."
"Of Hawking’s forays onto religious territory, Coles writes: ‘‘Hawking’s phrase ‘to know the Mind of God’ is just one example of a border infringement. But by playing the God card, Hawking has cleverly fanned the flames of his own publicity, appealing directly to the popular allure of the scientistas- priest."
"Horgan makes an interesting final comment:
I suspect that Hawking—who may be less a truth seeker than an artist, an illusionist, a cosmic joker—knew all along that finding and empirically validating a unified theory would be extremely difficult, even impossible. His declaration that physics was on the verge of finding The Answer may well have been an ironic statement, less an assertion than a provocation. In 1994, he admitted as much when he told an interviewer that physics might never achieve a final theory after all. Hawking is a master practitioner of ironic physics and cosmology."
In regards to Carl Sagan, the writers give us a big surprise when we see in the book:
"Poundstone recounts, from his interview with Abrahamson, that one Sunday morning Sagan was with Abrahamson and his fianceé, and Sagan propounded a new theory: that Moses, Jesus, and all the great religious figures of ages past were really extraterrestrial beings. The miracles of the Bible had all happened as described. Moses parted the Red Sea, Jesus turned water into wine, and so forth. They used advanced technology that was perfectly ordinary on their planet—but which we earthlings could take only as proof of divinity. . . . That afternoon, Abrahamson took his fianceé and Sagan out to dinner. . . . In the middle of dinner, without any warning, Sagan slammed his fist on the table, sending the dishes rattling. He looked Abrahamson in the eye and bellowed, ‘ I tell you, Jesus Christ is extraterrestrial!’’ .... Abrahamson and his fianceé wanted to crawl under the table. "
I don't know how to react of such idea when comes from a scientist like Carl Sagan, but the readers can imagine.
"Davidson comments: ‘‘Sagan’s loss of faith intersected neatly with his growing fascination with extraterrestrial life. He had rejected a supernatural explanation of the origin of life (and everything else); therefore he needed to find a scientific one."
This comment of Carl Sagan below is really self contradictory when he search science for solution and at the same time confess it's limitation:
"He acknowledges the limitations of science: ‘‘‘‘Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best we have.’’ And it does not provide certainty: ‘‘Except in pure mathematics nothing is known for certain. . . ."
"Davidson’s biography opens with these words: ‘‘All his life, Carl Sagan was troubled by grand dichotomies—between reason and irrationalism, between wonder and skepticism. The dichotomies clashed within him. He yearned to believe in marvelous things—in flying saucers, in Martians, in glistening civilizations across the Milky Way. Yet reason usually brought him back to
Earth."
More could've explored from the book but as the review is already extended we've to conclude soon but just before that I think the readers have realized how unfair it is to misuse science to play with our minds so that blindly we believe what science is not to reject our faith. As the writers say:
"The scientific community, through the lenses of its six leading spokespersons, is hostile to religion, atheistic, and primarily engaged in the investigation of origins."
At the same time the writers also educated us saying:
"Science is not hostile to religion, scientists are not consistently atheistic, and origins are not the primary focus of scientific investigation."
"And as for the scientific community being hostile to religion, other than a tiny minority of scientists, there is simply no widespread opposition."
Now it up to us which version of science we should welcome in our life, whether it is science or scientism.
But how we're so definite this claim is truth? The book "Oracles of Science" unlike many blind science believers went to dig further and return back with astonishment of how some so called celebrity scientists with their self contradictory ideas manipulating thousands of mind to raise them up against God. The writers from many listed six global reputed individuals we're much familiar with namely biologists Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson, and physicists Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg who have become idols for thousands, articulating a fabricated version of science to pull out religion and God from human life. Let's explore some of their so called propositions, approach, opinions and deal it with reality as the writers said:
"Dawkins has become an increasingly aggressive and outspoken foe of religion, using science to discredit religious beliefs."
"As is typical, Dawkins does not address these problems all at once. Little by little he unfolds bits and pieces of his argument, carrying the reader where he wants, disclosing his arguments here and there, laying a foundation in this chapter and then building on it sometime later. This is a powerful rhetorical strategy, and Dawkins is an expert in the fine art of argument and persuasion."
"Most people accept Dawkins’s assertion that science at its best is testable, quantifiable, and generally in possession of the virtues above; but most do not think that it contradicts religion, or that religion is completely without any of these virtues. Dawkins argues that outside science we cannot find respectable truth; this, of course, is scientism, not science."
"English biologist Richard Dawkins has recently raised my hackles with his claim that genes themselves are units of selection, and individuals merely their temporary receptacles.’’ Gould identifies a fatal flaw in the selfish gene view: ‘‘No matter how much power Dawkins
wishes to assign to genes, there is one thing that he cannot give them—direct visibility to natural selection. Selection simply cannot see genes and pick among them directly. It must use bodies as an intermediary.’’"
So Dawkins's idea in the book is a not based on real science:
"Evolution is thus an atheistic, materialistic ideology, not a scientific theory.
Johnson writes, ‘‘Darwinism is not really based on empirical evidence. Its
true basis is in philosophy, and specifically in the metaphysics of naturalism.
. . . Naturalism does not have an answer for the ultimate question of why
there is something instead of nothing.’’ "
But even then we can see Dawkins far away from withdrawing his idea rather just like him science writer like Isaac Asimov came forward to shelter Dawkins:
"Isaac Asimov, who wrote over four hundred books and was an important science popularizer in
his own right, wrote that ‘‘creationists are stupid, lying people,’’ and insulted them as ‘‘cavemen’ on the back cover of one of Dawkins’s books. Elsewhere, Dawkins charged that people who did not believe in evolution were ‘‘stupid, wicked, or insane.’’
