This much I can say with definiteness -namely, that there is no scientific basis for the denial of religion -nor is there in my judgement any excuse for a conflict between science and religion, for their fields are entirely different.Men who know very little of science and men who know very little of religion do indeed get to quarrelling, and the onlookers imagine that there is a conflict between science and religion, whereas the conflict is only between two different species of ignorance.The first important quarrel of this sort arose over the advancing by Copernicus of his theory that the earth, instead of being a flat plane and the center of the universe, was actually only one of a number of little planets, rotating once a day upon its axis and circling once a year about the sun.Copernicus was a priest -the canon of a cathedraland he was primarily a religious rather than a scientific man.He knew that the foundations of real religion are not laid where scientific discoveries of any kind can disturb them.He was persecuted, not because he went against the teachings of religion but because under his theory man was not the center of the universe and this was most displeasing news to a number of egoists."
This much I can say with definiteness -namely, that there is no scientific basis for the denial of religion -nor is there in my judgement any excuse for a conflict between science and religion, for their fields are entirely different.Men who know very little of science and men who know very little of religion do indeed get to quarrelling, and the onlookers imagine that there is a conflict between science and religion, whereas the conflict is only between two different species of ignorance.The first important quarrel of this sort arose over the advancing by Copernicus of his theory that the earth, instead of being a flat plane and the center of the universe, was actually only one of a number of little planets, rotating once a day upon its axis and circling once a year about the sun.Copernicus was a priest -the canon of a cathedraland he was primarily a religious rather than a scientific man.He knew that the foundations of real religion are not laid where scientific discoveries of any kind can disturb them.He was persecuted, not because he went against the teachings of religion but because under his theory man was not the center of the universe and this was most displeasing news to a number of egoists."
‘God’, said Albert Einstein, ‘does not play dice’. This famous remark by the author of the theory of relativity was not intended as an analysis of the recreational habits of a supreme being but expressed his reaction to the new scientific ideas, developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, which are now known as quantum physics. Before we can fully appreciate why one of the greatest scientists of modern times should have been led to make such a comment, we must first try to understand the context of scientific and philosophical thought that had become established by the end of the nineteenth century and what it was about the ‘new physics’ that presented such a radical challenge to this consensus. What is often thought of as the modern scientific age began in the sixteenth century, when Nicholas Copernicus proposed that the motion of the stars and planets should be described on the assumption that it is the sun, rather than the earth, which is the centre of the solar system. The opposition, not to say persecution, that this idea encountered from the establishment of that time is well known, but this was unable to prevent a revolution in thinking whose influence has continued to the present day. From that time on, the accepted test of scientific truth has increasingly been observation and experiment rather than religious or philosophical dogma.
‘Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One’. These views were contained in a letter written by Albert Einstein to Max Born in December 1926. Though the following year would see the completion of work on the theoretical foundation of the modern physics of atoms and particles, Einstein was never to change his judgement and remained firmly convinced that ‘this business […] contains some unreasonableness’. He was unwilling to sacrifice his own ideas as to the cognitive scope of science even in the face of the important results being achieved by the new theory. To the undeterministic findings of quantum mechanics he opposed his belief in the ‘possibility of giving a model of reality, a theory, that is to say, which shall represent events themselves and not merely the probability of their occurrence’. For this reason he chose to live with the isolation of his scepticism and dissent, ironically accepting the reputation as a obstinate heretic that he had won over the years among his colleagues, and worked to the end on his own research programme to develop a unified field theory of rigorously causal nature. As is generally known, Einstein carried on a strong scientific and philosophical dispute with the defenders of the so-called official interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Primitive man must have found nature singularly puzzling and intricate. The simplest phenomena could be trusted to recur indefinitely; an unsupported body invariably fell, a stone thrown into water sank, while a piece of wood floated. Yet other more complicated phenomena shewed no such uniformity—the lightning struck one tree in the grove while its neighbour of similar growth and equal size escaped unharmed; one month the new moon brought fair weather, the next month foul. Confronted with a natural world which was to all appearances as capricious as himself, man's first impulse was to create Nature in his own image; he attributed the seemingly erratic and unordered course of the universe to the whims and passions of gods, or of benevolent or malevolent lesser spirits. Only after much study did the great principle of causation emerge. In time it was found to dominate the whole of inanimate nature: a cause which could be completely isolated in its action was found invariably to produce the same effect. What happened at any instant did not depend on the volitions of extraneous beings, but followed inevitably by inexorable laws from the state of things at the preceding instant. And this state of things had in turn been inevitably determined by an earlier state, and so on indefinitely, so that the whole course of events had been unalterably determined by the state in which the world found itself at the first instant of its history; once this had been fixed, nature could move only along one road to a predestined end.
