I have just read, in the July 2009 edition of Scientific American, an article by Dr. Michael Shermer PhD.
In the article, entitled, I Want To Believe, Dr. Shermer describes the importance of the null hypothesis to scientific exploration; the notion that, in general, scientific claims are regarded as untrue until and unless they can be verified by means of controlled experiments validated by statistical analysis. However, he goes on to describe a class of such claims which, by their nature, cannot be tested in that way but instead rely for verification on "nuanced analyses of data and a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry that point to an unmistakable conclusion" Cosmology and archeology are given as examples of this type of study.
Later on in the article, Dr. Shermer refers to a question, the answer to which can probably not be ascertained by either approach, the question of what came before the Big Bang. In other words, what brought the universe into existence? He mentions the idea that the universe which we inhabit might have been proceeded by a multiverse which spawned daughter universes one of which was the one we inhabit but that there is no positive evidence for this conjecture. He then adds an intriguing comment to the effect that nor is there any positive evidence for the traditional answer to the question of the origin of the universe; that it was created by God.
I refer to this as intriguing because that remark would seem to compare the possibility of there having been a physical precursor to our universe with the possibility of there having been a metaphysical one, a case, to my mind, of comparing apples with elephants. The implied comparison is invalid.
I raise this matter because Dr. Shermer, who elsewhere describes himself as a skeptic, says that he has concluded that he is a skeptic "not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know." That seems to me to be both an honest and an honorable position. However, to speak about knowledge in respect to God is surely a misuse of the word. Theoretically at least, everything about the physical laws governing the universe is discoverable. However, we should not delude ourselves that any comparable process could uncover any knowledge about God.
I neither know that God exists nor do I know that God does not exist but I am sure that knowledge is not the issue in this context.
Dr. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com) and the author of Why We Believe.
In the article, entitled, I Want To Believe, Dr. Shermer describes the importance of the null hypothesis to scientific exploration; the notion that, in general, scientific claims are regarded as untrue until and unless they can be verified by means of controlled experiments validated by statistical analysis. However, he goes on to describe a class of such claims which, by their nature, cannot be tested in that way but instead rely for verification on "nuanced analyses of data and a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry that point to an unmistakable conclusion" Cosmology and archeology are given as examples of this type of study.
Later on in the article, Dr. Shermer refers to a question, the answer to which can probably not be ascertained by either approach, the question of what came before the Big Bang. In other words, what brought the universe into existence? He mentions the idea that the universe which we inhabit might have been proceeded by a multiverse which spawned daughter universes one of which was the one we inhabit but that there is no positive evidence for this conjecture. He then adds an intriguing comment to the effect that nor is there any positive evidence for the traditional answer to the question of the origin of the universe; that it was created by God.
I refer to this as intriguing because that remark would seem to compare the possibility of there having been a physical precursor to our universe with the possibility of there having been a metaphysical one, a case, to my mind, of comparing apples with elephants. The implied comparison is invalid.
I raise this matter because Dr. Shermer, who elsewhere describes himself as a skeptic, says that he has concluded that he is a skeptic "not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know." That seems to me to be both an honest and an honorable position. However, to speak about knowledge in respect to God is surely a misuse of the word. Theoretically at least, everything about the physical laws governing the universe is discoverable. However, we should not delude ourselves that any comparable process could uncover any knowledge about God.
I neither know that God exists nor do I know that God does not exist but I am sure that knowledge is not the issue in this context.
Dr. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com) and the author of Why We Believe.
