Science NEVER considers the "god did it" hypothesis

[GregD]

The point has come up a time or two on other threads: In the game of science one NEVER considers the "god did it" hypothesis. This is no accident or oversight, but rather a founding principle of the scientific method.

In the game of science the following activities occur:

• one or more hypotheses are proposed to explain some aspect of the behavior of the real world.
• observations, experiments, and analyses are performed which attempt to refute or support an hypothesis
• refuted hypotheses are rejected
• un-refuted hypotheses are ranked by the weight of the supporting evidence
• the best supported hypotheses are ranked by simplicity
• the most simple of the best supported hypotheses is considered the best.

This last point is critical: an hypothesis that is more simple is preferred than a more complicated hypothesis because logically it is more likely to be true. The words "simple" and "complicated" have specific meanings in this context; they refer to the number of conditions which must be true for the hypothesis to be true, as well as the probabilities that these conditions are true.

A simple example to illustrate this point. I have a back yard surrounded by a fence where I keep my 2 dogs. The area is covered in grass. I go out one evening and observe that there is a hole in the grass about 3 inches deep. Some hypotheses come to mind:

1. a dog dug the hole
2. one of my two dogs dug the hole
3. a specific one of my two dogs dug the hole
4. my neighbor's dog dug the hole
5. god did it

These hypotheses are listed in order from most simple to most complex. For hypothesis 2 to be true requires hypothesis 1 to be true, although hypothesis 1 can be true regardless of whether hypothesis 2 is true. Consequently, 1 is more simple than 2. By the same reasoning 2 is more simple than 3. Hypothesis 4, like hypothesis 3, requires that the hole was dug by a dog and that I know what dog dug the hole, but the fence (because it happens to be in good condition) reduces the probability that the neighbor's dog could even get into the yard to dig the hole.

For hypothesis 5 to be true requires a large number of other things to be true, and the probabilities of those things being true are pretty low. First and foremost, since god is supernatural, god can only exist if our reality consists not only of the natural world but also a supernatural world. Hypothesis 5 further requires that the supernatural force that dug the hole in my back yard is intelligent; it fails if the hole was dug by some un-intelligent supernatural force.

Science never considers the "god did it" hypothesis because it is hopelessly complicated.

And there are additional difficulties with considering the "god did it" hypothesis:

The problem with offering “God did it” as an explanation is that such an explanation has low plausibility, is not testable, has poor consistency with background knowledge, comes from a tradition (supernaturalism) with extreme explanatory failure, lacks simplicity, offers no predictive novelty, and has poor explanatory scope. It fails to provide almost everything philosophers and scientists look for in a successful explanation. That is why “God did it” is generally a horrible explanation, not because it leaves the explanation itself (God) unexplained.

(Luke Muehlhauser http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6113)

What about those things for which science has no plausible hypothesis? Things like the origin of life and the cause of the Big Bang. The scientific response is - we don't know.

[sarge]

To make overly generalistic statements like "Science never considers----" isn't very scientific.

You're basically saying there are no scientists who are religious.

Given the number of people in the world who are religious (of one denomination or another) and comparing that to the number of people who are scientists, the Science of Statistics tells us that there would be significant overlap.

[GregD]

To make overly generalistic statements like "Science never considers----" isn't very scientific.

You're basically saying there are no scientists who are religious.

Given the number of people in the world who are religious (of one denomination or another) and comparing that to the number of people who are scientists, the Science of Statistics tells us that there would be significant overlap.

Many scientists are religious. But they still don't propose the "god did it" hypothesis in their scientific work.

[sarge]

I'll also note that using a website called "Common Sense Atheism" as a source isn't very scientific either, given its obvious bias.

Its essentially the same thing as someone offering the Bible as proof God did do it.

[sarge]

To make overly generalistic statements like "Science never considers----" isn't very scientific.

You're basically saying there are no scientists who are religious.

Given the number of people in the world who are religious (of one denomination or another) and comparing that to the number of people who are scientists, the Science of Statistics tells us that there would be significant overlap.

Many scientists are religious. But they still don't propose the "god did it" hypothesis in their scientific work.

I'll go along with "many", but not "all" or even "most of them".

