Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning (Mary Midgley)
I took a philosophy class called "Theories of Science and Technology" that was life-changing. Here are some of the papers I wrote. In addition to the 3 required books for "Theories of Science and Technology" we were to choose a 4th book to read and report on. We were given a list to choose from, and although we were allowed to go outside the list with instructors permission, I chose this book from the list.
I chose this book, Science as Salvation by Mary Midgley, because it deals with some of the issues I have tackled previously in this course. I have noticed that some scientific ideas, particularly evolution, have taken on a religious role for those who embrace them. I hadn’t quite thought of science as something that people believed would save them, until reading this book. It lines up well with our class discussion on the near-priesthood of scientists. Scientists are regarded as a little strange, not something most of us want to be, but yet as gurus to whom we look up for answers, much as priests once were.
Both science and religion make the mistake of seeing the other as a threat. Chapter five (page 51) discusses the idea that science and religion are competing for the same job. I believe that if each could overlook their biases, each would see that science and religion repeatedly validate each other. This seems to become truer as time goes on. In the past, when dissenters have asked me questions such as “how could God have always existed” I would have little choice but to say something like “God is outside our realm… he doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics he created for us.” Now that I have some basic knowledge of what modern physics is about, thanks to an exposure to it in engineering school, I no longer have to resort to this rather awkward explanation. Now, time and space are no longer fixed, and the idea of infinite time much more tangible. Einstein has shown that when particles reach the speed of light, time stops. The Bible says that God is light. I do not think that this is meant literally, as to say that the light from a light bulb or even from the sun actually is God, but the idea that God is something outside of what we know as time, and that He is unreachable by us except under his terms (just as matter, a far as we can tell so far, cannot attain light-speed) is now quite reasonable and not unscientific at all. Biology, too, consistently points to a designer rather than to chance (though as Bohr finally convinced Einstein, sometimes chance is designed in too, but he wasn’t talking about biology).
Chapter one also makes the important point that we are probably more interested in why we are here than how. I previously thought that evolution only tackled the “how”, but later chapters in this book make me think people have tried to use it to explain the “why” as well, especially where theories have been made that the universe is validated by the existence of an observer (an idea introduced on page 29, but referred to throughout the book), namely, the human race. The chapter also makes mention of how far out of our way we must go to avoid God, and the conceitedness required to think that people can run the universe.
Chapter two introduces us to the idea that seems widespread that mankind must continue on forever in order to have any purpose at all in the present time. I do not think this idea is nearly as common as Midgley would have us think, but nevertheless there are plenty of books written on the subject, and many are quoted in her book. Soon after this point I started longing to move on to other topics, perhaps evolution, perhaps fear of death. Death is mentioned very briefly on page 162. There is also a claim on page 63 worth considering that what people will seek and accept is based on their fear of spiritual disaster. I am a little disappointed that Midgley mainly clung to space travel and making mankind forever supreme. Are these ideas really so widespread as to require this much energy to refute? I think more people than not just want to avoid their own deaths. The book is quite successful, though, in reminding us how helpless we really are. I suppose taking things to the extreme -- what it would take for humans to be God -- illustrates this well. It seems that Midgley’s goal is to go to such extreme to leave us with no other choice but to turn to God for purpose. This she does well, but it seems that the absurdity of the ideas she is refuting is self-evident enough as to allow her to pack the thesis easily into three chapters, leaving room for other interesting discussions.
After all, we need look no further than the milfoil problem in Lake Champlain to realize that we are in no position to be in control of our universe. We cannot even cure cancer, the common cold, or HIV. How can we possibly suppose that we can transform the human body into something that can live forever, or replace it with something that can carry our legacy for eternity? Like the theory of evolution, theories about mankind conquering the universe explain away impossibilities by saying time will eventually allow every problem to be solved. The point is that scientists who otherwise claim to be looking “just at the facts” actually believe things far more ludicrous and at least as religious as believing a higher being designed everything. This point is well taken and thoroughly made.
