Here is the video of the panel discussion from Discovery Channel’s Curiosity Conversation last Sunday. Not sure how official it is, so it might not last. Jerry Coyne was motivated to dig them up, since he doesn’t have cable TV. I’m putting the panel first — this is all about me, baby — and the Hawking program under the fold.
The participants were me, David Gregory, Paul Davies, and John Haught. But there were also short video interventions from Jennifer Wiseman, William Stoeger, and Michio Kaku. Actually seeing the program made me even more frustrated about the lack of time and inability to discuss any issue in depth. Also, while the makeup of the original panel seemed fair (committed atheist, wishy-washy physicist, Catholic theologian), the pre-recorded videos all took the line that science shouldn’t be talking about God. That gave the final program more of a “gang up on the atheist” feel than I would have really liked. I don’t think the videos added much, other than to eat into our valuable time. An hour-long program would have been better, and it probably would have been a much sharper conversation if there had just been two panelists rather than three. But again, credit to Discovery for having the event at all.
Specific thoughts on the participants:
- David Gregory: I thought he did fine. Not sure why some people were complaining about the questions; his job was just to get the conversation going and keep it moving, which he did with admirable professionalism.
- John Haught: He actually had a very difficult job, since his take on the nature of God isn’t easy to boil down to a sound bite. Still, I personally don’t think there’s any there, there. If you can’t imagine a universe in which God doesn’t exist, you need to work on your imaginative skills.
- Paul Davies: A very clear speaker and strong communicator, but again not a sound-bite kind of guy. He did win the Templeton prize, but isn’t very explicitly religious. (At least, not that one can discern, which is part of the problem.) But he does strongly believe that it’s not okay to simply say “the universe is like that” — he thinks there is necessarily a deeper explanation for the laws of physics.
- Jennifer Wiseman and William Stoeger: Neither really even tried to argue in favor of God’s existence. They just took the angle that religion talks about value while science talks about facts. I think it’s important to get the facts right before you start talking about values, and said as much, but we didn’t have time to dig into that issue.
- Michio Kaku: I tease Michio. The guy is a brilliant science communicator, but I don’t think he added anything of value here.
- Me: This isn’t an easy format, and I would probably grade myself a generous B. I don’t feel like taking back anything I said, but I definitely could have been more forceful about it. Still looking to improve at things like this — any suggestions?
Okay here are the videos, judge for yourselves. First the panel, in two parts:
Here’s the episode of Curiosity, hosted by Hawking, in four parts.
God doesn’t exist because he was killed by Kratos in GOW3!!!
I liked your performance very much, Sean, but there is one thing I don’t agree with you on – when you say that science cannot address questions of meaning and purpose. Now, there are two levels to this.
At the human-scale, science most certainly can address questions about what people mean, and what are their purposes. This is very much a psychological question. But it is also a question in moral philosophy, for what we mean by “good” and what we desire when we desire the good are the questions the ultimately ground morality. You can build up sophistry around it, but rational morality is ultimately about what humans value, and so values are not at all outside the purview of science. The traditional position, that morality and values should left to philosophers or religion, is mistaken.
At the cosmic-scale, it makes no sense to speak of a god creating all of existence with a purpose or meaning as that would ignore its own existence, and science also allows us to see how petty and anthropomorphic this picture is. On the other hand, science can in principle find that the pattern of the universe is such that it has a purpose or a meaning, in the simple manner in which a book might have those properties. So while the case is somewhat weaker, I still think that at this level too science can determine meaning and purpose.
In short, then, it’s just not true that science cannot touch purpose and meaning.
Wow. Did Yair listen to a single word Sean said? Its bizarre how Yair got it so back to front.
Bob:
At 08:35 at the first video, Sean says: “…I agree that there are questions that science doesn’t answer. Science tells us what happens in the world and how it happens. That’s a little different than questions of purpose and meaning.”
It certainly appears to me that Sean is saying that science cannot answer questions of purpose and meaning. It can inform the discussion, but cannot answer them. If my interpretation is incorrect, I’ll gladly rescind my comment.
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Jim, you said, “Since the laws of physics are simply descriptions of how things behave, they are coeval with the universe. Unless you revert to the ancient notion that natural laws are like human laws, i.e. the dictates of a legislator, it doesn’t seem necessary to have a separate explanation for ‘em.”