As an adherent to the Scientific Method, I stay away from overly generalistic statements and those with fluid definition like "many" and "most".

Therefore, the more scientific statement would be: "There is diagreement within the Scientific community as to whether God is responsible for the creation of the Universe." as that's the one that is true and doesn't proselytize for either atheism or religiousity and allows for all Scientists to be completely free in their analysis of natural phenomenon.

[GregD]

Therefore, the more scientific statement would be: "There is diagreement within the Scientific community as to whether God is responsible for the creation of the Universe." as that's the one that is true and doesn't proselytize for either atheism or religiousity and allows for all Scientists to be completely free in their analysis of natural phenomenon.

Even scientists that believe that some particular god is responsible for the creation of the Universe do not, in their pursuit of science, propose the hypothesis that "god did it" to explain any particular phenomena, such as the Big Bang, the origin of life, or indigestion.

This topic has nothing whatsoever to do with whether god exists. It is focused on a specific characteristic of the practice of science.

Science, by definition of the scientific method, does indeed constrain the analysis of natural phenomenon.

[sarge]

Therefore, the more scientific statement would be: "There is diagreement within the Scientific community as to whether God is responsible for the creation of the Universe." as that's the one that is true and doesn't proselytize for either atheism or religiousity and allows for all Scientists to be completely free in their analysis of natural phenomenon.

Even scientists that believe that some particular god is responsible for the creation of the Universe do not, in their pursuit of science, propose the hypothesis that "god did it" to explain any particular phenomena, such as the Big Bang, the origin of life, or indigestion.

This topic has nothing whatsoever to do with whether god exists. It is focused on a specific characteristic of the practice of science.

Science, by definition of the scientific method, does indeed constrain the analysis of natural phenomenon.

None?

Ecklund, director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program, presented preliminary results of the study, “Religious Understandings of Science,” based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. adults including scientists, evangelical Protestants and the general public including 300 in-depth interviews with Christians (more than 140 of whom were evangelicals) Jews and Muslims.

Among the findings:

Nearly 36 percent of scientists have no doubt about God’s existence
18 percent of scientists attended weekly religious services (compared with 20 percent of the general U.S. population
15 percent of scientists consider themselves very religious (19 percent)
13.5 percent of scientists read religious texts weekly (17 percent)

Having no doubt about God's existence would necessarily mean that, as a matter of course, they'd allow at least the possibility that "God did it."

So, basically kids its OK to beleive in God, be sciency at the same time, and its OK to allow for the possibility that God did do it because a lot of scientists do too. It doesn't mean you're stupid, it doesn't mean you're anti-science, and you don't have to be ashamed of it.

[GregD]

In science it doesn't matter what you believe. What matters is what you can prove or disprove.

Proposing an hypothesis asserts not only the hypothesis is true but also that the hypothesis can be proved. So even a competent scientist with unwavering belief in God will not propose the "God did it" hypothesis until the scientist has some competent ideas on how to prove it.

[BillyBob66]

Sorry for the legth of this, but it is in response to each point of the OP:

The point has come up a time or two on other threads: In the game of science one NEVER considers the "god did it" hypothesis. This is no accident or oversight, but rather a founding principle of the scientific method.

If it is a founding principle, then wouldn’t scientists start all of their investigations with a potentially blinding bias by refusing to consider one possibility? Similar to the blinding bias of the medical science docs late 1800s, when they persecuted Semmeweiss for having the audacity to suggest that medical students should wash their hands( accidentally (confirming a law of Moses, BTW) as they finished their autopsies but before they went straight to the child birth ward to examine the moms who were about to give birth? Even the observable fact/result that death from child birth fever dropped 80-90% in the patients of the 1 doc and his students who washed their hands, they had a bias that blinded them to what would turn out to be scientific fact. It would seem an open mind would be more in agreement with the scientific method, rather than adamantly refusing to consider that God might have done it, or any other possibility.

Also, don’t you actually mean the fact that scientists “never” consider that God might have done it- and/or also that he did it in the ancient past I assume - is a relatively recent development (rather than a founding principle?) becoming popular since every one jumped on the Darwin band wagon with little hard scientific proof? For example, the father of the scientific method, Sir Francis Bacon, clearly believed in a creator God, as did the one some consider the most powerful scientific mind ever, Isaac Newton, and quite a few others to boot. Some of these believed that a creator, designer God created the universe as well as the laws of physics they were trying to discover and understand. Even as they observed how the planets move through the heavens, they believed- as some do now- that originally God did that. Even that He created the laws which they were observing.

In the game of science the following activities occur:

• one or more hypotheses are proposed to explain some aspect of the behavior of the real world.
• observations, experiments, and analyses are performed which attempt to refute or support an hypothesis
• refuted hypotheses are rejected
• un-refuted hypotheses are ranked by the weight of the supporting evidence
• the best supported hypotheses are ranked by simplicity
• the most simple of the best supported hypotheses is considered the best.

This last point is critical: an hypothesis that is more simple is preferred (emphasis BB's) than a more complicated hypothesis because logically it is more likely to be true. The words "simple" and "complicated" have specific meanings in this context; they refer to the number of conditions which must be true for the hypothesis to be true, as well as the probabilities that these conditions are true.

If you find a precision machine on a far away planet, is it more likely/more simple that it came to be by itself out of some other lifeless material, or that a smart, scientist type engineer designed it? It seems to me that in daily life, we do not assume that complex things made themselves, or simply appeared without a designer. To think that they did would seem to be a really complicated, not simple, explanation.

Many, if not most, modern scientists seem to accept or assume that the Big Bang and following spontaneous generation of life and evolution to modern man as accepted, obvious, even proven science. The hypothesis is certainly there, so far so good. But where are the observations and experiments that can prove any of that stuff about billions of years ago? Where is the experiment that can even prove that a dating method is still accurate to billions of years ago, since there is no way to travel back and prove it accurate? And finally, about simplicity. Could anything be more complicated and unlikely than what so many( but not all! ) modern scientists believe about the evolution of life, even what they believe in their hearts about the origin of matter and life? What with the continual breaking of mind blowing odds that not only will matter suddenly appear out of no where, but that then dead matter will come to life? And then by a continuing breaking of odds, and things happening which have never been observed, the incredible complexity of human ( indeed even non-human) life just accidentally happens? That at the same time(otherwise death would probably occur), a need both for insulin and an insulin secreting pancreas would appear in a creature that has previously needed neither insulin or a pancreas to manufacture and secrete it? Now multiply that by a hundred or a thousand or million of the incredible processes that take place in the human mind and body, and claim that this all took place without the aid of a designer. All taking place on a planet that just happens to have a life sustaining atmosphere and that just happens to stay just close enough/far away from the Sun that the middle of the planet is neither a frozen antarctic or like our nearest planets, either ice or fire. All by accident, with no designer. How is such as this “an hypothesis that is more simple”, compared to “it appears to be designed”?

A simple example to illustrate this point. I have a back yard surrounded by a fence where I keep my 2 dogs. The area is covered in grass. I go out one evening and observe that there is a hole in the grass about 3 inches deep. Some hypotheses come to mind:

1. a dog dug the hole
2. one of my two dogs dug the hole
3. a specific one of my two dogs dug the hole
4. my neighbor's dog dug the hole
5. god did it

These hypotheses are listed in order from most simple to most complex. For hypothesis 2 to be true requires hypothesis 1 to be true, although hypothesis 1 can be true regardless of whether hypothesis 2 is true. Consequently, 1 is more simple than 2. By the same reasoning 2 is more simple than 3. Hypothesis 4, like hypothesis 3, requires that the hole was dug by a dog and that I know what dog dug the hole, but the fence (because it happens to be in good condition) reduces the probability that the neighbor's dog could even get into the yard to dig the hole.

For hypothesis 5 to be true requires a large number of other things to be true, and the probabilities of those things being true are pretty low. First and foremost, since god is supernatural, god can only exist if our reality consists not only of the natural world but also a supernatural world. Hypothesis 5 further requires that the supernatural force that dug the hole in my back yard is intelligent; it fails if the hole was dug by some un-intelligent supernatural force.

Science never considers the "god did it" hypothesis because it is hopelessly complicated.