Stephen Hawking on the other hand is another celebrity but how did he got much popularity? Is his idea as a whole even accepted to the scientists even to himself in some cases? As the book goes on to say:
"Gribbin and White report, adding: ‘‘He wanted a lot of money for this book. . . . At their first organized meeting [with Simon Mitton, from Cambridge University Press] to discuss the book, Hawking opened the conversation by explaining his financial situation, making it clear
that he wanted to earn enough money to continue financing Lucy’s education and to offset the costs of nursing. He was obviously unable to provide any form of life insurance to protect the family in the event of his death or complete incapacitation.’’ Mitton criticized Hawking’s initial efforts, which had equations on every page, as too technical. But Cambridge University Press ended up offering a contract specifying a 10,000-pound advance and high-percentage royalties. In the meantime, in early 1983, a senior editor at Bantam Books at New York read an article on Hawking in the New York Times. He immediately realized that the combination of Hawking’s scientific fame and his physical condition was a great story. Just as Hawking was preparing to sign the contract with Cambridge University Press, Bantam offered him a $250,000 advance and a very favorable deal on royalties. This contract was signed. The result surpassed expectations and surprised even the publishers. In the tenth anniversary edition, published in 1998, we read that it has sold more than 9 million copies worldwide."
"Not everyone agrees with Hawking’s ideas, of course. His collaborator Penrose finds the Hartle-Hawking ‘‘no-boundary’’ proposal interesting, but notes that he has ‘‘considerable difficulties’’ with it. Hawking notes that the empirical confirmation of his proposal is very difficult and insists that his idea is only a proposal: ‘‘I’d like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite ‘without boundary’ is just a proposal:.."
"Coles notes a 1999 poll of the world’s leading physicists asking for the five physicists who made the most important contributions to their field: Only one of the 130 respondents put Hawking on the list."
"Of Hawking’s forays onto religious territory, Coles writes: ‘‘Hawking’s phrase ‘to know the Mind of God’ is just one example of a border infringement. But by playing the God card, Hawking has cleverly fanned the flames of his own publicity, appealing directly to the popular allure of the scientistas- priest."
"Horgan makes an interesting final comment:
I suspect that Hawking—who may be less a truth seeker than an artist, an illusionist, a cosmic joker—knew all along that finding and empirically validating a unified theory would be extremely difficult, even impossible. His declaration that physics was on the verge of finding The Answer may well have been an ironic statement, less an assertion than a provocation. In 1994, he admitted as much when he told an interviewer that physics might never achieve a final theory after all. Hawking is a master practitioner of ironic physics and cosmology."
In regards to Carl Sagan, the writers give us a big surprise when we see in the book:
"Poundstone recounts, from his interview with Abrahamson, that one Sunday morning Sagan was with Abrahamson and his fianceé, and Sagan propounded a new theory: that Moses, Jesus, and all the great religious figures of ages past were really extraterrestrial beings. The miracles of the Bible had all happened as described. Moses parted the Red Sea, Jesus turned water into wine, and so forth. They used advanced technology that was perfectly ordinary on their planet—but which we earthlings could take only as proof of divinity. . . . That afternoon, Abrahamson took his fianceé and Sagan out to dinner. . . . In the middle of dinner, without any warning, Sagan slammed his fist on the table, sending the dishes rattling. He looked Abrahamson in the eye and bellowed, ‘ I tell you, Jesus Christ is extraterrestrial!’’ .... Abrahamson and his fianceé wanted to crawl under the table. "
I don't know how to react of such idea when comes from a scientist like Carl Sagan, but the readers can imagine.
"Davidson comments: ‘‘Sagan’s loss of faith intersected neatly with his growing fascination with extraterrestrial life. He had rejected a supernatural explanation of the origin of life (and everything else); therefore he needed to find a scientific one."
This comment of Carl Sagan below is really self contradictory when he search science for solution and at the same time confess it's limitation:
"He acknowledges the limitations of science: ‘‘‘‘Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best we have.’’ And it does not provide certainty: ‘‘Except in pure mathematics nothing is known for certain. . . ."
"Davidson’s biography opens with these words: ‘‘All his life, Carl Sagan was troubled by grand dichotomies—between reason and irrationalism, between wonder and skepticism. The dichotomies clashed within him. He yearned to believe in marvelous things—in flying saucers, in Martians, in glistening civilizations across the Milky Way. Yet reason usually brought him back to
Earth."
More could've explored from the book but as the review is already extended we've to conclude soon but just before that I think the readers have realized how unfair it is to misuse science to play with our minds so that blindly we believe what science is not to reject our faith. As the writers say:
"The scientific community, through the lenses of its six leading spokespersons, is hostile to religion, atheistic, and primarily engaged in the investigation of origins."
At the same time the writers also educated us saying:
"Science is not hostile to religion, scientists are not consistently atheistic, and origins are not the primary focus of scientific investigation."
"And as for the scientific community being hostile to religion, other than a tiny minority of scientists, there is simply no widespread opposition."
Now it up to us which version of science we should welcome in our life, whether it is science or scientism.
March 15, 2018
Great book, clear and entertaining, written with respect and admiration for the six scientists included in its analysis.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews