Transcript
Controversy between the mechanists who rely on explanation in physical chemical terms and the vitalists who insist that biological phenomena are inexplicable without the introduction of the distinctive factors which they call the vital force or something. I will say no more about that except just to leave you with a little case in point that you can think about. Just think for a moment about pain. Pain is a familiar phenomenon in biology. It's not known in the realms
of physics. So far as we know, electrons and protons do not experience pain, but we who are living beings know it well. Now, how do you explain pain? Suppose I have a pain, say, in a tooth. I go to the dentist who, by the appropriate scientific methods, seeks to discover the cause of the pain. And when he discovers the cause of the pain, be it an abscess or decay or something of the sort, he takes the
appropriate measure to treat it. So the abscess, let us say, the abscess is the cause of the pain and the pain is the effect of the abscess. Okay? Fine. But now ask, what caused me to go to the dentist? It was the pain. The question I'm asking is, can we say that we've given a complete explanation of the pain if we mention only the cause of which it was the effect and leave out the effect of
which it was the cause? In the language of Aristotle, do we not need a final cause as well as an efficient cause if we are to explain pain? As well as being the effect of some bodily disorder, is not pain also a warning signal to call my attention to that disorder and to make me take appropriate steps to deal with it? Can we perhaps go further and say, has not pain been established in the natural order
for that very purpose? Does the teleological aspect of pain not belong to its explanation? And is its exclusion warranted by the commitment of science to a mechanistic mode of explanation? And another reflection somewhat related to this, but please don't take this too seriously. I just want to raise the question, are mechanism and teleology mutually exclusive? Let me illustrate this with another experience, which may be familiar to you. Suppose I get in my car and drive off.
I'm liable to hear a loud buzzing noise, which gives me a pain. What's the cause of the noise? Supposing I had a passenger in the car who hadn't ridden in a late model car, he might say to me, what's wrong? What's that noise? Your car sounds as if it were in pain. And I would have, of course, to say, no, there's nothing wrong with the car. It doesn't have a pain. It's trying to give me a
pain. It's trying to remind me that I haven't fastened my seatbelts. So you see, if you take teleology out of mechanism, you've got to put it back in. So we haven't here just a clear either or. Now where's the flaw in my argument there? Anyone seeing the mechanism that produces the buzzer and asking for an explanation of it would surely be puzzled if the explanation did not contain some mention of the purpose for which it is
installed. Next, related to this question of scientific explanation, a somewhat different question. Is the empirical method really empirical? Let me go at it this way. It's a popular belief in the world of today that science alone is capable of giving us accurate, objective, dependable knowledge of the world. It gives us the facts uncolored by subjective perspectives, prejudices, or fancies. Science, it is believed, provides a precise transcript of the world, almost a kind of carbon copy. Scientific
knowledge then is the direct representation of reality in much the same way as a photograph is a direct representation of a face. But this view, this popular view, entirely overlooks the important and indispensable role of theory in scientific explanation. Science, no doubt, begins with the observation of facts. This is the empirical method which Bacon described in his vivid phrase of putting nature to the question, a phrase which to his contemporaries immediately suggested the procedure in the
torture chamber. But you see, even there, something more is involved than merely the collection of data, because it is the interrogator who formulates the question. It's the scientist who formulates the questions he puts to nature, and in addition, formulates the answers which he hears or thinks that he hears from it. In other words, this is a logical commonplace, of course, there are no facts. There are only observed facts, and all observed facts are interpreted facts. In
any case, science is not content with the accumulation and description of facts. Scientific explanation consists in tracing the connections or relations between facts, and this is done by the formulation of theories, which are, of course, tested by experiment. But where do theories come from? They don't come from the facts. Theories are constructed in the mind of the scientist. No doubt, they're suggested to him by the facts, but they're his own creation. There's a leap of faith.