Well, the example may have problems. First, it seems to me even most Christians, even the non-scientist among them, are unlikely to say that God dug the hole. As opposed to, say, asserting that an all powerful God designed first the place for the dog to live, then designed the dog who would reproduce as all varieties of dogs( with scientifically observable in real life selective breeding occurring over the millennia to produce all the variety of what are still dogs), and then a descendant of the original 2 created dogs ( male and female) dug the hole. Very few are going to claim that God did it, as opposed to maybe the dog he created might have done it. But how is the latter any more complicated than claiming that the dog evolved from the original 1 celled organism, which appeared out of lifeless ( and sterilized by 1 billion degrees of heat? Some think they know that) material, evolving by endless fortuitous accidents into a dog that dug this hole? The former seems at least as complicated and implausible as the other to me. But maybe that's just me?

And there are additional difficulties with considering the "god did it" hypothesis:

The problem with offering “God did it” as an explanation is that such an explanation has low plausibility, is not testable, has poor consistency with background knowledge, comes from a tradition (supernaturalism) with extreme explanatory failure, lacks simplicity, offers no predictive novelty, and has poor explanatory scope. It fails to provide almost everything philosophers and scientists look for in a successful explanation. That is why “God did it” is generally a horrible explanation, not because it leaves the explanation itself (God) unexplained.

(Luke Muehlhauser http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6113)

What about those things for which science has no plausible hypothesis? Things like the origin of life and the cause of the Big Bang. The scientific response is - we don't know.

But many scientists do not act like they “don’t know”. They act and speak more like the Big Bang followed by the evolution of incredibly complicated and precise life are pretty well proven fact. And also that “God did it”is preposterous on it’s face. Again I ask, how does their much preferred theory have plausibility ( they must believe that their coffee table can become Mozart, if we just give it enough time)? How do Y’all think such random advancement of life and precision from non-life and chaos does not also lack simplicity? Are you basing such ideas on anything you normally observe in your lives? Is that something that you normally see(or anyone else has seen?): that precision and improvement and increasing complexity come out of chaos? Are our brains(having had a few hundred or more years to evolve) superior to Newton’s or other great minds of the past? Even with medical science, are we living any longer (max lifespan) than our ancestors as our bodies improve themselves, or do we still have the same approximate length of years before the inevitable deterioration- not advancement- occurs and we go back to dust? What about the thousands(millions?) of species of animals? Are they steadily improving? Living longer? I am just wondering by what simple observations you guys are basing the simplicity of evolution on?

I know you say science has nothing to say about origins. But many scientists seem pretty certain about X billions of years and how things happened after that first 1 celled organism spontaneously generated. And we don’t argue about V * C = I. That is observable, testable, predictable, repeatable, etc. And the Bible says nothing to contradict it. Origins and the following evolution is what we argue about, things you guys think happened billions of years ago, and whether or not it is possible that God did it.

[GregD]

If it is a founding principle, then wouldn’t scientists start all of their investigations with a potentially blinding bias by refusing to consider one possibility? Similar to the blinding bias of the medical science docs late 1800s, when they persecuted Semmeweiss for having the audacity to suggest that medical students should wash their hands( accidentally (confirming a law of Moses, BTW) as they finished their autopsies but before they went straight to the child birth ward to examine the moms who were about to give birth? Even the observable fact/result that death from child birth fever dropped 80-90% in the patients of the 1 doc and his students who washed their hands, they had a bias that blinded them to what would turn out to be scientific fact. It would seem an open mind would be more in agreement with the scientific method, rather than adamantly refusing to consider that God might have done it, or any other possibility.

Also, don’t you actually mean the fact that scientists “never” consider that God might have done it- and/or also that he did it in the ancient past I assume - is a relatively recent development (rather than a founding principle?) becoming popular since every one jumped on the Darwin band wagon with little hard scientific proof? For example, the father of the scientific method, Sir Francis Bacon, clearly believed in a creator God, as did the one some consider the most powerful scientific mind ever, Isaac Newton, and quite a few others to boot. Some of these believed that a creator, designer God created the universe as well as the laws of physics they were trying to discover and understand. Even as they observed how the planets move through the heavens, they believed- as some do now- that originally God did that. Even that He created the laws which they were observing.

It is a bias. Given the success of science indicates to me that the effect has been extraordinarily illuminating rather than blinding.

