Can science explain?

I felt inspired by last week’s dialogue between Oxford professors John Lennox and Peter Atkins on whether science can explain everything.

Peter Atkins struck me with his explanation that there is no scientific merit in questions for which there is no evidence, or alternatively, science should not bother to give answers to stupid questions.

I suppose he was referring to some sort of lazy science, one where the scientist holds on to his or her own personal beliefs instead of searching for inspiration and evidence in still unexplored places or perspectives, like Einstein did.

I am a Christian and I do feel that science should strive to explain everything.

Science can define models to help us understand how things work, and by doing so it enables us to make predictions, build valuable things, make better decisions and take actions.

Some of today’s scientists might even be replaced by robots and deep learning algorithms, technologies made possible through science.

On the other hand, it strikes me that many of the greatest scientists of the past were exactly those who uncovered patterns in nature even when their ideas and observations were counter-intuitive or against the knowledge or wisdom of their times. Interestingly, the knowledge and wisdom of our time is to disregard God as a stupid idea.

Well, these are my stupid questions:

• What is the purpose of nature’s regularity?
• Why isn’t the universe simply a chaotic “something” without any natural laws or patterns?

I feel creative, fearless and unashamed science should explore these questions.

As a starting point I would consider the theory of a loving God who existed before the natural universe existed, and who created the universe with all its regularities with the intent that, some billions years later, a specific species of living beings in a specific planet developed the skills to notice the regularities of the universe and, by continuously learning from nature, also learned to love Him. At that point, the loving God finally started existing in the natural universe, instantiated by the reciprocal love of human beings.

The challenge is to use scientific method to investigate how this theory of a loving God works in practice and how effective it is to give purpose and intent to human beings, to give them comfort whilst they wait for other answers from science, help them to achieve more in their short lives than what they would be able to do by only believing in themselves and science, and transform their lives for better in “unexplainable” ways.

I think this is great science and I invite you to join me in this challenge.

 

Image from https://balancedachievement.com/balachieve/albert-einstein-on-god/