(December 20, 2008 at 1:21 pm)CoxRox Wrote: Darwinian, I don't get the impression these 'believing' scientists are being intellectually lazy. To quote from the article:
'Professor Sir John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University, one of the world's most renowned particle physicists, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who became an Anglican minister when he retired from academia. 'Faith isn't a question of shutting your eyes, gritting your teeth and believing six impossible things before break-fast because some unquestionable authority has told you to. It's a search for truth,' he said.
'Science is great, but it's not the whole story. It deals with repeatable experience, but we all know that in our personal lives, experiences aren't repeatable. And you simply couldn't demonstrate how someone is your friend, or what music is.'
Moreover, he insists that there is no lack of evidence of God. 'I believe God reveals his nature in many ways. They're not demonstrations that knock you down, but they are very striking things about the world that are best understood as the work of God.
'The wonderful order of the world, which we scientists investigate, is a sign that there is a divine mind behind that order.'
Apologies for the longish quote, but this particle physicist doesn't seem to think he is 'anthropomorphizing' the universe, or misinterpreting the patterns and apparent designs. I've said it before, just maybe we see design, because there really is design.
I think this particle physicist sounds kind of stupid. Science certainly is beginning to map and quantify the neurology of friendship, music, etc. If this guy said he believed in Santa Claus, it would speak ill of him, not well of the belief in Santa Claus. Given an infinite number of scientists and an eternity of years, it is inevetible that at least one on scientist would turn out to be a nutjob.