Eventually the data proved Semmeweiss correct, no? Eventually human failings yield to the data if one makes an honest effort.

My impression is that religious scientists and even the Catholic Church firmly believe that God is responsible for the rules of the universe, and also that the best way to discover those rules is to avoid the "god did it" hypothesis. But it would be best to get their perspective from them.

In the game of science the following activities occur:

• one or more hypotheses are proposed to explain some aspect of the behavior of the real world.
• observations, experiments, and analyses are performed which attempt to refute or support an hypothesis
• refuted hypotheses are rejected
• un-refuted hypotheses are ranked by the weight of the supporting evidence
• the best supported hypotheses are ranked by simplicity
• the most simple of the best supported hypotheses is considered the best.

This last point is critical: an hypothesis that is more simple is preferred (emphasis BB's) than a more complicated hypothesis because logically it is more likely to be true. The words "simple" and "complicated" have specific meanings in this context; they refer to the number of conditions which must be true for the hypothesis to be true, as well as the probabilities that these conditions are true.

If you find a precision machine on a far away planet, is it more likely/more simple that it came to be by itself out of some other lifeless material, or that a smart, scientist type engineer designed it? It seems to me that in daily life, we do not assume that complex things made themselves, or simply appeared without a designer. To think that they did would seem to be a really complicated, not simple, explanation.

In this context "complicated" means "lots of unlikely dependencies which must also be true". As impressive as the machine may be, the intelligence that created it would likely be even more impressive yet.

Many, if not most, modern scientists seem to accept or assume that the Big Bang and following spontaneous generation of life and evolution to modern man as accepted, obvious, even proven science. The hypothesis is certainly there, so far so good. But where are the observations and experiments that can prove any of that stuff about billions of years ago? Where is the experiment that can even prove that a dating method is still accurate to billions of years ago, since there is no way to travel back and prove it accurate? And finally, about simplicity. Could anything be more complicated and unlikely than what so many( but not all! ) modern scientists believe about the evolution of life, even what they believe in their hearts about the origin of matter and life? What with the continual breaking of mind blowing odds that not only will matter suddenly appear out of no where, but that then dead matter will come to life? And then by a continuing breaking of odds, and things happening which have never been observed, the incredible complexity of human ( indeed even non-human) life just accidentally happens? That at the same time(otherwise death would probably occur), a need both for insulin and an insulin secreting pancreas would appear in a creature that has previously needed neither insulin or a pancreas to manufacture and secrete it? Now multiply that by a hundred or a thousand or million of the incredible processes that take place in the human mind and body, and claim that this all took place without the aid of a designer. All taking place on a planet that just happens to have a life sustaining atmosphere and that just happens to stay just close enough/far away from the Sun that the middle of the planet is neither a frozen antarctic or like our nearest planets, either ice or fire. All by accident, with no designer. How is such as this “an hypothesis that is more simple”, compared to “it appears to be designed”?

If you care to take the considerable time to look into it, I am confident that there are answers to all of your questions about the theories leading back to the Big Bang. There are data; there are analyses. In many, probably most cases, the answer to the question might be not so convincing. But after looking at all the question/answer pairs individually, and then stepping back and looking comprehensively at all of them together, a picture begins to emerge. It may be uncertain in places, maybe even everywhere, but even so there are characteristics of the big picture that can't be too far off; too much data points in particular directions. And then there is the fact that physicists are continuously trying to "break" the standard theory and have been trying for decades.

I'll respond to the rest later. For now I've got to run.

[sarge]

It is a bias. Given the success of science indicates to me that the effect has been extraordinarily illuminating rather than blinding.

I agree

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, one of the most respected scientists today claimed that he found definitive proof of the existence of God. The information he shared created a great stir in the scientific community simply because of his status as one of the creators and developers of the revolutionary String Theory, which is highly regarded everywhere in the world.

snip

The report on Feroces Mente explained that to come to this conclusion, he made use of what is called as the "primitive semi-radius tachyons," which are theoretical particles that are capable of unsticking the Universe matter or the vaccum space between particles. They then leave everything free from the influence of the universe that surrounds them.
While working on this theory, Kaku discovered what he says is the evidence that the universe was created by an intelligence rather than by random forces. To put it simply, as stated by Catholic.org, he said that we live in a Matrix-style universe.
"I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence," the scientist said. "Believe me, everything that we call chance today won't make sense anymore. To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance."