‘God’, said Albert Einstein, ‘does not play dice’. This famous remark by the author of the theory of relativity was not intended as an analysis of the recreational habits of a supreme being but expressed his reaction to the new scientific ideas, developed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, which are now known as quantum physics. Before we can fully appreciate why one of the greatest scientists of modern times should have been led to make such a comment, we must first try to understand the context of scientific and philosophical thought that had become established by the end of the nineteenth century and what it was about the ‘new physics’ that presented such a radical challenge to this consensus. What is often thought of as the modern scientific age began in the sixteenth century, when Nicholas Copernicus proposed that the motion of the stars and planets should be described on the assumption that it is the sun, rather than the earth, which is the centre of the solar system. The opposition, not to say persecution, that this idea encountered from much of the establishment of that time is well known, but this was unable to prevent a revolution in thinking whose influence has continued to the present day. From that time on, the accepted test of scientific truth has increasingly been observation and experiment rather than religious or philosophical dogma.
The new physics just described was still based largely on Newtonian ideas. Indeed, in its theoretical aspects, it might not unfairly be described as a final attempt to explain the world in materialistic terms—as particles being pushed and pulled about in space and time. Nevertheless, the new physics had found it necessary to abolish most of the forces of pushing and pulling, replacing the gradual changes of motion of the particles under these forces by sudden and unpredictable jumps. These appeared to involve violations of the law of causality, both in the disintegration of radioactive atoms and also in the internal changes of ordinary atoms. We seemed to see Fate defying this law as she picked out certain atoms for disintegration or collapse and, by her apparently capricious acts, sent the universe along one path or another according to her whim. On such lines the new physics had explained many phenomena which had hitherto seemed inexplicable, but it had by no means met with complete success. For instance, while it gave a perfect interpretation of the simplest spectrum of all, namely that of the hydrogen atom, it failed with more complex spectra. This was not necessarily a fatal objection; a few emendations and possibly a few new ad hoc assumptions might have effected a complete reconciliation, although this seems improbable.
MAN AND THE INDETERMINACIES* JOHN R. PLATTf Understanding the external world is the objective of science, and accurate prediction is the test ofit. Ifwe really understand genetics, we can breed better hybrid corn. Ifwe really understand geology, we can locate minerals and oil. If we really understand the motion of the atmosphere and its water vapor, we can predict the weather. But some ofthe most thought-provoking problems ofscience are those involving "indeterminacy," where accurate prediction for some reason becomes impossible. It is as though a sign said, "Nonsense!—Your prying or your prediction at this point interferes with itself, so your supposed observations orpredictions can no longer be made objectively or meaningfully ." Many ofthese problems are a little bit like my answer to your question whether I will wear my red tie tomorrow morning. I may tell you that I will, but this is an intention, not an objective prediction like predicting rain—and you will immediately show that you know this by laughing at me ifI try to bet with you on it. It is obvious that my knowledge ofthe prediction and the bet would change my performance, and I am likely to wear the red tie or not, as the case may be,just so I will win—or to do the converse to prove my unpredictability. Everyone knows, really, that predictions of one's own conscious decisions are not objective predictions in any scientific sense. The most famous case ofindeterminacy, where getting data for a prediction interacts with the outcome in somewhat the same way, is that of the Heisenberg "uncertainty principle" in atomic physics, which upset the whole philosophical world forty years ago. But indeterminacy and * A chapter from the book The Step to Man, published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.,June, 1966; reprinted by permission. t Acting Director, Mental Health Research Institute, University ofMichigan, Ann Arbor. 67 related questions of prediction also touch many other problems, for example , in areas such as biology and psychology. It is interesting to look at some ofthese problems to seejust what goes wrong with deterministic predictions, and why. This gives us a much clearer view ofwhat questions objective science can meaningfully ask and what it cannot, and what parts oflife must be left out ofthe scientific equation. It appears that several of the non-classical conclusions may be ofcentral importance in understanding the relations between manandman and between man and the universe. The Areas ofDeterminism The concept ofdeterminismis closely bound up with the concept ofthe "isolated system." An isolated system, in astronomy or physics or chemistry , is a body or collection ofbodies—for example, the sun and planets, or the chemicals in a flask—which are supposed to interact in some respect only with each other. It is a system which an observer can either start off or can observe accurately at some initial time, and which can then continue to be observed indefinitely without any appreciable disturbance to its motions or behavior from interactions with the observer himself or with the rest ofthe universe. These conditions are evidently essential in order for determinism to hold, that is, in order for our specification of the initial state ofthe system to suffice for determining its final state accurately at any later time. Ofcourse, isolation from the surroundings is never perfect. The chemicals in the flask boil offinto the air. The earth's tides slow down the moon by amounts that can be measured. Nevertheless, the "isolated system" is a useful and accurate approximation for most ofthe problems we know how to solve in physics and chemistry and engineering; and in fact, that is why we know how to solve them. Ifwe correct for the small disturbances , Newton's laws will predict eclipses and the motions ofplanets or man-made satellites for years or centuries ahead. The planets are heavy bodies, not much affected by the dust in their paths or the sunbeams by which we observe them. Few other predictions in science are as certain as those of the planets, but in most cases the uncertainties are not believed to be due to any breakdown of determinism. Forecasting the weather, for example, is difficult apparently because of the great complexity of...