Not sure how you can be so sure of this. Plus, saying the universe same into being because “the laws of physics, which have no explanation, did it” seems unsatisfying (at best) and logically faulty or circular (at worst). Admittedly, we use this for all other explanations (e.g. apple falls to Earth because space time curvature) and don’t really explain where the root cause comes from (why should space time be able to get curved at all?). Those seem a bit unsatisfying as well if you think about it for awhile.
Yair, my point was that conversations about purpose and meaning must be based on (and therefore certainly informed by) science — but they cannot simply be “answered” by science in the same way that actual science questions can be. See here and here and elsewhere on the blog for more about this.
Philosophers need to talk to scientists to make progress, but ultimately values are about philosophy, not science.
Most working mathematicians and a lot of cosmologists do have a Platonist view of mathematics. It is entirely possible to refuse this platonist interpretation of mathematics, but it makes it very difficult to define the concept of “law of nature” or to understand whether or not Fermat’s theorem was true or not before it was demonstrated. There are of course other philosophies of Mathematics, but while these can easily be embraced by philosophers, biologists, or even many physicists who just use math as a tool, it is almost impossible for pure mathematicians to embrace any other view of math than the platonist one because it is the main motivation behind their research: discovering uncharted territory in the world of mathematics. Not many mathematicians believe they are inventing this territory indeed. Now if I decide to accept this Platonist view of Mathematics, and if I decide to redefine Mathematics as “God”, doesnt it have precisely all the attributes needed for it to be God indeed? Mathematics did create the world through the laws of physics. Mathematics organizes the world, Mathematics influences our lives. Would the Universe look different without Mathematics? Of course, it would not exist at all… And finally to the question “Does Mathematics exist?”, the Platonist must answer “yes”.
[*hefting a halibut, and looking at sentence with an expression that is impossible to describe.*]
Would you agree that these “attributes” do not include personality, awareness, or consciousness, or anything like them?
In the same impersonal sense of the term “create” as in “Vulcanism did create the island of Hawai’i”?
And also, welcome to the New Idolatry, Church of Platonic Mathematics.
Life/existance = Time
Death/Non existance= No Time/Eternity
Huh?
You say God cannot exist without time? God is eternal and does not need time in order to exist. The bible says that after this life (time) we will spend eternity (no time) in heaven or hell, therefore you don’t need “time” in order to contemplate the existance of God or heaven or hell because where they came from, time does not exist! The idea of time gives us a reference point that things have a beginning or an end, let me point out that since the beginning the bible has said that God is the Alpha and the Omega all rolled into one. Why stick with this idea that “time” determines our destinaton after this life, clearly the Bible has ALWAYS been preaching ETERNITY. But why preach this idea? Is it because the concept is just so perfect and well refined… eternity…. In heavenly bliss or eternal damnation. That is it for us.
You did very well, Sean.
It was clear that much conversation had been edited away. A shame. It was also clear that the format didn’t really allow participants to challenge the views of other participants. Such a format would have been better in my view.
@Owlmirror: Spinoza’s God (the one I referred to) is certainly not personal. I’m not sure I understood your point of view though: do you believe that the platonistic existence of mathematical objects is trivial or that it’s absurd? Or both? (which we could call the “Owlmirror paradox” if you like) Yours, Phil
Sean, you were definitely the best here. The most rational of all. I loved how you made the point that even our decisions and purpose in life ought to be based on reality and not some supernatural magician in the sky. That really blows away arguments by those who keep saying science and religion can co-exist because science does not have anything to do with our purpose in life.
@Farhad,
Actually, though some aspects of that statement were great (see my comment #10 above), that also turns out to be one of Sean’s weakest rhetorical points, primarily due to his conflation of “what science tells us about reality” with the whole of reality. Only by having a prior commitment to the metaphysical doctrine of materialism (or related views) is that a valid logical move–and its mere validity, of course, is not dispositive as to its soundness.
