Why can't we use only science to prove/disprove God ?

Why does it seem that this argument is inconsistent with this question:

I want to form a more coherent argument about this, because I feel that you are wrong, Fraggle. For instance, why can we use math to describe nature? Or, is the answer that the axioms of math just "are"?

I don't know the answer to this question---I will have to think about this some more.

 

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It might be possible to prove the impossibility of a RANDOM universe.

This what Dr. Francis Collins (Head of the Human Genome Project) attempts to do in his recent book the - The Language of God.

And if the universe is NOT random...something must have given it some measure of intelligent order.

 

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That 1+1=2 is not the 'order' Collins alludes to in his book - The Language of God.

Here is a brief summary of his thesis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjJAWuzno9Y

 

Describe an experiment in which you'd test this hypothesis.

 

Surely not!

For example, it is easy to conceive a universe in which the speed of light is different, however, it is not easy to think of what would have to change for the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter to be different.

 

So, you're ok distinguishing between your tautologies?

 

Youre accustomed to long winded essays...no? It takes less time to listen than to write some of your own posts.

It is shorter than his book, where he explains the order inherent in the physical universe (he has a degree in physics as well as being a medical doctor and geneticist) and the origins of life.

Theres really no way to summarize it further, and to do so for my part would be an injustice because I personally find some of it distasteful.
Heres the Amazon review:

http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391

 

Consider the following scenario. You are playing five card draw, and in your first hand in the casino you are dealt a royal flush, the probability of which is something like 1 in 2.5 million. Upon seeing this, you proclaim, "This hand is so unlikely, surely the deck must have been stacked."

Given that you have absolutely no other information about the other cards in the deck, does the statement "This hand is so unlikely, the deck must have been stacked" make any sense? Sure, that's one possibility. Likewise, if you have no other information, is there any way to know whether or not the deck was stacked in the first place?

The point is that the statement

is not a statement that is provable. Or, I would say it is not a scientific statement.

To you I would point out that I can write down consistent theories of Nature in which some of the parameters are different, but in which the universe is still more or less the same. (If you don't believe me, see this paper. They show that one can essentially turn off the weak interactions, set some quark and lepton masses to infinity, and get a universe that is more or less the same as ours.)

Either way, arguments that "randomness cannot possible explain the universe" always rely on some hidden assumption---in this case it's that the universe is the same everywhere, including the places that we can't see or ever hope to test. There's no guarantee that in those places the physics is different. (If you like, this would be like peaking at the other player's poker hands around the table.) Because we can't test the statement, there is no way to put it on any kind of scientific ground.

To Fraggle, I would say that the above task is very difficult. If we change some of the properties of the weak force by just a little bit (i.e. don't turn it off, but dial it up just a little bit), then stars burn too quickly for life to evolve. Some properties of physics are VERY sensitive to the difference in the proton and neutron mass, for example. Fiddling with quark masses by just a little bit will screw up a lot of physics. If we make the neutron just a little bit heavier than the proton, then beta decay goes too quickly. In this sense, the universe LOOKS fine tuned. While there is still hope from most of the scientific community that such tunings can be explained away, or that there is caveat that we're all missing, some have resorted to something called the Anthropic Principle, which is sort of the ultimate tautology.

Again, if you're comfortable with one tautology (1+1 = 2 just because), then you have no right to denigrate others because of THEIR tautologies.

 

And one of the proposed explanations is that there are an infinite number of universes and we just happen to exist in the one finely tuned enough to allow our existence.

And so Collins asks...which requires more faith? One universe finely tuned by some intelligence to support life, or an infinity of random universes?

 

Isnt this a universal assumption of physics???

Are there any prominent physicists who dont make this assumption?

 

The question can't be answered subjectively because you can't quantify "faith". Both are leaps of faith.

This is where Fraggle jumps my case for abusing the word "universe". The visible universe is the same everywhere, but there are reasons to believe that the universe is bigger than just the little patch that we can see. If that is the case, then outside of our little patch the laws may be very different. We don't know, because we can't test them. Our patch doesn't talk to the next patch, so we can't ask the inhabitants of that patch how their laws of physics are different from ours.

 

Perhaps, but I wouldn't make this a cornerstone of your argument. This seems very unlikely.

 

I would also point out that there are some (cf Stephen Hawking http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/strings02/dirac/hawking/) who feel that a final theory is not possible. His objections are based on something called "Godel's Incompleteness Theorem", a subject about which I know very little. The essence of the theorem, though, is that for any theory (which must be qualified), there exist statements which cannot be proven BY the theory. The example that Wiki gives is the liars paradox:

"This sentence is a lie."

If the sentence is true, the it is false, and vice versa. While the statement "1+1 = 2" is probably provable by the theory of integers, there may be other statements in the theory which are not provable.

So, the situation seems very intricate. If Godel's theorem holds for the universe, then we cannot truly know the final theory. That is, all statements about Nature as we know it may only be reduced to unprovable axioms, or something. If that is the case, then there is TRULY no way to show if a God exists mathematically, much less experimentally. Again, the best we can do is to set limits on how God acts.

 

As posted earlier, Logic is not usable for proving the existence or nonexistence of god.

Logic is an axiomatic system. What axioms would you use as a starting point? Fundmentalist Xians or Islamics might be willing to start with the assumption that their holy book (Bible or Koran) is assumed to be true, but such an asumption is far more complex than the set of axioms for normal systems of logical analysis.

The best you can hope for are cogent arguments.

 

I'm just gonna add my two cents here for giggles.

When i studied physics a number of years ago, i was astonished by a very many great things that occur in our universe. I was particularly interested, and subsequently spent alot of time studying, Quantum Tunnelling. I find this part of physics so amazingly unique and uniquely amazing that i further studied physics to learn a great many things.

A great scientist (i do not know who) once said "The more i study physics, the more i believe in god" and the natural wonder i see and have studied, forces me subscribe to this. There are alot of theories/phenomena out there that fits perfectly into the physical world but to me, cannot have developed purely by chance.

I know i have offered no proof that god exists or does not exist. I know that there are alot of people out there who will throw away my opinion as mere ramblings of a religious person (which i am not...). But i cannot look at this world and believe for an instant that there is no "Higher being" that has in some way designed the many wonderful and beautiful things i see.

Adam and Eve, the garden of Eden etc etc are not stories i believe in, creationism is not a theory i believe in. But there has to be something out there that has had an influence on our universe which has gifted us (and possibly other beings out there) with an amazing thing

 

the big problems arise when those who only appear as a god to us now due to thier advancement pretend to be god.

like if we so wished we could veil ourselves using high technology as a god to some isolated primitive tribe somewhere and in all likely hood they would believe it!

thus if our own future for example wanted to pretend to be god to us,they could quite easiliy achieve that.

appearances will be deceptive!