Chapter ten makes some excellent points about belief in general. Midgley claims, rightly, that skepticism tends to be glorified as the superior bent. Belief shows weakness, and we should doubt everything until proven. She makes the very observant accusation that the habitual unbeliever is “chronically timid” (page 111) and afraid of taking a risk. Quite a bit of space is dedicated to showing how absurd it is to be a general disbeliever, and the analogy made of how impossible it would be to function socially with a completely untrusting attitude. Yet, some ideas that have come from scientists, as discussed in this book, require some very difficult beliefs. I would argue that most people, even scientists, despite their claims, are not aggressively skeptical in general. There are certain things they wish not to believe, and choose to be skeptics in those areas, claiming that skepticism shows good intellectualism or perhaps even good common sense. As for things that replace the ideas they don’t like, they are embraced with childlike faith by the same people that laud skepticism.
For example, belief that nature came to its present condition by chance is an amazing leap of faith. The low probability that it will not all fall catastrophically apart each day multiplies this faith manifold. It becomes, in fact, a faith that defies reason. Nature is not some work of art that developed and is now sitting there in a museum to be admired. It is a well-oiled machine in a continuous delicate balance. I think, therefore, the claim by atheists that they are skeptics is only a feeble excuse. The real problem is a desire to avoid God. Chapter eleven tackles the question, among others, of why people want to avoid God. It seems to boil down to wanting to run things for ourselves without someone over us telling us what we should or should not do. We do not want to hear that there is a right and wrong, because we would all be guilty and require a savior. This would be far too humbling for us.
Chapter twelve deals with questions of motivation and why people believe what they believe. Pages 134 and 135 attempt, successfully I think, to show that atheism is a quite irrational belief. This is followed by a discussion on feelings and whether they are permissible as evidence for or against a belief. Midgley argues that it is, and says scientists would say no. I agree that feeling does enter into reason, but I am not as sure that we should purposely bring feelings into it. For example, although I am far from successful, I prefer to attempt to base my theological beliefs on facts of the Bible. I realize of course that there are many assumptions underlying this, the first one being that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But even if we are to quibble over the accuracy of the Bible and the interpretation of it, it is a fact that it says certain things and does not say other things. The accuracy cannot be proven, but it weaves together well enough that it can be very convincing to the open mind. In any case, I think it would better to make a case that belief in God is reasonable, than to argue that feelings are a good guide after all. Feelings really are unreliable. I certainly agree though that total neutrality is impossible.
I once attended a debate at Dartmouth College on “Does God Exist”. At the time I thought it was a bit of a waste of time because you certainly cannot prove it either way. Later a Christian professor at Dartmouth explained to me that it was important to him to show intellectuals that Christianity can be a rational, intellectual thing. You do not have to throw reason out the window to believe in God; quite the opposite. Looking back on it, it is interesting to remember that the professor arguing against the existence of God, instead of making his case, really came at the debate with the point of view that the discussion was silly. The professor arguing for God’s existence made an excellent case, but technically lost the debate because he hadn’t been prepared to defend the validity of even having the discussion in the first place. It is interesting, then, that it was the atheist who consciously decided to throw reason out the window and go with feelings. His feeling and main argument was that evil exists, therefore God does not. He did not seem to have much else to offer. My question to him, of course, is without God, what could possibly be evil? Why shouldn’t we kill, steal, and rape?
I think the examples pointed out of other “faiths” like Marxism, and how many intellectuals grasped these faiths, may be useful for defending the number of intellectuals who have latched onto Christianity, but may have the reverse effect of also making Christianity appear as ridiculous as Marxism. I’m not sure this was very effective, but it was a very interesting study on Marx and the phenomenon of his following. I think the argument is intended to illustrate how one can be swayed to believe in something silly. The illustration succeeds to some degree but the amount of ink spent on it gives me the feeling that the author has a particular fascination with Marxism and is just looking for an excuse to write about it.
Chapter thirteen and fourteen discuss more about how silly ideas become popular, and a little more on why everyone “needs” a faith of some kind. There is an interesting related quote from chapter 6 (page 70), “If we don’t have one kind of faith, we are very likely to have another. Faiths which are not watched grow like mushrooms in the dark. It is important, and quite difficult, to think them through and to make sure that they are of the kind we want to harbour.”
