Is Science Flawed?
Senin, 19 Mei 2003M
18 Rabiul Awal 1424H
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Sebuah drama yang bagus tentang dialog sains dan ketuhanan:
Let me explain the problem science has with God. “The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand. “You’re a Muslim, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you believe in God?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is God good?”
“Sure! God is good.”
“Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?”
“Yes.”
“Are you good or evil?”
“The Qur’an says I’m evil.”
The professor grins knowingly. “Ahh! THE QUR’AN!” He considers for a moment. “Here’s one for you. Let’s say there’s a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help them? Would you try?”
“Yes sir, I would.”
“So you’re good…!”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why not say that? You would help a sick and maimed person if you could…in fact most of us would if we could… God doesn’t. “
[No answer.]
“He doesn’t, does he? My brother was a Muslim who died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. How is this God good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?”
[No answer]
The elderly man is sympathetic. “No, you can’t, can you?” He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones. “Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?”
“Er… Yes.”
“Is Satan good?”
“No.”
“Where does Satan come from?” The student falters.
“From… God…”
“That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he?” The elderly man runs his bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking, student audience. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen.” He turns back to the Muslim. “Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? Did God make everything?”
“Yes.”
“Who created evil? “
[No answer]
“Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All the terrible things – do they exist in this world? “
The student squirms on his feet.
“Yes.”
“Who created them? “
[No answer]
The professor suddenly shouts at his student. “WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!” The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the Muslim’s face. In a still small voice: “God created all evil, didn’t He, son?”
[No answer]
The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther.
The class is mesmerized.
“Tell me, “ he continues, “How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?” The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world.
“All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn’t it, young man?”
[No answer]
“Don’t you see it all over the place? Huh?”
Pause.
“Don’t you?”
The professor leans into the student’s face again and whispers, “Is God good?”
[No answer]
“Do you believe in God, son?”
The student’s voice betrays him and cracks.
“Yes, professor. I do.”
The old man shakes his head sadly. “Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen your God? “
“No, sir. I’ve never seen Him.”
“Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your God?”
“No, sir. I have not.”
“Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God or smelt your God…in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?”
[No answer]
“Answer me, please.”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“You’re AFRAID… you haven’t?”
“No, sir.”
“Yet you still believe in him?”
“…yes…”
“That takes FAITH!” The professor smiles sagely at the underling.
“According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol,
science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?”
[The student doesn't answer]
“Sit down, please.”
The Muslim sits…Defeated.
Another Muslim raises his hand. “Professor, may I address the class?”
The professor turns and smiles. “Ah, another Muslim in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering.” The Muslim looks around the room. “Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I’ve got a question for you. Is there such thing as heat?”
“Yes, “ the professor replies. “There’s heat.”
“Is there such a thing as cold?”
“Yes, son, there’s cold too.”
“No, sir, there isn’t.”
The professor’s grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold. The second Muslim continues. “You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold otherwise we would be able to go colder than negative 458 – You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.”
Silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.
“Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?”
“That’s a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn’t darkness? What are you getting at…?”
“So you say there is such a thing as darkness?”
“Yes…”
“You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use to define the word. In reality Darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you…give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?”
Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him.
This will indeed be a good semester.
“Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?”
“Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error….”
The professor goes toxic. “Flawed…? How dare you…!”
“Sir, may I explain what I mean?”
The class is all ears.
“Explain… oh, explain…” The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability itself. He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.
“You are working on the premise of duality, “ the Muslim explains. “That for example there is life and then there’s death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it.”
The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbor who has been reading it.
“Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor.
Is there such a thing as immorality?”
“Of course there is, now look…”
“Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?”
The Muslim pauses.
“Isn’t evil the absence of good?”
The professor’s face has turned an alarming color. He is so angry he is temporarily speechless.
The Muslim continues.
“If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil. What is that work God is accomplishing? The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil.”
The professor bridles. “As a philosophical scientist, I don’t vie this matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation because God is not observable.”
“I would have thought that the absence of God’s moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going, “ the Muslim replies.
“Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?”
“If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.”
“Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?”
The professor makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student a silent, stony stare.
“Professor. Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?”
“I’ll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion.
Now, have you quite finished?” the professor hisses.