You might say a leap of faith between the observation of the facts and the creation of the interpretive theory, and scientific genius consists not in the collection of data, but rather in the imaginative creation of theories, which provide the most comprehensive and satisfactory explanation of the data. To refer to Newton once again, Newton's towering genius did not consist in the making of any new observations. His genius consisted in the formulation of a theory suggested to him
in the well-known but probably apocryphal story of the fall of the apple. A theory which gave a more adequate and more extensive account of the behavior of moving bodies than any that had been advanced hitherto. Newton was thought to have wrung from nature its final secret, and this view prevailed until the present century when the Newtonian system was replaced, or at all events, if that's not, if that's not, if that's too strong a word, modified
by Einstein's theory of relativity, which immediately suggests another point, namely that scientific theories are continually undergoing revision and modification. No theory is final. The quest for new and better theories continues all the time. Science has never reached the end of the road, and this raises a fundamental question, which we previously glanced, what is the end of the road? What is the goal of the scientific enterprise, and how does it advance from that goal? We're familiar with
the distinction between science and technology, the former being the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, the latter the application of that knowledge to practical purposes, but used to be called the distinction between pure and applied sciences. Now the pure scientist seeks to know the structure of the atom. The technologist seeks to know how it can be converted into energy for the benefit, or alas, the bane of mankind. In an age like our own that has seen such stupendous
advances in technology, it was almost inevitable that the quest for knowledge that can be put to practical use should come to be regarded as the sole aim and justification of the scientific enterprise. And this view has been reinforced very powerfully by governmental support of scientific research, since it would seem the use of the taxpayer's money in this way could only be justified by results. But the two aims of science cannot be separated in this way, as
scientists themselves have been foremost in pointing out. Pure and applied science are bound up together in such a way that neither can flourish without the other. And history shows that scientific progress depends on fruitful interaction between them. Without pure science, technology is in danger of degenerating into technique, by which is meant skill in producing results, which does not differ in principle from rule of thumb or even magic. Without technology, science, pure science, is in danger of
becoming over imaginative, speculative, spinning theories, which cannot be put to the test. And yet, despite this, or just because of this, the aims of the two branches of science do not fully coincide. They remain distinct, and the distinction is as important as the interaction. Thus, the validity of a theory is not determined solely by its applicability to practice. For successful practices have been carried out on imperfect theories, and indeed in the absence of any theory. I
think I mentioned at an earlier stage in the course how the Egyptian surveyors had long discovered the secret of Pythagoras' theorem. And when he found the proof of it, he added nothing to their knowledge, to their practical knowledge. They were able to do the trick without understanding the theorem. So you may ask, what purpose did the theorem serve? What was the point of it? We can only say that it gave and gives a purely intellectual satisfaction.
Not the kind of satisfaction that comes through finding the solution to a problem, because there was no problem there. But the kind that comes through gaining an insight, a deeper insight into the things, into the connections that bind them together beneath the surface and the patterns which these exhibit. That would not exclude. Purpose may be ingredient in the pattern, the total pattern. And this brings us, I think, back full circle to the point we have seen
earlier about the scientific enterprise, namely the assumption or presupposition of the orderliness or regularity, or to use the stock phrase which is misleading, the uniformity of nature. And to the question whether science must be content with the discovery of patterns of orders within the several fields of the special sciences, or whether it can go beyond these and seek to discern some ultimate pattern that embraces all the particular patterns, even including elements of purpose. Now, as we've
seen, there are many scientists who hold that taking this step, that in taking this step, science exceeds its own competence. But there are others who hold that it's implicit in the logic of scientific explanation. But if science stops with the establishment of patterns of order within particular fields, we may still be left with an ultimate arbitrariness. If those particular patterns of order are not to be integrated in some all-embracing pattern, and that if this task
is beyond the powers of science, it must be undertaken by other means. Gary. This would be the concept of a science of sciences. Yes, yes. Well, this is certainly a possibility. I gather it's not very popular in the scientific world at the present time, but it certainly is one concept of a super science that would, as it were, coordinate the results and researches of all the sciences. Also, yeah, no, you're right enough. I don't know if
