Why What I'm About to Say is Wrong

I hate reading books like this because I like my religion and I like my science but I hate trying to figure out all of the possible places where they may or may not contradict each other.  My brain starts trying to conceive the next great General Theory until my gray matter starts to melt down.  My thoughts are more tangential to what the book said, and I hope even those that didn't read the book will feel free to chime in.

1. Science is wrong! - What we know about science now will most likely (barring an apocalypse) look pretty silly compared to what we know about science 100 years from now.  So much of what we "know"  according to the author of the book and scientists in general are extrapolations from tiny bits of information.  They are highly sensible, very well reasoned extrapolations, but they are extrapolations nonetheless.  As a statistician, I hate extrapolating.

The Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution sound great, and I think they explain a lot about our expanding universe and the variety of species.  As I don't believe that God works by magic but by science I don't completely understand yet, I prefer scientific explanations over magical explanations.

Still, these theories don't offer predictive power.  Evolutionists haven't predicted (successfully) X-men or Kevin Costner with gills.  Cosmologists haven't had to predict another bigger bang.  Explanations of the past are a lot easier than predictions of the future, mostly because the full truth is more complicated than simple explanations.  That's why I stopped being a psychology major and became a stats major.  Psychologists can only predict the past, while statisticians can at least give you a probability of predicting the future.

I feel like the crazy, anti-science climate-change denier even typing that last paragraph.  Look, I believe the earth is really, really old, etc., I just think there's room for skepticism and that we don't know as much as we sometimes think we know.

Now, about being wrong,  I heard once something like this, "The following statements about the shape of the earth are both wrong:
1. The earth is flat.
2. The earth is round like a ball.
However, it is absurd to think that they are both equally wrong."

While I say that science is wrong, I am not at all beginning to suggest that we ignore science and all of the progress we have made.  Scientists recognize the incompleteness of their work.  Science is still very useful (a point I'll come back to) even when it is wrong. 

2. My ill-fated quest to be right.
There was a short period in my life when I got really into politics.  I studied the issues feverishly until I was convinced that I knew the 'right' position on every issue.  This lasted approximately until the next election, when the person I voted for was not elected and realized that the world doesn't much care what I think is right.  I didn't so much care about the election as want some sort of validation that my way of thinking was the right way. 

If we assume that there is a right choice in politics (debatable), then most of the country has voted for the wrong person at some point in their life.  It happens.  We don't have all of the information and we make poor choices.  I'm sure my kids will tell me some day all the things I did wrong as a father.  I'll have too many kids or not enough.  I'll send them to the wrong elementary school or college.  If I get one right, it will inevitably ruin the next kid.  The internets are full of articles telling me "You're doing it wrong..."  

No one believes they're perfect, but we all believe that we're right much more than we're wrong.  We have to believe that.  Yet, there are so many religions, so many cultural differences in raising children, so many different circumstances and perspectives.  If there is a right way to do things, then the odds are that we (and most of the rest of the world) are doing things wrong.  Great historical figures who changed the world often did things wrong, and modern historians find their weaknesses (Jefferson had slaves?, Roosevelt believed in Eugenics?).

Personally, I feel confident that I married the right person for me.  However, in theory we may not all make the optimal or 'right' nuptial decision, but there comes a point where you have to stop worrying about if the person you married was the absolute optimal choice, given your available options, timing, etc..  You just enjoy the life and marriage you have.  Maybe you could have been 3% happier if you'd chosen someone else, but you'll certainly be 15% less happier if you keep worrying about it all the time and ruin what you have.

Not everything I do will be right, and that's OK.  I can still be happy and make the world a better place.

3. "All models are wrong but some are useful." 
Once I get past my overzealous drive to know which side is right and which side is wrong, I find a lot more peace in analyzing the science and religion dilemma. 

Is Mormonism as I know it wrong?  Almost certainly.  Mormonism is a fluid religion.  Early converts didn't know about the temple.  The temple ceremony has changed.  There are surely revelations coming that we don't know anything about. My religious beliefs are probably wrong, but for me, they are useful.  I love the tradition, culture and community.  I love serving and the selfless examples I see at church.  I love that Mormonism embraces science (See the BYU magazine article encouraging everyone to become scientists) and encourages all truth.  I love the peaceful feelings of the spirit that come with worship.