Chapter fifteen comes the closest to actually discussing religion at length. I agree with the idea on page 168 that the idea of mixing science with religion is vague, and that trying to reach God through science doesn’t work. I do think that science and religion are closely related, much in the same way as a nut and a bolt. The two are separate entities that can be taken apart, examined and studied separately, but support each other and go together in an intertwined sort of way. Chapter sixteen concentrates on how frail we are, just barely able to put humans in space at all with any reliability, never mind living there or exploring other planets. This was written after the Challenger disaster, but before the Columbia disaster. Chapter seventeen brings up the point of why should we assume that we should reign over any aliens that are out there. If we are alone in the universe, it puts the odds ever further against the idea of us being here by chance. Chapters eighteen and nineteen had little new to offer but the very last paragraph of the book concedes that people now (at publishing time I assume) seem to be reaching Midgley’s conclusions on their own. Interestingly, it is true that religion seems to be making a comeback (mostly in ways that I think are false, but that’s a subject for another time).
There is a question that the book raised for me and did not answer. What is the difference, really, between doubting that humans can eventually control the universe, and doubting fifty years ago that affordable home computers would someday be possible? I do believe that there is a difference. I once had a similar question about evolution. I knew (had a feeling) that an eye developing by chance was as impossible as a jumbo jet being spontaneously built in a junkyard, but did not quite know why. I knew that adaptation occurred through beneficial mutation. Finally, the answer came in the form of “irreducible complexity”. The whole basis for evolution is that beneficial mutations over billions of years can eventually bring about things like eyes. Unfortunately, there is so much irreducible complexity to the eye that the probability of enough mutations occurring at once to make the eye useful is not miniscule, but is in fact zero. I am now in search of a similar answer for why we can expect science to eventually accomplish certain things and not others. Science as Salvation danced around this question from cover to cover without ever quite answering it. It is time to get back to the library.
Instructors comments:
I do agree with you that religion need not be based on emotion. I have more trouble with your claim that ethical beliefs must be based in religious belief
I chose this book, Science as Salvation by Mary Midgley, because it deals with some of the issues I have tackled previously in this course. I have noticed that some scientific ideas, particularly evolution, have taken on a religious role for those who embrace them. I hadn’t quite thought of science as something that people believed would save them, until reading this book. It lines up well with our class discussion on the near-priesthood of scientists. Scientists are regarded as a little strange, not something most of us want to be, but yet as gurus to whom we look up for answers, much as priests once were.
Both science and religion make the mistake of seeing the other as a threat. Chapter five (page 51) discusses the idea that science and religion are competing for the same job. I believe that if each could overlook their biases, each would see that science and religion repeatedly validate each other. This seems to become truer as time goes on. In the past, when dissenters have asked me questions such as “how could God have always existed” I would have little choice but to say something like “God is outside our realm… he doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics he created for us.” Now that I have some basic knowledge of what modern physics is about, thanks to an exposure to it in engineering school, I no longer have to resort to this rather awkward explanation. Now, time and space are no longer fixed, and the idea of infinite time much more tangible. Einstein has shown that when particles reach the speed of light, time stops. The Bible says that God is light. I do not think that this is meant literally, as to say that the light from a light bulb or even from the sun actually is God, but the idea that God is something outside of what we know as time, and that He is unreachable by us except under his terms (just as matter, a far as we can tell so far, cannot attain light-speed) is now quite reasonable and not unscientific at all. Biology, too, consistently points to a designer rather than to chance (though as Bohr finally convinced Einstein, sometimes chance is designed in too, but he wasn’t talking about biology).
Chapter one also makes the important point that we are probably more interested in why we are here than how. I previously thought that evolution only tackled the “how”, but later chapters in this book make me think people have tried to use it to explain the “why” as well, especially where theories have been made that the universe is validated by the existence of an observer (an idea introduced on page 29, but referred to throughout the book), namely, the human race. The chapter also makes mention of how far out of our way we must go to avoid God, and the conceitedness required to think that people can run the universe.