“So you don’t accept God’s moral code to do what is righteous?”
“I believe in what is – that’s science!”
“Ahh! SCIENCE!” the student’s face splits into a grin. “Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science too is a premise which is flawed…”
“SCIENCE IS FLAWED..?” the professor splutters.
The class is in uproar. The Muslim remains standing until the commotion has subsided.
“To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?”
The professor wisely keeps silent. The Muslim looks around the room.
“Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor’s brain?”
The class breaks out in laughter. The Muslim points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor.
“Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain… felt the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain?”.
No one appears to have done so. The Muslim shakes his head sadly.
“It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor’s brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I DECLARE that the professor has no brain.”
The class is in chaos.
The Muslim sits… Because that is what a chair is for
Popularity: 7% [?]
Rabu, 12 Januari 2005 @ 21:25
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Internet Explorer 5.0 Windows 98
menurut saya, cerita di atas sangat bagus bangett!bcoz, perdebatan masalah seperti ini sangat mengasyikkan… karena masing-masing orang mempunyai prinsip hidup masing-masing!
tetapi agak frontal sedikit jika membicarakan masalah yang berkaitan dengan Tuhan
Sabtu, 10 Juni 2006 @ 8:36
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Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
Menarik sekali!
Sebenarnya pada abad ke 17 seorang filsuf skotlandia bernama David Hume pernah mengungkapkan “Problem of Induction”, problem yang terkandung dalam metode induksi atau disebut juga metode generalisasi. Hume menyatakan bahwa data representatif, seberapapun prosentasenya, tidak bisa secara logis dipakai untuk mengambil kesimpulan terhadap seluruh populasi.
Misal ada sepuluh apel. Anda makan satu, terasa masam. Anda ambil lagi dan menicipi, terasa masam juga, anda ambil satu lagi dan setelah dicicipi maka terasa masam juga. Anda lakukan terus hal tersebut hingga apel kesembilan dan semuanya terasa masam. Tinggal satu apel, anda cenderung akan meyakini bahwa apel terakhir itu juga akan terasa masam. Apakah ini logis? Jelas tidak. Apel terakhir bisa masam tapi bisa juga manis. Bahwa apel sebelumnya terasa masam tidak berarti bahwa apel terakhir terasa masam juga.
Meski demikian dalam kondisi tersebut tentu kita akan cenderung berpendapat bahwa apel terakhir terasa masam, walau kita belum mencicipinya.
Perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan tidak bisa lepas dari induksi. Pengembangan teori juga tidak pernah lepas dari induksi. Artinya ilmu pengetahuan dan teori juga mengandung problem.
Sewaktu Hume mengungkapkan Problem of Induction tersebut, dunia ilmu pengetahuan geger…untuk sementara…kemudian tenang lagi. Mengapa? Karena meskipun Problem of Induction itu secara nalar nyata adanya, namun dianggap tidak mempengaruhi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan itu sendiri. Jadi meskipun berproblem, ilmu pengetahuan tetap bisa berkembang dan menghasilkan teknologi yang berguna untuk kehidupan manusia.
Artinya: ilmu pengetahuan memang mempunyai banyak celah untuk kesalahan.
Kesimpulan: Mencari kebenaran adalah hal yang susah dan berbahaya, namun lebih berbahaya lagi jika kita berasumsi bahwa kebenaran mutlak sudah ada di tangan kita.
Kamis, 19 April 2007 @ 6:18
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Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
“Dialogue with a young theist.” by Todangst.
A philosophy professor challenged his students with a form of the Euthyphro dilema: Did ‘God’ create everything that exists?” A student replied, “Yes, he did!” (The ‘bravely’ part is removed, seeing as
civil disagreement is the very point of philosphy courses, no bravery is required for dissent. In fact, civil dissent is often rewarded in a philosophy class.)
“God created everything?” the professor asked. “Yes,” the student replied. (The ‘sir’ part is removed, as no student in the 21st century addresses a college professor in this fashion, and the use of ‘sir’ is just a pretense of ‘respect’ from the theist mouthpiece who’s actually feeling little more than contempt for the professor.’
The professor answered, “Well then, here’s a logical puzzle for you: If God created everything, then God created evil; since evil exists and, according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil.”
