Science and Belief – The Origin of Science in Christian Europe
The following three posts contain excerpts from 8 lectures given by Peter Hodgson, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, England, where he is head of the Nuclear Physics Theoretical Group of the Nuclear Particle Physics Laboratory. He has written 10 books on nuclear physics, 300 research articles and many popular articles on theology and science. These lectures were first given at the University of Oxford in 1996 and 1998.
Why did science develop in our civilisation and not in any of the other great civilisations of the past? This is a complicated historical question that can be approached by listing the conditions that seem to be necessary for the rise of science and then seeing to what extent they are present in the different civilisations. If we find that the conditions necessary for the rise of science are present in only one civilisation then we have as full an explanation as it is possible to have for a historical phenomenon. We cannot of course expect to understand or explain the detailed history, for this depends on the presence of men of genius and other external circumstances.
If we think about what is needed for the viable birth of science, we see first of all that it needs a fairly well-developed society, so that some of its members can spend most of their time just thinking about the world, without the constant preoccupation of finding the next meal. It needs some simple technology, so that the apparatus required for experiments can be constructed. There must also be a system of writing, so that the results can be recorded and sent to other scientists, and a mathematical notation for expressing the results of measurements in numerical form. These may be called the material necessities of science. Since they may be found to a greater or lesser degree in most of the major civilisations of antiquity, we must look elsewhere for the answer to our question about the unique birth of science.
If the answer does not lie in the material conditions, we must seek it in the realm of ideas. Is it not possible that whether science develops or not depends on the attitude of the people to the material world? We can imagine that certain attitudes would prevent anyone thinking about the world in a way likely to lead to a scientific understanding, while others might at least provide a fertile soil for its growth. The type of thinking carried out in the early stages of science is done by people who share the ideas and beliefs of their civilisation. It is only later when science is well-established that specialised languages and modes of thought grow up and are taught to students and young scientists.
If we think about science and the attitudes that are likely to help its growth we can see first of all that it is essential for people to be interested in the material world. This implies that they must believe in some sense that it is good, so that it is worthwhile and respectable to try to find out more about it. Some people have thought that matter is evil, and that we must have as little to do with it as possible. Some early mystery cults taught that the world is evil and transitory, so that perfection may be attained only by turning away from the things of this world towards the eternal spiritual realm. If you believe that, then there is no possibility at all that you will become a scientist.
Another essential belief is that matter is orderly, that it behaves in a consistent and rational way. This means that if we observe and measure something one day, we will get the same results if we do the same thing on another day, or at another place. If we did not get the same results, if things behaved in a chaotic or random way, it would be impossible to build up a body of knowledge and science would be impossible. Unless we believe that there is an order in nature we will never take the trouble to find out what it is.
Concerning the order in nature, there are two possibilities. We may believe that the order in nature is a necessary order, that the material world could not be made in any way except the way it is in fact made. If we believed this, we might then think that the order of nature can be discovered by pure thought, that science can be developed in much the same way as mathematics. Many people have indeed tried this, and have not got very far; their speculations turn out in the end to be either trivial or wrong. We know that the only way to find out about the world is by controlled observation and experiment, and this is not encouraged if we believe that the order of the world is a necessary order.
The other possibility is that the order of the world is one of many possible ones. In other words we could assume that the order is contingent, that it depends on something else, that it could be other than it is. If we believe this, then the only way to ascertain that order is by observation and experiment, and thus the way is open for the development of science.
Another requirement for the development of science is the belief that the whole enterprise is a practicable one. We must believe that the order in nature is in some degree open to the human mind, that if we try hard enough we can discover some of its secrets. If the order in nature is hidden from the human mind, if there is no way of discovering it, then there is no point in trying to find it.
To sum up so far, we can see by considering the nature of science that it can grow in a civilisation in which the people believe that the world is good, or at least morally neutral, that it is rational and orderly, that it is contingent in the sense that it could be other than it is, and that it is apprehensible by the human mind.
These beliefs are essential, but they are not enough on their own. Scientific research is difficult, and nature does not readily yield its secrets. There needs to be a strong motivation to carry the scientist through all the failures and disappointments that inevitably come his way. Without this we might never get down to work, even though we recognised the theoretical possibility of attaining some knowledge of the world.
Another important characteristic of science is that it is a communal endeavour, the work of many minds. Every scientist builds on the work of his predecessors and shares his results with his colleagues. If scientists kept their results secret, the knowledge they gained would die with them and an extensive coherent body of knowledge would never be established. The scientist must therefore believe that whatever knowledge he gains is not his alone, but must be shared with the whole community.
These are the main beliefs that must be held by the whole community before science can even begin. They need not be held consciously and explicitly, in the sense that they could write them down in an orderly list. Many of them are usually held unconsciously or implicitly. They are to us so obvious that we would never even think of formulating them. They are part of the very fabric of our thought and form the way we look at the world.
Yet when we do think about them we realise that they constitute a very special set of beliefs that is by no means universal in human history, In fact if we examine the beliefs of past civilisations we find that many of them are quite different from those that we have seen are essential for the development of science. The very special set of beliefs about the material world that is needed for the growth of science did exist in Europe in the seventeenth century and this is why science as we know it developed at that time. But what is the origin of those beliefs, and why were they present at that time? To answer this questions we must go back to the beginnings of our civilisation.
No comments:
Post a Comment