We see things and creatures around us,
so we wonder who made them. Till a few centuries ago the scientific method had
not been invented, so the edifice of what we now call science did not exist. It
does not mean that the people were dumb then. It simply means that their
efforts at acquiring knowledge were not of a systematic and concerted nature.
By contrast, the power and the beauty of the scientific method is that the
knowledge we acquire by applying it is both SELF-CORRECTING and CUMULATIVE. A
wrong hypothesis, or a wrongly formulated hypothesis, gets rejected in favour
of a better one in the light of experimental evidence. And the better one may,
in turn, get superseded by a still better one, and so on.
Moreover, scientists share the results
of their research work with other persons in their field of specialization by submitting
their work for publication in peer-reviewed journals. The editors of
the journals take the opinions of experts ('peers', or 'referees') in that field
before deciding whether or not a given piece of research work is worthy of
publication. Once published, the information in the research papers becomes
available to anybody who reads that journal. Thus, researchers planning new
experiments, or proposing new theories, have the benefit of what is already
known or experimented upon. There is this famous statement by a prominent
scientist that 'so and so was great, but I have the benefit of standing on his
shoulders, so I can see farther'.
A few centuries ago, when this way of
doing research had not been developed, people still speculated about why things
are the way they are, and why they are there at all. A simple-minded approach
was to say that there is an almighty, omnipresent God, who has created
everything and who runs everything.
But the God hypothesis ran into a lot
of problems. For one, if God created everything, who created God? If God has so
much knowledge, where did this knowledge come from? I shall discuss this in
future posts. Suffice it to say for the time being that the God hypothesis is a bad hypothesis, and an unnecessary hypothesis. It 'explains' away everything, but we end up learning nothing.
Hi Vinod,
ReplyDeleteI just finished your excellent blogs on "Scientific methods".There is principal of "uncertainty' in science.So
What you think of "Pascal's wager".Which is below.Now after so many years of conditioning I feel a vacuum ,similar to when my father died.No body to pray to,No body to ask for wishes to full fill etc etc and make promises in return.Logically that is bribing even if there was a "God".No concept of sin/karma to fear now.No life philosophy to follow now.What now gives meaning to life?
Regards
Rajiv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
Pascal's Wager, also known as Pascal's Gambit, is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal that even if theexistence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because one living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose
Thanks Rajiv. The issues you raise are serious ones. I shall address them in a series of short blogs, in a certain sequence. Some of them are already discussed in my 'God Delusion' article, which you should revisit:
ReplyDeletehttp://nirmukta.com/2009/07/26/a-scientific-view-of-the-god-delusion/
Also, please read the books of authors mentioned in my blog 'New Atheism', dated 6 November 2011. Among Indians, the writings of Khushwant Singh come to mind. The famous article by Shaheed Bhagat Singh is also very inspiring. Lal Har Dyal is another famous Indian rationalist. The idea is that as you read such literature, your mind will be filled with positive, rational, thoughts, and you will experience a great sense of liberation. You will see what you have been missing so far.
So called religious people by defination make God unprovable and make it a question of faith.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of God does fulfill a emotional need of a "uncle"who can make things happen and provide protection.
Though rationally I think there is no god but feel a need to continue believing in one.
I shall discuss this, in due course.
ReplyDelete