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« More Piggies for China | Main | God's Warriors Three »

August 08, 2007

Let's Get Metaphysical

Dennis Overbye writes in the New York Times about the phrase the God particle and the use of religious words and metaphors in promoting and discussing science. Einstein spoke of "God" but not a personal God.

There is an increasing use of theological language today in discussions about cosmic origins and the underlying reality of Everything. It's inevitable: science is running out of tools as these questions reach far beyond what empirical science can objectively deal with in the search for The Explanation, but that doesn't stop scientists from assuming the contested and previously discredited mantles of the philosophers. They are moving from physical to metaphysical, and as I like to ask, if they can get metaphysical on us, why can't others get metaphysical too? Because they avoid using "God" theologically, that's why. As long as they express no faith in that "God," they can banter around words like design and creation.

If you remain a scientist and don't speak of faith, you now have permission to be a philosopher.

Posted by James M. Kushiner at 05:16 PM | Permalink

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"He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision."

Psalm 2:4 (ESV)

Posted by: Bill R | Aug 8, 2007 6:13:32 PM

This is an unlawful and promiscuous use of philosophical terminology. The works of Stanley Jaki, Benedictine priest and historian of science, have many passages dealing with the importation of metaphysics into a science which has apparently lost the sense of its own limits.

Posted by: Caryl Johnston | Aug 8, 2007 6:41:59 PM

A few observations:

a) Dennis Overbye is a regular NYT columnist. This admission of his is as religious as NYT can be: God is a useful metaphor for mystery.
b) The culture wars are not over, despite what you read in the press or hear from academics. If they were, all those atheists wouldn't be complaining about other atheists using the metaphor.
c) Overbye demonstrates the typical naivete, the simplicity, the obliviousness, the irony, the philosophical ignorance of trying to banish metaphysics while simultaneously embracing the metaphysics of both materialism and the "real existence of unobservable physics cartoon theories". If I had to use a single word to describe this approach it would be arrogance. Either that or extremely pervasive brainwashing.
d) People like Overbye show the same sort of love for revisionist Stalinist history as they do for naive materialism. Parse this sentence for example:

"Historians have suggested that it was a mistake for the antiwar movement of the 1960s to yield the flag - a powerful symbol of patriotism - to the war's supporters, and likewise I think it would be a mistake for scientists to yield such a powerful metaphor to creationists and religious fundamentalists."

So tell me, what do flags represent? Are they more associated with patriotism and militant defense, or treason and pacifist defeat? So who owned the flag, the pro-war or anti-war contingent? What does history say? Why would historians have a different view of the facts? And what makes historians into sociologists? Likewise, who invented God? Is science older than religion? And since when did scientists become theologians, or even have an opinion on them?

Ok, it's both: arrogance overlying brainwashing. 1984 combined with spoiled, pampered, self-centered, obnoxious, me-generation of brainwashed brats.

Posted by: rob | Aug 9, 2007 8:14:37 AM

I don't like this on-going development at all, but whaddya gonna do?

Protestations, even strong ones that are respectfully delivered, are not going to change the rising tide of this importation of metaphysics into science.

We saw the same thing happening with Darwinian evolution and its ready adoption by secular humanists and atheists.

Yawn.

Posted by: Truth Unites... and Divides | Aug 9, 2007 10:05:17 AM

The phrase "The God Particle" was popularized years ago by Nobel-laureate Leon Lederman in a pop-science book titled, "The God Particle: If the universe is the answer, what is the question?" The book sets up a typical Scientism-style myth where blind forces of nature create the variety of the universe out of (practically) nothing.

Whence, the author finds a god of sorts in one of those blind forces - the one which he happens to study. See, it's one of *those* religions where you can choose whatever god best fits your personality - Venus, or Mars, or Athena - and that becomes the special local god of your household or of your city. Hey - the Greeks (and other pagans) invented McDonald's.

This book is not a dangerous myth. It's offered plainly as pure entertainment, not as serious theological narritive - no one with half a brain is going to be fooled. His book is good and worth reading for fun. Lederman outlines half-accurately the history of the science of tiny, invidisible particles from Deomcratus the Greek to contemporary elemantary-particle physics with its miles-long, high-powerd machines (which I use at my work).

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory - where Lederman was former director - continues to use his phrase to promote the work that was the subject of his book among the numerous other, related activities of the lab. (The lab was last directed by a Peruvian-American, and now by a Korean-American woman.)

Posted by: Clifford Simon | Aug 9, 2007 10:13:17 AM

I encountered this problem of terminology just the other day while conversing with an agnostic about natural origins, when he mentioned the 'universe creating itself'. If one uses a dictionary definition of creation... well he wouldn't sound like much of a Darwinian there.
Interesting to see that it's much more wide-spread(and apparently has been for some time!)than I had an idea.

Posted by: Nance | Aug 14, 2007 10:14:44 PM

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