The God that the author argued for, The God of the Interstices, as Peter put it, isn't very useful.  This God doesn't explain anything, doesn't provide hope or inspire worship.  What's the point in believing in this type of God? I'd rather be an atheist than believe in a God of the Interstices.  I can at least see the usefulness of being atheist.

In conclusion, I find there is a lot of useful truth in science and a lot of useful truth in my religion.  I can't imagine the changes that will take place in science and religion  over the next 100 years.  My opinions and views of the world have changed immensely since freshman year at BYU, and I'm sure they'll continue to change.  Still, I wouldn't give up those freshman year experiences for anything.  I will keep growing and learning, but whatever is wrong about my current beliefs doesn't invalidate the experiences I have and the happiness I currently experience.  So while I wait for science and religion to clarify the parts that are fuzzy for me, I'll continue to seek for knowledge, truth, beauty, and all that is good. 


PS I liked the author's discussion of infinity and how it gets used to prove everything.  I've never liked the monkeys/typewriters/Hamlet theory. 

The God of the Interstices

I finished the book last night (actually early this morning). Like Glenn, I wasn't overwhelmed by it. I felt like the author was very defensive, and didn't provide a really fair reading of the New Atheists points. Which is fine on one level, since it's exactly these sort of polemical, overly-mechanistic, debate-style tone that the New Atheists themselves promote in their writing. But on another level, I think he was trying to transcend that sort of thing, and didn't really succeed.

I think my biggest disappointment with the book was that there was no room in it for a God of miracles. Aczel starts from a position that any miraculous events, because they are beyond the explanation of science, must be apocryphal. This includes not only things like God causing the sun to stand still in the sky, but also central tenets of my belief like the Resurrection. In Aczel's view, science does and has disproved the God of the Bible (and Joseph Smith's First Vision). What's left is a God who does not communicate with man, who doesn't impact us in any material way, who is found in the parts of nature that are not yet explained by science. Not only does this conflict with my own (reasonable, IMO) belief in a God of action, but it seems like a losing proposition. Science will progress, and if your faith hinges on the fact that we haven't yet found an explanation for how molecules or cells first came to Earth, or what exactly consciousness is, then when science does eventually come up with answers to those questions, your faith will have no further place.

I did like several things about the book, however. I found the discussion of consciousness very interesting, and the most persuasive of his arguments (even though he admits he is most persuaded by the anti-anthropic principle). The failure of committed materialists (who believe people are really just biological computers) to recognize that model's fundamental inability to explain autonomy, introspection, and consciousness strikes me as one of their greatest blindnesses.

I disagreed, although not strongly, with his run down of the anthropic principle. Personally, I don't find the tuning of the fundamental parameters of the universe to be a particularly persuasive point. Furthermore, by rejecting the idea of the multiverse (which New Atheists use to justify the anthropic principle), I don't see how he can maintain that the apparent fine-tuning of parameters is remarkable. I mean, to me it seems like for something to be surprising or remarkable, you have to admit that there could have been some other outcome of events. In this case, that would mean that a universe could have existed that didn't have those parameters. Which is exactly the idea of a multiverse.

Anyway, I was glad I read the book, but I don't know that much from it will stick with me long-term. One final thought, a favorite story of mine that relates to these epistemological questions of evidence, truth, reason, etc. This is a story told by John Wisdom, an English philosopher in the post-WWII period: "Two people return to their long neglected garden and find among the weeds a few of the old plants surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, ‘It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these plants.’ Upon inquiry they find that no neighbour has ever seen anyone at work in their garden. The first man says to the other, ‘He must have worked while people slept.’ The other says, ‘No, someone would have heard him and besides, anybody who cared about the plants would have kept down these weeds.’ The first man says, ‘Look at the way these are arranged. There is purpose and a feeling for beauty here. I believe that someone comes, someone invisible to mortal eyes. I believe that the more carefully we look the more we shall find confirmation of this.’ They examine the garden ever so carefully and sometimes they come on new things suggesting that a gardener comes and sometimes they come on new things suggesting the contrary and even that a malicious person has been at work. Besides examining the garden carefully, they also study what happens to gardens left without attention. Each learns all the other learns about this and about the garden. Consequently, when after all this, one says, ‘I still believe a gardener comes’ while the other says, ‘I don’t,’ their different words now reflect no difference as to what they have found in the garden, no difference as to what they would find in the garden if they looked further and no difference about how fast untended gardens fall into disorder. … What is the difference between them?"