Those who hold to materialism would probably already claim to base their decisions and purpose on (their view of) reality, while anyone who has a broader view of metaphysics than the materialist will hold that reality might very well include “some supernatural magician in the sky”. So while Sean’s statement does provide a useful check for those who are tempted to completely divorce “facts” from “values” for whatever reason, in terms of dialogue between science and theology it does nothing more than recapitulate Sean’s philosophical assumptions in a less-than-clear way.
“The rift between science and the public perception of it and what they know about it has grown so large in the past centuary that with the current flow there’s no way that somebody with no trarining in math and science can catch up to knowledge achieved by his fellow men and therefore never knows how and why scientists are led to tackle questions like what Hawking is asking.
I find all the “theologians” arguments stagnated and lame. There’s no sane scientist wasting his time disproving “God”, the goal of scicene is to look at the world with a set of unbiased eyes; I think Science and the scientific methodology has been shaped as a decree of some sort in eyes of the public, if there’s ever a more concise and fruitful way devised to investigate a natural phenomena the sceintific method will adopt it. Lack of knowledge in the present world has given most people false groundings in defending their beliefs.
I don’t see any clear line between scicene and the values or “hope”.To me hope is only the large amount of possiblities that exist at each moment of time with their probablility of being beneficial and practical.
At the current rate of progress in science and the tendency of ppl going for what comforts them I don’t see a future for a real discussions about topics like this.”
@ Esmail
I think it was e.e. cummings who said Progress is a comfortable disease. It is exactly this sort of scenario that has sadly alienated the public from science and made it so that every time there is a problem, it’s science to the rescue. In the absence of problems, it is back to the old status quo between the public and science while pure research carries on answering whatever questions it can with the available grant/financial resources with no communication to the rest of the population.
This might have worked in the past, but as our technology and scientific knowledge progresses, we are at a level where not interacting with the public or discussing the issues is becoming less of an option (even in the US). I don’t know about physics, but the vast majority of biological research relies on the taxpayers dollar at the end of the day.
I don’t know if this debate/discussion is a sample of the ideas modern physicists are having to deal with, but its great to see the field of physics finally have to address the ‘public perception of science crap’ that evolutionary and regular biologists have dealt with for decades! If it gets big enough in the media, maybe biologists will have a few good years at doing viral and stem cell research in relative peace. God’s Existence Denied makes for way more controversial headlines than the Humans Come From Monkeys one.
I note that you did not specify that reference (until now).
Oh, my point was simply to express annoyance at the equivocation and deliberate confusion of something fundamental and abstract with a personal entity by use of a term historically used to refer to a person (or as I like to put it, an invisible person with magical superpowers).
Hm. I think I would have to go with “absurd”, at this time — and calling them “objects” rather than “concepts” or “abstractions” seems to me to implicitly beg the question.
“conversations about purpose and meaning must be based on (and therefore certainly informed by) science”
But purpose and meaning for us are to do with our experiences and we value these experiences but maybe they could be valued as something in themselves. Suppose there is something which essentially contributes to experience – you can’t have experience without it. Part of the origin of an experience could be tied to the matter (energy) of which we are composed and the present science-based explanation hasn’t got this solved.
So still purpose and meaning can be based on science and answered by science but science hasn’t actually got there yet. Not far enough in yet is my point. I am of course for the search. And meaning for people is most deeply known in relationships observed and felt/experienced – science and other fields, say art, music etc., but of course between people. Also there is a connection here (between people) that hasn’t been worked out. I would argue somehow tied to the nature of space.
Sean:
Some suggestions for your next debate. I think what you could do is take the believers in god to task by asking them what if any “scientific” proof they have for the existence of the supernatural. And let’s assume they come up with some “evidence”, then why they think their “god” is the right one. Why I am suggesting this is because in the current debate, and I assume in future debates, the believers always choose a careful diplomatic posture by making statements reassuring everyone they do support science and merely want to distinguish it from religion. The believers, as in this debate, are also mostly Judeo-Christian or Abrahamic monotheists, therefore there is a great deal they are assuming already by rejecting other types of world religions. The point is that the burden of proof is on them and a scientist in such a debate ought to make sure it stays that way even though the believers try their best to turn the tables.
@Farhad-
Now that is a really great idea. Much better than disparaging theists for their assumed lack of evidence is actually asking them why they believe what they believe. There are certainly plenty of crap answers to that line of questioning, but you may be surprised at some of the more well-thought-out responses.