you hear yesterday, but I mentioned this very fact yesterday, you see, that in spite of their protestation, scientists do tend to trespass in the sense that they do tend to take principles and methods which they have proved to be valid and applicable within a specific field and apply them in other fields as explanatory devices. I mentioned yesterday, you see, in connection with specialization, I mentioned the evidences of this trend in the field of medicine, of which
we're all aware. But I think we're also all aware that this trend is also being reversed in some areas of medicine. For example, the separation between mental health and physical health has now been broken down to a large extent and is not treated in isolation. So I think there is some evidence of a move to think things together, a tendency towards synthesis rather than analysis. Yeah, well, of course, the concept of a super science that would
coordinate the insights of all the sciences would be a very, very tall order, but in principle, it's not impossible. For example, Einstein's equation, you see, equals MC2 and so on, certainly does comprise the findings of many different disciplines in the area of physics. Well, yes. Vocation of psychiatrists, because people are deciding that one person cannot know everything there is to know as much as one needs to know about physiological problems and mental problems, that we need
the two fields working together, not in one thing being better than two. So I don't, I mean, I think we can get confused in thinking that we're moving away from specialization. I think the answer would be that in the field of health, as in other fields, we have a need for both the specialist and the generalist, and that the progress of the science, whatever it be, medical, physical, biological, or what have you, really depends on the
fruitful interaction of the specialist and the generalist. Neither must get so far ahead, particularly the specialist cannot get so far ahead that the generalist loses track of him. Well, to think in the field of medicine, the general practitioner as against the specialist who treats only one particular aspect of health. Diagnostician. Not necessarily only as a diagnostician, I would think also he would serve therapeutically. Yeah. Yes, I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. And I think you
see, you can see evidence of the same thing in the fact that in institutions like MIT, they're now giving an increasing place to the humanities. They have quite a program in the humanities, which I believe all people at MIT are required to take some of. This summer I had the experience there's a move in the medical field, for example, to develop a family practitioner, no longer a GT, but a family practitioner who does receive training, and
this is taking place in New York State in particular, in the Buffalo area, that will be involved in counseling as well as just in prescribing medicine, then in the general practitioner, but goes beyond and almost becomes a frontline diagnostician and then therapist as well and in physical matters, physical health and mental health. So that's why I was asking that question. Yeah. Well, in so far what I'm leading up to is that in so far as we
can see this trend in the science or the sciences of nature, then possibly we can see a convergence between the science of nature and the theology or philosophy of nature, because theology of nature, as I think we see, proceeds from the faith that the world of nature is the creation of the one God who has revealed himself to man, and thus, as the fourth evangelist puts it in the prologue in which we've spent so much thought,
the word of that revelation, the word that was incarnate in our flesh, is the same word by whom all things were made. You see, this is a tremendous affirmation of the unity of the universe. And if it is the highest goal then of the scientific endeavor to trace, however faintly, the lineaments of that word or logos in the world of nature, perhaps we can say that science itself is an act of worship in its own way.
To conclude this very brief, these very brief remarks on science in relation to our theme, I do want to change course a little bit and say something about what has been the major problem in the area between theology and science within the past century, namely evolution, theology and evolution. In fact, the problem of mechanism versus vitalism in biology can easily be seen as simply one special aspect of the major problem posed for theology by the theory
of evolution over the last 100 or 200 years. Of course, there's an immense literature on this. I can refer you merely to Barber who deals within a chapter, very informative and suggestive chapter beginning in pages 80 and following. And one thing that should be noted here is that and is often overlooked, we tend to associate evolution with Darwin and we think that this is something that started in 1859 with the publication of his origin of species.
There's a great flood of new literature on the topic at Centennial in 1959. But as a matter of fact, evolutionary ideas were current for 70 years or more prior to Darwin because geological study of the crust of the earth had produced fairly convincing evidence that the earth did not always exist in its present form, but that had come to assume its present surface by developments and changes extending extending in all probability over immense spans of time.
