^ Well said.

EDIT Actually that should read

← Well said (since this is now on a new page!)

Lubos Motl on the Higgs Boson and the "true"(tm) meaning of Genesis or "How the large Hardon collider found god"

http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-g ... -term.html

Will wrote:-

At the moment, I am very content with this.
Here is why: In the US and UK alone, over 50% of both combined populations do not understand evolution. I'd rather have theologians acknowledge and defend the science, albeit with religious intent than to blatantly discredit the science in an attempt to defend one's faith. This website did that for me. Made me understand the science and therefore I realized faith and science did not have to be counter productive. Of course, this website did push me one step further and I shrugged off faith, but my motto is baby steps. McGrath is not a scientists, he is a theologian, therefore I allow him to have is fantasies and his elaborate theological hypothesis.

Fair enough. I had my own stuggles with religion, and later naive reality.

Correct science does not answer the why, it answers the how. Metaphysics on the other hand does answer the why. And you are right, there may not be a purpose to the universe, but there may be. To not investigate purpose is in my opinion foolish. Science investigates the observable world and metaphysics, philosophy and even theology explain purposes behind the events of the natural world. Of course some metaphysics can be proven false. "God causes rainbows to appear in the sky." Well no, rainbows appear because of refraction of light off of water in the air. Which brings me to this

I don't have a problem with speculating whys, provided that they are regarded as speculations. Metaphysics does not explain anything really. It offers claims of explanation. Explaination is not even possible in science, except in the very restricted sense that if a model is properly descriptive of the natural phenomena under investigation, and leads to testable predictions that work, then you have "explanation" in this restricted sense.
As there is no requirement in metaphysics to accept evidence, one can build beautiful castles in mid air. In other words, the non-sciences are in an even worse position than natural science in their ability to claim purpose, truth, reality and so on.

I agree to a point. I believe a Christian theologian can use science to explain why he has faith in a God. Atheists use science to explain what led them to the conclusion that there was no God. Science, in my opinion, is neutral and therefore can be used as explanations on both sides.

Again, I am dubious about explanation. If science can only use explanation in the restricted sense as I have outlined above, it is nonsense that other disciplines can offer anything better in terms of working explanations. In theology for example. One can certainly posit that god exists. I am not omnscient, so I can't prove such a claim false. However to posit a god without evidence, and then use him as a cause of purpose of whatever, is nonsense twice removed. Only in the case of there being evidence for god, could god then be used as an explanitory cause, and even then it's shaky. A god might exist for example, but still not be the cause of X.

It's a bit like sympatric speciation. Geographical speciation [allopatric] is a piece of piss to demonstrate. If two similar species are separated by an impassible physical barrier, then it is reasonable to infer that reproductive isolation was caused by the barrier. Sympatric speciation is harder because:-
1. Geographic isolation could also have occurred in many cases
2. You have to find /decide the drivers of the reproductive isolation.

Yet population genetics models said that sympatry was possible under certain conditions. Eventually, such examples were found. The point is, without the detail, one cannot know if the various geographical mechanisms, [allopatric, parapatric etc] or sympatry is causing the speciation process.

Thus people can gob off about Yewah, Jesus, Thor, Allah etc existing, but it still does not establish whether any of these dudes has anything to do with X. [X being origin of life, evolution, or baby Z that survives a tsunami, etc]. For the explanation to work, a series of things has to be right. God or Thor could be making my fingers type these words right now, and we have no way of absolutely proving/disproving such interferance, but can it be called an explanation?

McGrath's article is worthy of a Radio 4 Thought for the Day slot.

Higgson

campermon wrote:
Evolutionary theory and an athiest position demand that these things can and will happen. That is one reason why i believe in a creator - because a creator seems a better explanation. "

Magic will never be a better explanation.

Every time I read this man's name, I am filled with a sudden, intense urge to eat my laminate flooring.

Katherine wrote:Every time I read this man's name, I am filled with a sudden, intense urge to eat my laminate flooring.

I am filled with an urge to put him on a circus...

Does anyone else always read it as "Higgs bosom" ? Or is it just me ?