That said, making a positive case for belief in the supernatural is on some level a separate issue from keeping science “honest”–i.e., ensuring scientists don’t make any metaphysical claims on behalf of science beyond what the empirical evidence will bear.
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I wish someone would take these theists to task about how they can prove the universe was started by their *particular* god. None of this wishy-washy nonsense. I want to see evidnce that the god that they profess to believe in exists and did anything of the sort. Without that, it’s all the usual pascal’s wager nonsense.
Farhad and KWK
If you go to my comment number 101 here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/08/02/hawking-and-god-on-the-discovery-channel/#comments
These scientists are clearly onto something – and if it’s part of the universe I would call it natural not supernatural.
Farhad – they are clearly collecting challenging data and some have seen remarkable things as well. Would that make one into a “believer”? I can’t see that as a problem. But certainly good subjects (those who are still around!) for an interview. Of course a lot of interviews are out there already.
KWK – I agree. Scientists shouldn’t make any metaphysical claims on behalf of science beyond what the empirical evidence will bear. But if this kind of evidence in coming in, what then?
I’d say it’s still science.
Zwitterion is configuration of salvation; the essence of religion.-Aiya-Oba (Philosopher).
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Interesting discussion and I applaud all the participants for being able to conduct one of the calmest discussions I’ve seen in the media of late. If there was anyone I was disappointed with, as a theology graduate myself, it was Haught simply for missing a few of the easier targets… Sometimes, I assume because of a lack of familiarity with even basic theology, some atheists will make a statement that they think catches religion on some fatal point only to be met with confusion because it’s what theists have believed all along. In this case, the idea that before time there was no time and therefore no God, even though being outside of time is widely considered one of the Abrahamic God’s defining characteristics. (It’s popped up in the comments as well… “God is existingness” isn’t some recent sophistic trick [and some people love accusing arguements they don’t understand of being mere sophistry]: it’s actually the most common conception of God found in mystic religious traditions across the board dating back thousands of years… It’s one of the few telling areas that I think the field of comparitive religion is actually onto.) He also missed a plum opportunity of observing that science is itself a sense-making imposition that the human mind lays over reality, however functionally useful it may be.
I don’t think Haught fails on the imagination test for the reasons explained above by KWK. I think he did try to go for a the provocative answer with the expectation that it would engender further questioning. My own answer would be to shoot the question of definition right back: what do you mean by God? If you were to clarify that you’re asking about my personal conception of God, then I would answer the same as Haught but probably want to elaborate more on what I mean about God being existingness and all that comes with that. The issue is how the question sounds to Haught, which is basically you asking him to imagine what existence would be like if the foundational conditions of existence didn’t exist. Contrary, again, to what some commentors have said (that any possible answer to any such question is dissmissible because they think it’s silly), William James actually defined Godhood or God-like things in exactly this manner as a question that could be posed to any person, theist or atheist or pantheist or nontheist or polytheist or animist or whatever.
To quote from “The Varieties of Religious Experience”: “Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine… [given that non-theistic movements can act functionally as religions, including strident belief in No-God] accordingly when in our definition of religion we speak of the individual’s relation to ‘what he considers the divine,’ we must interpret the term ‘divine’ very broadly, as denoting any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not… For one thing, gods are conceived to be first things in the way of being and power. They overarch and envelop, and from them there is no escape. What relates to them is the first and last word in the way of truth. Whatever then were most primal and enveloping and deeply true might at this rate be treated as godlike, and a man’s religion might thus be identified with his attitude, whatever it might be, towards what he felt to be the primal truth.”
Haught might just as easily have asked you to imagine the universe without physical laws, to the same effect. You might have gotten a more substantive answer out of Haught if you had asked him how the universe would be different if some other deity was in charge than the simple question if existence could exist without existence.
Anyways, all that aside, the conversation was a bit simple but that’s okay given that most of what we see on the Idiot Box nowadays is “YOU RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE MORANS!” followed by “YOU ATHEISTS ARE GOING TO HELLLLLL!!!” and then both shouting at each other “HITLER IS YOUR FAULT!!”