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Cosmic Reflections: Cosmology of the Material Universes. Why Science and The Urantia Book have different perspectives.
Whereas there is no such thing as an official definition of the scientific method, nor what constitutes the logic and goals of science, there are some things that are understood by a majority of professional scientists.
The core of the scientific method is simply to explore the available data, formulate a hypothesis to explain as much as of the data as possible, then do experiments to test the hypothesis. This tends to be a never-ending sequence of modifying the hypothesis to accommodate new data, then repeat.
The method has brought enormous progress over the last few hundred years. Until recently it included the assumption that an untestable hypothesis has no value.
The modern media business has now changed the rules by granting the untestable hypothesis an enormous market value. Unfortunately, this relatively new phenomenon has grossly distorted both the layman's and the scientist's view of what constitutes science. Here we stick to the old fashioned values.
There are two practical but unwritten working rules for both the bench scientist and the theoretician. The 'laws' of science must be the same for all observers wherever, whenever, and whoever they are. This rule has the corollary that the 'laws' are immutable, God does not play dice with his rules. Second, every observable phenomenon must have a natural explanation.
It is the interpretation of these rules that causes so much misunderstanding both between scientists and religionists, and individuals within those groups.
To illustrate this point let's pretend we could bring Newton and Einstein together to discuss the interpretation of their concepts about gravity and effects upon the wobbles of the planet, Mercury as it circles the sun. Einstein points out that his concept complies better with the measurements than does Newton's and Newton responds that that is because God and his angels are channeling energy into the solar system in a way that slightly disturbs the orbits of Mercury. Einstein replies that God does not mess round with the laws of physics. Newton responds, "How do you know."
End of debate. Why? Firstly because the 'laws' are not the same for both observers, and secondly because Newton has introduced 'non-natural' interference by God to explain what his theory does not.
Newton and Einstein were, of course, great men, far too great to behave in this manner and, in any case, both firmly believed in God as First Cause, and his non-interference with his own laws.
The major cause of misunderstanding about these unwritten rules is the assumption that God's non-interference implies no God.
Was it Laplace who said to Napoleon that he had no need for that hypothesis, meaning there was no necessity to postulate a God in order that 'natural' law should be operative?
Although the two unwritten rules do not require there to be a God in order to institute the 'laws' in the first place, neither do those rules state or imply anything about the reality of God, nor what he may or may not have done.
The confusion comes in when both scientists and religionists confound the issue by assuming non-interference by God is the same thing as no God at all.
It is indeed unfortunate that, in the modern world, so many have confused having a scientific attitude with a necessity to deny the existence of God. In reality, empirical science has no business saying anything about God, for the existence of God is, as yet, an untestable hypothesis.
It does not require very strenuous thought to realize that there is no conflict at all in believing in a personal God, and at the same time being a bench scientist investigating natural phenomena using natural law that assumes God is not interfering but does not deny that God exists.
In thinking about a scientist's view of cosmology, one of the rules to be taken into account is the law of conservation of energy (mass is now included as a form of energy) that used to be taught in high school science as, "Energy can never be created or destroyed." The empirical support for this law, tested thoroughly for more than a century, is overwhelming.
A consequence of the conservation of energy law is that since no more energy-matter is being produced (or can be produced), the unavoidable increase in entropy will ultimately
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