Chapter two introduces us to the idea that seems widespread that mankind must continue on forever in order to have any purpose at all in the present time. I do not think this idea is nearly as common as Midgley would have us think, but nevertheless there are plenty of books written on the subject, and many are quoted in her book. Soon after this point I started longing to move on to other topics, perhaps evolution, perhaps fear of death. Death is mentioned very briefly on page 162. There is also a claim on page 63 worth considering that what people will seek and accept is based on their fear of spiritual disaster. I am a little disappointed that Midgley mainly clung to space travel and making mankind forever supreme. Are these ideas really so widespread as to require this much energy to refute? I think more people than not just want to avoid their own deaths. The book is quite successful, though, in reminding us how helpless we really are. I suppose taking things to the extreme -- what it would take for humans to be God -- illustrates this well. It seems that Midgley’s goal is to go to such extreme to leave us with no other choice but to turn to God for purpose. This she does well, but it seems that the absurdity of the ideas she is refuting is self-evident enough as to allow her to pack the thesis easily into three chapters, leaving room for other interesting discussions.
After all, we need look no further than the milfoil problem in Lake Champlain to realize that we are in no position to be in control of our universe. We cannot even cure cancer, the common cold, or HIV. How can we possibly suppose that we can transform the human body into something that can live forever, or replace it with something that can carry our legacy for eternity? Like the theory of evolution, theories about mankind conquering the universe explain away impossibilities by saying time will eventually allow every problem to be solved. The point is that scientists who otherwise claim to be looking “just at the facts” actually believe things far more ludicrous and at least as religious as believing a higher being designed everything. This point is well taken and thoroughly made.
Chapter ten makes some excellent points about belief in general. Midgley claims, rightly, that skepticism tends to be glorified as the superior bent. Belief shows weakness, and we should doubt everything until proven. She makes the very observant accusation that the habitual unbeliever is “chronically timid” (page 111) and afraid of taking a risk. Quite a bit of space is dedicated to showing how absurd it is to be a general disbeliever, and the analogy made of how impossible it would be to function socially with a completely untrusting attitude. Yet, some ideas that have come from scientists, as discussed in this book, require some very difficult beliefs. I would argue that most people, even scientists, despite their claims, are not aggressively skeptical in general. There are certain things they wish not to believe, and choose to be skeptics in those areas, claiming that skepticism shows good intellectualism or perhaps even good common sense. As for things that replace the ideas they don’t like, they are embraced with childlike faith by the same people that laud skepticism.
For example, belief that nature came to its present condition by chance is an amazing leap of faith. The low probability that it will not all fall catastrophically apart each day multiplies this faith manifold. It becomes, in fact, a faith that defies reason. Nature is not some work of art that developed and is now sitting there in a museum to be admired. It is a well-oiled machine in a continuous delicate balance. I think, therefore, the claim by atheists that they are skeptics is only a feeble excuse. The real problem is a desire to avoid God. Chapter eleven tackles the question, among others, of why people want to avoid God. It seems to boil down to wanting to run things for ourselves without someone over us telling us what we should or should not do. We do not want to hear that there is a right and wrong, because we would all be guilty and require a savior. This would be far too humbling for us.
Chapter twelve deals with questions of motivation and why people believe what they believe. Pages 134 and 135 attempt, successfully I think, to show that atheism is a quite irrational belief. This is followed by a discussion on feelings and whether they are permissible as evidence for or against a belief. Midgley argues that it is, and says scientists would say no. I agree that feeling does enter into reason, but I am not as sure that we should purposely bring feelings into it. For example, although I am far from successful, I prefer to attempt to base my theological beliefs on facts of the Bible. I realize of course that there are many assumptions underlying this, the first one being that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But even if we are to quibble over the accuracy of the Bible and the interpretation of it, it is a fact that it says certain things and does not say other things. The accuracy cannot be proven, but it weaves together well enough that it can be very convincing to the open mind. In any case, I think it would better to make a case that belief in God is reasonable, than to argue that feelings are a good guide after all. Feelings really are unreliable. I certainly agree though that total neutrality is impossible.
