Sunday 21 October 2012

UNDERSTANDING THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN THE BIGGER PICTURE

"VERY DIFFERENT ANSWERS TO THE VERY BIG QUESTIONS"
 bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment Big Bang: Is there room for God?

Good to see that the scientists at CERN (where the so-called God particle was finally found) are asking the big questions. They come up with very different answers, but is it more a case of varying perspectives than any real disagreement? 

Where one says that science "can only gain by looking at the bigger theological picture", another says that claims about God are "not falsifiable" and therefore "highly non-scientific".  The link above includes an audio clip where Professor Krauss (Arizona State University) and Professor Lennox (Oxford University) are quoted giving seemingly opposite views on the roles of science and religion. Yet it is the same science which "points away from God" for one, and "points towards God" for the other! 

The Director General, Professor Heuer, wants particle physicists to continue to talk to those with very different answers to the very big questions.  He says: "There is a need for us as the naive scientists to get a little bit educated about what other people in philosophy and theology think about the time before and around the Big Bang."

John Lennox, professor of Mathematics at Oxford, echoes this sentiment in saying how "understanding the place of science in the big picture" will enable "a dialogue with people of different world views."  

How vital is that?...
 

1 comment:

  1. SCIENCE, RELIGION AND A SHARED SENSE OF WONDER
    Observer scientist and columnist Jeff Forshaw said he was privileged to attend the Lake Geneva conference organised by Wilton Park and Cern (OBSERVER The New Review 28.10.12). I think it makes sense, he commented, to ensure that the theologians are up to speed with the science, "but I also think that scientists benefit from contemplating the wider implications of their discoveries."
    Some people might say that Cern should stick to science, he says, "but I don't agree. A major reason for the popularity of fundamental physics is that it is seen to tackle some pretty 'deep' questions - the kinds of questions that really 'mean' something - and the quest for meaning is not something best left to scientists."

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