Now this, of course, presented a problem for people who had been accustomed to look on the Bible as an authoritative record of the origin and history of the world of nature. It's a very interesting story, this geological phase, and it's been told in a charming book by a professor in the university here called Gillespie called Genesis or Geology, paperback, which you may find interesting if you're disposed to pursue it. This didn't arouse much excitement in the
church, in religious circles, partly because the facts were known to relatively few people. Geology's never a passion of the majority, and it was not even in those days, although actually some of the people who figured largely in the debate were amateurs who'd gotten interested in the matter without formal education. They accepted, for the most part, they accepted the authority of the Bible, and the problem as they saw it was how to reconcile the data which had
come to light through geological research with the account in the Bible, which was more or less assumed to be accurate and authoritative. For example, to take the stock example, how to account for the discovery of fossil remains of fish at altitudes far above and far remote from the sea at the present time. Well, all kinds of theories were devised to try to square this kind of phenomenon with the statements of the Bible. But the authority of
the Bible was not the authority of the Bible in cosmological matters, in matters of the origin and history of the world of nature was not seriously questioned. In any case, the question itself is a little bit remote from the actual concerns of people, and already many thinking people had come to recognize that the six days of creation were not necessarily to be taken literally as six successive periods of 24 hours. Particularly when you reflect on the
fact that the creation of the chronometers by which the day and night are measured is itself the work of the fourth day. Non-literal interpretations of the six days of creation were already a current and caused no great stir among the faithful. It was the publication of Darwin's book, which extended the notion of evolution to the biological realm, which provoked the storm. Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859 and immediately there broke out a wild
storm. But Darwin's theory disputed the authority of the Bible on four main points. Well, the first one had already been raised by the earlier phase of geologians, the age of the earth. As you all know, Archbishop Usher had, by summing up the ages of all the patriarchs from Adam onwards and so on, had figured out that the creation of the world took place in the year 4004 BC. And it was generally accepted that the total age
of the earth was about 6,000 years. The Darwinian theory, following upon the geological theory, postulated an age vastly in excess of that short span. The second thing, which was questioned by Darwin, was of course the simultaneous creation of all species. According to the Genesis narrative, all the species of animals, fish and so on, were created one day or in two days, forget precisely which. Darwin's theory, you see, posited a sequence in which some species became
extinct, a fact which of course could be established by the discovery of fossil remains. So there was strong evidence on that account. And also new species could come about through the process of mutation and survival and so on. The third, and perhaps a more damaging area of conflict, was the challenge of Darwin to the biblical and accepted notion of the immutability of species. This is of course stressed in the creation narrative in Genesis, as you've noticed,
that everything is its own distinct self. And moreover, it reproduces its own self. Each tree produces fruit after its kind, and the various species of animals reproduce their own kind without variation. But the Darwinian theory, in fact, hinged primarily, you see, on the fact that reproduction does not proceed in that manner, but that it produces random variations. Now you see, this really struck a mortal blow, as it might seem, at the concept of nature as a
fixed structure of immutable forms, forming a kind of absolutely secure framework for the whole story of the interaction of God and man. Nature itself, now you see, was caught up in a process of change and flux. There was no stability in it. So this really was a blow to man's security, as well as a blow to the authority of the Bible. And fourth, and last, and the most deadly blow which Darwin delivered was his denial of
the special creation of man. This was the one that caused the greatest shock, and Darwin himself was well aware of it. So well, indeed, that fearing the consequences, he said very little about this in his first book, The Origin of Species. He dealt merely with the subhuman creation and made only very slight allusions to the implications of his theory regarding human life. But most readers were quick to see that the consequences of his theory for human
life were extremely damaging to traditional concepts, and the storm broke. Darwin himself eventually came out in the open with the publication of his book called The Descent of Man in 1871. He himself laid out the theory regarding the descent of man. Notice the title, The Descent of Man, not the Ascent of Man, but the Descent of Man. One wonders why he chose that term. Of course, if man's ancestors were the apes, then man came into being