The student became silently enraged over his worldview being ‘attacked’. He began to project out his feelings of inadequecy as smugness coming from the professor.
The student then said: “Can I ask you a question professor?”
“Of course,” replied the professor. That’s the point of philosophical discourse. (The writer of the original story clearly has little experience with a real college classroom. The whole point of a philosophy or theology course is to foster discussion.)
Student: Is there such thing as heat?”
Professor: Yes, the professor replies. There’s heat.
Student: “Is there such a thing as cold?”
Professor: “Yes, there’s cold too.”
Student: “No, sir, there isn’t”
The professor doesn’t grin or frown or react with any emotion other than curiosity. (The desire to see the professors ‘smug smile wiped off his face’ is just another projection of the feelings of inadequecy found in theists who argue like this sort of pablum…)
The student continues. You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit 458 degrees below zero,
which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458, You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of
heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it”
Professor: (Nodding his head in dismay, and working out how many times he’s heard this bad logic by now). Do you remember the section in your workbook on semantic fallacies? By your “logic” we could also say there is no ‘heat’, only differing degrees of cold.
Student: ( gives a confused look a dog might make)
Professor: Your choice of ‘heat’ over ‘cold’ was arbitrary. In reality, both ‘heat’ and ‘cold’ are subjective terms… what the philosopher John Locke properly called “secondary qualities”. The secondary qualities refer to a very real phenomena: the movement of atomic and sub atomic particles. We refer to their different rates of movement as ‘temperature.’ So what we ‘really’ have is temperature…. the terms ‘heat’ and “cold’ are merely subjective terms we use to denote our relative experience of temperature.
So your entire argument is specious at best. You have not ‘proven’ that ‘cold’ does not exist, what you have done is shown that ‘cold’ is a subjective term. Removing the term we use to reference the phenomena does not eradicate the phenomena.
Student: (a bit stunned) “Uh… Ok…. Well, is there such a thing as darkness, professor?”
Professor: You are still employing the same logical fallacy. Just with a different set of of secondary qualities.
Student: “So you say there is such a thing as darkness?”
Professor: “What I am telling you is that you are repeating the very same error. “Darkness exists as a secondary quality.
Student: “You’re wrong again. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?
Professor: Sure, right after you give me a jar of light. Seriously, what we call ‘light’ is actually a reference to photons. You’ve confused a secondary quality with an attribute again. “Light and dark’ are subjective terms we use to describe a measure of photons. The photons actually exist, the terms ‘light’ and ‘dark’ are just subjective, relative terms… Doing away with a subjective term does not eradicate the actual phenomena itself – the photons.
Student: (gives a look not unlike a 3 year old trying to work out quantum physics)
Professor: I see your still struggling with the fallacy hidden in your argument. But let’s continue, perhaps you’ll see it.
Student: Well, you are working on the premise of duality”, the christian explains.
Professor: Actually, I’ve debunked that claim two times now. But carry on.
Student: “Well, you assume, for example, that there is a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.
Professor: And here, my class, we have a special plead fallacy. Be careful, my student. If you want to place your god beyond the grasps of reason, logic, and science and make him ‘unmeasurable’, then you are left with nothing but a mystery. So if you use this special plead to solve the problem, you can’t call your god moral either. You can’t call him anything. You can’t say anything else about something beyond reason. So your solution is akin to treating dandruf by decapitation.
Student: (Gulps. Continues on, oblivious to what was just said) Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them.
Professor: You just said that science cannot explain a thought. I’m not even sure what you mean by that. I think what you mean to say is this: there remains many mysteries in neuroscience. Would you agree?
Student: Yes sir.
Professor: And, along the same line of thought, we accept that there are things like thoughts, or electricity or magnetism even though we have never seen them?
Student: Yes!
Professor: Recall the section in your textbook concerning fallacies of false presumption. Turn to the entry on ‘Category error’. You’ll recall that a category error occurs when an inappropriate measure is used in regards to an entity, such as asking someone what the color a sound is.
Asking someone to see magnetism commits such an error. However, there is yet another error in your argument: it assumes that empiricism relates to vision alone. This is false. Sight is not the sole means of knowing the world. We can use other senses to detect these phenomena. And we can view their effects upon the world.
