Science Didn't Kill God

preface

This article is agnostic to if you believe or don’t believe in God. It is about the dogmatization of science.

the problem

Unfortunately it is becoming common to portray people who are religious as dumb and claim that God is dead due to science. I don’t think this argument is fair.

Our mathematically understanding of reality (physics) is not reality, We are not uncovering the hidden code of the world. It’s all symbolic, operations over symbols that aid in survival.

We impose our mathematical models on reality in an attempt to make predictions. These mathematical models are structures we have made up to cope with the fact that the universe is a black box. Physics experiments are second order testings of what is actually happening. They are second order because our perceptions are disconnected from reality (if there is one). They don’t test what is really there.

It is like a deer who sees some movement and classifies it as a predator. It has evolved to do that. It cannot distinguish that some “predators” are non-threats. We are like the deer. I did a bad job of explaining this. See this video.

So we invent these systems because they seem to somewhat match what we observe and measure. And this is useful, no doubt. But it is not some secret of the universe. As an example, the popular equation e=mc^2 is not true for all scenarios. A more accurate equation is e=γmc^2 because of special relativity. This sentiment is put into words by the popular saying “all models are wrong, but some are usefull”. We only say thse equations are only right because we did some weird stats and got some p-value confirming they work under limited preconditions under limited precision.

We do not know for certain that any equation is always true. In fact, truthiness is an invented concept, loosely defined in relationship to surviving. There is always some p. And we bet our lives on this p, everytime we start our cars or walk on a bridge. Science is very useful for existing, or for living rather. But do not mistake science as the secret to the universe, or give it some godlike certainty.

This concept of uncertainty is baked into what science is. It is a process that produces an agreed upon result, this result is not assumed to be correct and is poised to be challenged at every step of the way. If you declare science a god replacement, you commit a cardinal sin of science and declare the findings what science is about, when it is really the process.

So science has, in fact, not infringed upon God, or subsumed the need for a God. You don’t “believe in science instead of God,” because these things are incomparable. Don’t minimize people, or God conceptually, by using science.