I once attended a debate at Dartmouth College on “Does God Exist”. At the time I thought it was a bit of a waste of time because you certainly cannot prove it either way. Later a Christian professor at Dartmouth explained to me that it was important to him to show intellectuals that Christianity can be a rational, intellectual thing. You do not have to throw reason out the window to believe in God; quite the opposite. Looking back on it, it is interesting to remember that the professor arguing against the existence of God, instead of making his case, really came at the debate with the point of view that the discussion was silly. The professor arguing for God’s existence made an excellent case, but technically lost the debate because he hadn’t been prepared to defend the validity of even having the discussion in the first place. It is interesting, then, that it was the atheist who consciously decided to throw reason out the window and go with feelings. His feeling and main argument was that evil exists, therefore God does not. He did not seem to have much else to offer. My question to him, of course, is without God, what could possibly be evil? Why shouldn’t we kill, steal, and rape?
I think the examples pointed out of other “faiths” like Marxism, and how many intellectuals grasped these faiths, may be useful for defending the number of intellectuals who have latched onto Christianity, but may have the reverse effect of also making Christianity appear as ridiculous as Marxism. I’m not sure this was very effective, but it was a very interesting study on Marx and the phenomenon of his following. I think the argument is intended to illustrate how one can be swayed to believe in something silly. The illustration succeeds to some degree but the amount of ink spent on it gives me the feeling that the author has a particular fascination with Marxism and is just looking for an excuse to write about it.
Chapter thirteen and fourteen discuss more about how silly ideas become popular, and a little more on why everyone “needs” a faith of some kind. There is an interesting related quote from chapter 6 (page 70), “If we don’t have one kind of faith, we are very likely to have another. Faiths which are not watched grow like mushrooms in the dark. It is important, and quite difficult, to think them through and to make sure that they are of the kind we want to harbour.”
Chapter fifteen comes the closest to actually discussing religion at length. I agree with the idea on page 168 that the idea of mixing science with religion is vague, and that trying to reach God through science doesn’t work. I do think that science and religion are closely related, much in the same way as a nut and a bolt. The two are separate entities that can be taken apart, examined and studied separately, but support each other and go together in an intertwined sort of way. Chapter sixteen concentrates on how frail we are, just barely able to put humans in space at all with any reliability, never mind living there or exploring other planets. This was written after the Challenger disaster, but before the Columbia disaster. Chapter seventeen brings up the point of why should we assume that we should reign over any aliens that are out there. If we are alone in the universe, it puts the odds ever further against the idea of us being here by chance. Chapters eighteen and nineteen had little new to offer but the very last paragraph of the book concedes that people now (at publishing time I assume) seem to be reaching Midgley’s conclusions on their own. Interestingly, it is true that religion seems to be making a comeback (mostly in ways that I think are false, but that’s a subject for another time).
There is a question that the book raised for me and did not answer. What is the difference, really, between doubting that humans can eventually control the universe, and doubting fifty years ago that affordable home computers would someday be possible? I do believe that there is a difference. I once had a similar question about evolution. I knew (had a feeling) that an eye developing by chance was as impossible as a jumbo jet being spontaneously built in a junkyard, but did not quite know why. I knew that adaptation occurred through beneficial mutation. Finally, the answer came in the form of “irreducible complexity”. The whole basis for evolution is that beneficial mutations over billions of years can eventually bring about things like eyes. Unfortunately, there is so much irreducible complexity to the eye that the probability of enough mutations occurring at once to make the eye useful is not miniscule, but is in fact zero. I am now in search of a similar answer for why we can expect science to eventually accomplish certain things and not others. Science as Salvation danced around this question from cover to cover without ever quite answering it. It is time to get back to the library.
Instructors comments:
I do agree with you that religion need not be based on emotion. I have more trouble with your claim that ethical beliefs must be based in religious belief
posted by AndyOfVermont at 5:43 PM
1 Comments:
Self criticism: In retrospect, I take back my comments that Midgley wasted effort on refuting science as salvation. I realize now that I wanted to concentrate on something other than what she was concentrating on. From now on I will be more hesitant to criticize a writer simply for concentrating on a subject other than the one I want to concentrate on.
Midgley actually said that she already felt spread too thin -- that she was barely scatching the surface of the subject. She is probably closer to being correct than I was in saying that she was overly thorough.
Otherwise, I still like my essay.
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