homo sapiens when the descended from the trees and decided to make it on his hind legs. And someone has asked, you see, why didn't all the apes do this? Why did some of them remain in the trees? And the answer that has been given is they were the smart ones. The creation narratives clearly suggest, and the biblical history as a whole carries on the implication, that man is the bearer of the meaning of creation. Or if
it is difficult to conceive how the meaning can be communicated from man to mineral, let us say, at least he is the bearer of meaning in creation. This is very evident, you see, in the first creation narrative where the introduction of man is introduced as a kind of solemn climax to the narrative, and then we are told that man is created in the image of God, an obscure kind of phrase, but one which clearly implies some
kind of reflection or interaction or communication between God and man, so that here at this point of man, the created world is linked in a meaningful way to the creator and is not, as the previous, the earlier parts of the narrative might suggest, a mere arbitrary product of the divine will. The place given to man here suggests, you see, that there is a purpose to creation and that that purpose is vested in man. Now, for the
most part, theology was content, you see, to focus only on man. As I mentioned at the beginning, the Augustinian tradition tended to narrow the scope of theology to God and man, or God and the soul, as Augustine put it, and leave the subhuman or non-human world out of the picture. But if, as Darwin taught, man is not the object of a special, unique act of creation, but the product of a natural process which is determined
by random factors, and this you see was the really the body blow, the random character of the mutations. How can there be meaning to his life or to the world of which he forms a part? You can see that this constituted a very serious challenge to the Bible and to the traditional concept of the authority of the Bible. The Bible had almost been held to be authoritative in all matters, and in the period when evolution was
discussed in terms of geology, this authority was more or less unquestioned, although there were certain difficulties of interpretation. But in the heat of the conflict over the Darwinian theory of evolution, the doctrine of biblical authority tended to be hardened. I mean, hard doctrines of biblical authority, as we find, for example, in fundamentalism and so on, are really reactions shaped in reaction to this kind of challenge offered by Darwin. And of course, there is a very real
problem here, of which I'm sure you're all aware. How is the authority of the Bible to be construed? And I think we can understand the position of those who take the hard line on it. In his chapter on evolution, Barber at one point mentions the fact that the conflict between Genesis and Darwin died out among the hills of Tennessee in 1925 with the Scopes trial, but he didn't live. He published his book, you see, before what
has recently been happening in West Virginia, where we have the same conflict. And a year ago, I believe it was in California. There are still plenty of people who feel that there is an irreconcilable conflict. And these are not merely backwards people because we have a respectable body of evangelicals, as they call themselves, who take this position on biblical authority. And more recently, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, although I have not, confess, I have not seen
the statement that all professors there are required to sign, but according to newspaper reports, all professors in the seminaries of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod are required to sign an oath or a statement that they accept the literal interpretation of the Bible in all matters. As I say, we can understand the, to some extent, the attitude of such people, particularly if we consider the alternative. Because if you don't accept the authority of the Bible in all
matters, then how is the selection to be determined? How are you to divide what is to be accepted from what is open to question? How are you to discriminate? You see, it's the same problem that you have in a court of law proceeding. A witness, a witness under examination, if he can be convicted of untruth in any particular statement, then his testimony as a whole is discredited. And therefore, the aim of every smart attorney in a
court of law is to find a way of making a hole in an opposing witness's testimony in order to discredit him. You can see it going on just now, day by day, in the Watergate trial. The legal, the legal axiom is falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means to say that if a witness is convicted of falsity in one particular, then he's false in everything. He's not to be believed at all. One lie is sufficient
to discredit him. Now, you see, the big question here is, is this juridical model, the appropriate one to apply to the interpretation of biblical authority, is the Bible to be treated as a witness in a court of law under cross examination? I'm afraid it's largely assumed in fundamentalist circles that the juridical model is appropriate, and of course, the juridical strain in our Protestant theology stemming right from Calvin is very, very strong. And so long as we
adhere to that model of veracity, then there seems to be no escape from the dilemma with regard to authority in which we're placed. However, that is somewhat of a side issue. Just a few more comments, which I'll make tomorrow, on evolution. Our time is now running very short, and for the remainder, what I want to do...