[GregD]

Well, the example may have problems. First, it seems to me even most Christians, even the non-scientist among them, are unlikely to say that God dug the hole. As opposed to, say, asserting that an all powerful God designed first the place for the dog to live, then designed the dog who would reproduce as all varieties of dogs( with scientifically observable in real life selective breeding occurring over the millennia to produce all the variety of what are still dogs), and then a descendant of the original 2 created dogs ( male and female) dug the hole. Very few are going to claim that God did it, as opposed to maybe the dog he created might have done it. But how is the latter any more complicated than claiming that the dog evolved from the original 1 celled organism, which appeared out of lifeless ( and sterilized by 1 billion degrees of heat? Some think they know that) material, evolving by endless fortuitous accidents into a dog that dug this hole? The former seems at least as complicated and implausible as the other to me. But maybe that's just me?

Once it has been observed that dogs exist, are likely to be in the area, and are capable of digging, it is quite a simple hypothesis that they dug the hole. And that would be true even if science had absolutely no idea how dogs came to be.

It is fair and logical to say that there is a lot that science does not know at all, and more that science does not know with confidence. It is not, however, logical to conclude that this is:

• evidence that a god exists
• evidence that this god has the characteristics commonly ascribed to it

But many scientists do not act like they “don’t know”. They act and speak more like the Big Bang followed by the evolution of incredibly complicated and precise life are pretty well proven fact. And also that “God did it”is preposterous on it’s face. Again I ask, how does their much preferred theory have plausibility ( they must believe that their coffee table can become Mozart, if we just give it enough time)? How do Y’all think such random advancement of life and precision from non-life and chaos does not also lack simplicity? Are you basing such ideas on anything you normally observe in your lives? Is that something that you normally see(or anyone else has seen?): that precision and improvement and increasing complexity come out of chaos? Are our brains(having had a few hundred or more years to evolve) superior to Newton’s or other great minds of the past? Even with medical science, are we living any longer (max lifespan) than our ancestors as our bodies improve themselves, or do we still have the same approximate length of years before the inevitable deterioration- not advancement- occurs and we go back to dust? What about the thousands(millions?) of species of animals? Are they steadily improving? Living longer? I am just wondering by what simple observations you guys are basing the simplicity of evolution on?

I know you say science has nothing to say about origins. But many scientists seem pretty certain about X billions of years and how things happened after that first 1 celled organism spontaneously generated. And we don’t argue about V * C = I. That is observable, testable, predictable, repeatable, etc. And the Bible says nothing to contradict it. Origins and the following evolution is what we argue about, things you guys think happened billions of years ago, and whether or not it is possible that God did it.

The Big Bang theory was motivated by data. So was the theory of Evolution. There are gaps in the data, certainly, but all the available data fits the theory, and there is a lot of data. As more data comes in these theories are likely to be modified, maybe a little, maybe a lot. It is not so much that science is confident that these theories in their current form are exactly, precisely correct, but they ARE confident that these theories are without a doubt far more likely to be accurate than any other explanation yet considered.

[sarge]

Apparently, Michio Kaku's determination that the Univerase was created by an intelligence relied on data as well.

[GregD]

Apparently, Michio Kaku's determination that the Univerase was created by an intelligence relied on data as well.

From what little I have seen on Kaku:

1. Yes, he appears to be well informed on the data.
2. His intelligent creator does not resemble the God of the Bible.
3. I did not see him make any strong arguments for this conclusion.

Nevertheless it still doesn't pass the "most simple explanation" criteria, and consequently it will be unworkable as a scientific hypothesis.

Renowned scientists don't get everything right. For example, Linus Pauling had some quacky views of vitamin C.

[GregD]

Apparently, Michio Kaku's determination that the Univerase was created by an intelligence relied on data as well.

Have a look at Kaku's portions of this debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmkrI-K7yBo

He provides a good, short explanation of science. "God did it" is not verifiable, so it doesn't work as a scientific hypothesis.