Furthermore, Again, you are conflating the fact that science is incomplete with the ridiculous implication that science knows ‘nothing’ about these phenomena… so you’ll also want to review the section on ‘arguing from ignorance.’
Do you have more to say?
Student: (The student, continues, mainly unfazed, due to the protection his shield of ignorance affords him.) …. Um……. to view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot
exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it”
Professor: You are really in love with this secondary quality fallacy, aren’t you? You are again confusing a secondary quality with the phenomena in of itself. “Death” and “life” are subjective terms we use
to describe a more fundamental phenomena – biology. The phenomena in question, however, does exist. Biological forms in various states exist. Doing away with the subjective term does not eradicate the existence of death.
Nonplussed, the young man continues: “Is there such a thing as immorality?”
Professor: (Reaches for an asprin in his desk) Son… you’re not going to again confuse a secondary quality for an attribute, are you? Please… what can I do to help you see this problem?
Student: (Continues on, fueled by ideology and oblivious to reality) You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?” The christian pauses. “Isn’t evil the absence of good?”
Professor: So, if someone murders your mother tonight, nothing happened? There was just an absence of morality in your house? Wait, I forgot… she’s not dead… she’s just experiencing an absence of life, right?
Student: Uh…..
Professor: You’re beginning to see that something is missing in your argument, aren’t you? Here’s what your missing. You are confusing a secondary quality… a subjective term that we can use to describe a
phenomena, for the phenomena itself. Perhaps you heard me mention this before? (The class erupts in laughter, the professor motions for them to stop laughing.) ‘Immorality’ is a descriptive term for a behavior. The terms are secondary, but the behaviors exist. So if you remove the secondary qualities, you do nothing to eradicate the real behavior that the terms only exist to describe. So by saying that ‘immorality’ is a lack of morality, you are not removing immorality from existence, you are just removing the secondary attribute, the term.
And notice how dishonest your argument is… in that it speaks of morality and immorality devoid of behavior, but ‘evil’ exists as a behavior, evil is an intent to do harm.
By the way, are you really trying to imply that immorality or evil are merely subjective qualities?
Student: Gulp! (Reeling from the psychological blows to his corrupt worldview….) Sir, Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?”
The professor soothes his aching forehead, and prepares for the 1 millionth time that he will be subjected to the ‘can you see the wind’ argument.
Professor: What an interesting turn this conversation has taken. Can I advise you to read Brofenbrenner’s suggestion against arguing over subjects over which you are uninformed? It’s in your textbook.
Student: “Professor, since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now
not a scientist, but a priest?
Professor: Interesting indirect comment on the priesthood. But let’s leave that aside… We do observe the process of evolution at work, for the process works at this very moment. As for the implication in your argument that one must ‘be there’ to observe a process at it occurs, surely you realize that we can infer the process through examining the evidence that these processes leave behind? In a sense, we ‘are there’ when we observe artifacts.
Consider for example the science of astronomy. How do we know about super novas? Because we can observe diferrent supernovas in different stages of super nova, by observing their ‘artifacts’ in the night sky. The same stands for any historical science. Your mistake here is that you think science is merely observation, and ‘real-time-observation’ at that…This is a strawman of science. Science is both direct and indirect observation… it also allows for inference.
Student: “But sir! You stated that science is the study of observed phenomena.
Professor: No, this is a strawman of what science is… Science is more than just real time observation, we also make inferences. But continue….
Student: (Responds to this as a goat might respond to a book on calculus) May I give you an example of what I mean?”
Professor: Certainly.
Student: “Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen air, oxygen, molecules, atoms, the professor’s brain?”
The class breaks out in laughter. The christian points towards professor, “Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain… felt the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain?” “No one appears to have done so”, The christian shakes his head sadly. “It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor’s brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I declare that the professor has no brain!”
Professor: You mean, according to your strawman view of science. I am glad that you are here in my class so that I can help you better understand what you criticize. Science is not merely ‘looking’ at things. Science is empirical, but also rational. We can make inferences from evidence of things that we do see, back to phenonema that we might not be able to directly see.
And one inference I can make from observing your behaviors here today is that you’ve wasted the money you’ve spent on your logic textbook so far this year. I strongly advise, for your own sake, that you crack open that book today, and start reading.