The Science God   (Introduction continued) 

In our time, moral relativism rests mostly on the view of the world called postmodernism. Postmodernism has taken so many forms that it is difficult to define, but it basically says that human thinking cannot get to any solid, reliable conclusions about the real world. All our reasoning depends on our being able to make statements that express our thoughts in ways that at least some of our fellow humans can understand. Statements like “There are seven colors in the rainbow” or “All whales are mammals” or “First degree murderers should be executed by society”. In order to make sense, these statements require clear definitions of the terms that they contain. Unfortunately, terms like “murderer”, “mammal”, and even “color” are so totally shaped by the programming in the upbringing of the person using the terms that communicating ideas between people from different cultures is fraught with pitfalls. In some parts of the world, people are trained from childhood to see fewer colors than in others. They may have a single word for “bluey-green” or “reddish-orange”. It is much more difficult for people from different cultures to communicate clearly about more abstract concepts like “good” or “justice”.

Science is not much help to us in this dilemma because even Physics, the most precise of the sciences, is telling us today that terms like “molecule” or “atom” are really just socially constructed terms that are useful to explain some of the research going on in Physics, but there is much more going on in reality that strays outside of the old, obsolete terms like “atom”. The old terms give us models of reality that have proved useful in the past, and that still prove useful at some levels of resolution, but that are not leading us to better understanding of matter, space, and time in modern research. Terms like “whale” are even more temporary; once whales did not exist and some day they will again cease to exist. Thus, there’s no “Truth” in science. Only temporary “truths” that are discarded when they no longer prove useful. All concepts in all societies can be shown to be culturally constructed and limited in their usefulness to only their own cultural contexts.

The idea of attempting to create a universal moral code is not only absurd for postmodernism, it is even a kind of immoral. Any attempt on my part to build a universal moral code is a violation by me, and the culture which programmed me to want to strive for such a goal, of the other cultures of the world. I have no right or business even attempting such a task.

But postmodernism, as has been shown, is incoherent. If no terms can be clearly defined, then all the writing postmodernists do should be impossible to comprehend or to translate from, for example, French to English. But such translations have been done for nearly all the postmodernists’ essays and books, satisfactorily for the authors and critics. Furthermore, even in their works in their own languages, postmodernists should be unable to say anything meaningful to each other. But they say things that they can debate and criticize to each other all the time. They use the terms and concepts of their own cultures as if others must know what they are talking about. All these attempts to communicate anything with anyone should be hopeless wastes of time if we accept postmodernism in the first place. But the postmodernists themselves apparently don’t see it that way. (See the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on postmodernism, and especially the description near the end of the entry in which Habermas’ critique of this “ism” is described.) ^5.

Furthermore, even in the most controversial branches of science, Anthropology and Sociology, where a lot of postmodernist moral relativists work, strong reasoning has been given to justify doing real, substantive researching and communicating about societies and how they work. The postmodern view in these social science fields, in its extreme forms, argues that social science and even science generally are useless as activities because we can’t find and never will find any general statements about how our world works that state reliable truths about our world or ourselves. They’re all statements of opinion. Always. Some social scientists (e.g. Harris) respond by arguing that science does not pretend to give us irrefutable general rules describing what we see in our world. It only tries to give us generalizations that look likely to be true and that are testable by observation of events in the world. These are not judged by scientists to be perfect statements of truth. They are only ways of organizing and explaining what we are seeing in the real world when we observe it carefully. Science is skeptical about its own models and terms. But it aims to provide useful insights into reality that docile acceptance of the world does not. In a simple example, it is useful to know that smokers are much more likely to get cancer than non-smokers, even though I can’t say which exact smokers will be diagnosed with which forms of cancer when. When you realize that your odds of living long are being reduced with every cigarette you smoke, you become more inclined to quit smoking, even though no one can tell you for certain that you will live longer if you do so. (See Harris’ article in Science, Materialism, and the Study of Culture.) ^6.