Why Science Does Not Disprove God

The first half of the book is spent "charting the history of science: with some commentary about religious implications. The latter half explores "modern" concepts and discoveries of math and logic as well as cosmology and biology. I really had to force myself through the early parts of the book, whereas the latter half seemed much more interesting.

This book isn't something on which to build a testimony, but it does present some interesting concepts and points out some important logic. The author writes "The purpose of this book is to defend the integrity of science." He must have the feeling that Richard Dawkins is a real threat to science; I sometimes had the feeling that the author's intended audience was Dawkins and other aggressive atheists. Personally, I don't worry about people like Dawkins. I enjoy science, but I don't lean upon it for testimony, and I don't expect to reference the Book of Mormon in any science publication.

A couple of things in the book that caught my attention:
page 17, Daniel Dennet claims that evolutionary psychology explains the development of consciousness and morality and there is no need for religion to tell us how to behave. I haven't read any of Mr. Dennet's writings, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can completely explain consciousness and morality. I am grateful for the guiding compass of the gospel and have wondered where atheists turn to for moral direction. It seems dangerous to have no source of right and wrong.


The book wasn't a powerful book for me, but there were a few interesting arguments.

Strong arguments with infinity concepts
Strong arguments with anthropic principle, IMMENSE probability & alternative universes. limited ability of anthropic principle to explain things such as dinosaur meteor
String arguments
limits of evolution (altruism)
limited ability

Goedel's theorems proving that we cannot know everything mathematical implies that we may not be able to  know via science everything about our universe.
"Because of the assumption that God may well 'reside' outside the universe we inhabit, it stands to reason that the question of the existence of God may be one of those Goedel-like mathematical truths that will forever stay outside our sphere of knowledge."

Return to Merrill Hall

While this blog appears to be dead, I think it is only mostly dead, and we all know there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

I've been inspired by a string of run-ins with former posters on this blog.  Karl let me stay with his beautiful family in his beautifully remodeled home in San Jose in April.

Then Glenn came bearing gifts and spiritual thoughts to my home. (You are all welcome when visiting the DC area!)

Soon after I made my way west again, where Paul carried my children across a river like he was trying to assure his eternal salvation on one Saturday morning.

And though Rob was busy planning his family's reunion, he still made time to give me a hug.

On Monday I'm headed to Boston, but I think both Peter and Jesse are skipping town.  Boo.  But maybe next spring, as a friend I just saw in Utah says he's running the Boston Marathon next year.

While Glenn was here, we decided on the next book club book.  Glenn chose "Why Science Does Not Disprove God".  I know nothing about it, but I have checked the book (the actual book, not the audio) out from my local library.  I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions before I even open it.  But if you want to jump to conclusions, you are welcome to join the discussion, even if you don't read the book.  Let's aim for late September for the book discussion.

Until then, I leave with this photo I took while I was indoctrinating my kids about the importance of going to BYU:

Love you guys!

Actually, I prefer celery over salary

Hello friends. Good to see you're still out there and getting these blog posts.

I saw this piece about economic inequality in the US. An increase in the minimum wage is a common topic, but I had never heard of the idea for a maximum wage being tossed about. I think rather than setting a maximum wage tied to the national minimum wage, it would make more sense to tie executives' compensation to the minimum compensation of that individual company.

Instead of just let these thoughts stew in my head, why not open it up for discussion with the wisest fellows I know. And resurrect the PVS at the same time.

Well friends, what are your thoughts?