We won’t survive if we accept, and live by, the postmodernist view. Not in the world we have now. Our world’s hazards are too great, and they are closing in, becoming more likely to end us with each year that passes. Therefore, a universal moral code is no longer optional; it is mandatory. We must find that universal moral code if we are to survive.

Each of us already has a code that informs and shapes all that each of us does, day in and day out. This is true of people all over the world, even those who say they no longer believe in anything. Codes differ from individual to individual and much more so from culture to culture. But if any one of us truly believed in nothing, that person would sit catatonic and stare. Very few get reduced that.  

We all have codes in our heads that tell us what matters as we move through our day and what we should do about those things in order to get to tomorrow and take up the task again. That is what moral codes do. In other words, those codes must be updated and brought into matching ever more closely, from person to person and culture to culture, if we are to get busy on fixing our problems, the two worst being ecosystem degradation and the spread of nuclear weapons. Moral relativism does not enable that kind of cooperation.  

On the other hand, moral realism says that there must be a logical, evidence-based explanation for our moral codes. A basic tenet of science is that all phenomena in reality can be explained by careful observations of reality and careful formulating and testing of hypotheses that attempt to explain those observations. Then, by research, thought, and discussion, we arrive at models of the phenomena we’re studying that more and more effectively explain them – what the phenomena have done and what they will do. Moral realism sets out to find such an explanation for our moral codes – the mental software that informs and shapes the choices that we make and the things that we do.

In this book, I will work out a solution to our moral dilemma, a solution based not on holy texts or personal epiphanies, but on logical arguments supported by replicable evidence. However, I admit that readers will have to give their full attention to following the arguments I present here. This book aims to fill a tall order; its thesis and the case for that thesis can’t be put in a line or two.

I also begin with a warning. I will try hard to make my case objective, but I know that at times it is also going to become personal. I don’t apologize for this. I will discuss matters that I believe are profoundly important for us all – in all aspects of our lives, from international relations to daily social interactions.

The big question in our era, the Age of Science, is this: How can an informed human being in modern times find balance between Morality and Science? These two domains of knowledge are usually viewed nowadays as being incompatible.  

The answer is that they are so far from incompatible that the pronoun “they” doesn’t fit here. In reality, only a single, giant system of ideas is being discussed. There is a way of understanding all that we know, a way that integrates all our models of the events we experience, including both the scientific ones and the moral ones. Therefore, I reiterate: correctly understood, Science is Religion.

In making my case, I know that I am trying to do what Philosophers call "derive ought from is.” Show there is a scientific base for a moral code (the "ought" part) clearly discernible in the facts of the physical world (the "is" part). In short, we can see what “right” is in the events we see in the real world. And we can figure that code out by looking at the evidence – in science, in history, and in daily life. This claim will then serve, at the very end of the book, as the core of my case for a sort of theism.

                       

                       Human facing raw nature Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog

                      (credit: Caspar David Friedrich, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

We’ll begin with a summary of the background to the problem and why it’s so important for us to solve it. Then, we’ll proceed to a summary of a few of the high points of the history of the West. Then, a discussion of the methods by which all theories and laws are proposed and proven. Then, my model of how our history has worked and some testing of that model. To close the case, some further discussion of the model’s implications. And finally, as a corollary, some speculation on whether this model leads us to a modern concept of God.

 

This book is an attempt to solve the dilemma of our time. I think I’ve untangled this dilemma. I believe that someone has to solve this dilemma or we’re going to destroy ourselves.

 

I have to try.    

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

1. Emrys Westacott, “Moral Relativism,” International Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2012.http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#SH3b.

 

2. Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld, “The Evolution of Physics: From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta,” (Touchstone Books, 1934).

 

3. Benedict, Ruth "Anthropology and the Abnormal," Journal of General Psychology, 10, 1934.

4. Albert Einstein, from a telegram to prominent Americans, May 24, 1946.

5. Postmodernism, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed Feb. 13, 2021.

6. Martin M. Murphy, Maxine L. Margolis; Science, Materialism, and the Study of Culture; University Press of Florida, 1995.