Science says religion isn't so much wrong, as it is unnecessary

Thanks to fading highlighting, I've been re-reading theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's book, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions. 

I bought the book a few years ago and wrote several blog posts about it. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Then I put the book aside and turned my attention to other books in my morning pre-meditation reading.

When I picked it up again recently, I noticed that I hadn't read a couple of the final chapters. I also saw that my yellow highlighting had faded considerably. To most people, that wouldn't be a big deal. But I'm a habitual highlighter of nonfiction books. It bugged me to have my highlighting of what I considered the most significant passages to be on the verge of disappearing.

So I started to re-highlight my old highlighting, this time with a brighter fluorescent highlighter. But as I did this, I recalled how much I'd enjoyed Hossenfelder's book and decided to re-read the initial chapters. 

That led to some additional highlighting of passages that struck me as more significant and interesting this time around. Now I've re-read almost everything I'd read before, and am glad that I did. I love books about modern science that are not only well-written, but have a certain pleasing edge to them, which this one does.

Hossenfelder frequently refers to something as unscientific or ascientific. These words point to a hypothesis that science has nothing to say about, since it isn't needed to explain anything about our world and the universe at large.

Here's a quote that I shared in one of my previous posts about the book, "Here's what makes something scientific or ascientific."

The distinction between scientific and nonscientific explanations is central to this book, so it deserves a closer look. Science is about finding useful descriptions of the world; by useful I mean they allow us to make predictions for new experiments, or they quantitatively explain already existing observations.

...The belief that an omniscient being called God made the chemical elements is not a good scientific theory. You might say it is in some sense a simple explanation, and maybe you find it compelling. However, the God hypothesis has no quantifiable explanatory power. You can't calculate anything from it. That doesn't make it wrong, but it does make it unscientific.

 

Hossenfelder, not surprisingly, given her background in theoretical physics, is big on quantifiable mathematics. But I think this sentence from the quotation above makes sense even with the "quantifiable" omitted: However, the God hypothesis has no explanatory power.

I say this because I can't think of anything that religions teach, or preach, that makes more sense than non-religious explanations of some subject, such as morality, how life arose, where earth's species came from, and such.

While modern physics obviously doesn't embrace any form of religiosity, Hossenfelder points out that speculative hypotheses put forward by some physicists are, like religious tenets, incapable of being proven right or wrong, because they have nothing to do with the world in which we live. She writes:

The key feature of the many-worlds interpretation is that each time a quantum measurement happens, the universe splits, creating what's commonly called a multiverse. 

...Advocates of the many-worlds interpretation believe that all the other universes -- the ones we don't observe -- are as real as ours. But in what sense are they real? Unobservable universes are by definition unnecessary to describe what we observe. Hence, assuming they are real is also unnecessary.

Scientific theories should not contain unnecessary assumptions, for if we allow that, we would also have to allow the assumption that a god made the universe. Such superfluous assumptions aren't wrong. They're just ascientific. The assumption that the additional universes in the many-worlds interpretation are real is one such ascientific assumption.

I must stress that this doesn't mean that the parallel universes of the many-worlds idea are not real. It means that any statement about their reality is ascientific. It is something you can believe or disbelieve, but science tells you nothing -- can tell you nothing -- about what is correct.

I agree with what Hossenfelder says as it pertains to hypotheses such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Those other universes are believed to have no connection with our own, so there's nothing that can be said about them, absent evidence of some connection in which another universe has an observable effect on ours.

However, when it comes to religious belief in God and the supernatural, I think science can assert more boldly about religious belief being wrong. Religions, after all, speak of God not only creating our universe, but remaining an active force within it through prayers being answered, miracles performed, and so on.

Since there is no demonstrable evidence of God and the supernatural having effects in our world, this means that God and the supernatural are unnecessary to explain how the world works. There's no phenomenon that requires a divine explanation.

Thus to me it seems justified to say that religions are wrong. But if we want to stick with how Hossenfelder views things, we can simply say that religious belief is unnecessary to explain our world and the universe as a whole. 

Religiously-minded people can believe whatever they want. They just can't say that their beliefs are necessary to make sense of the world. 

Comments

[Appreciative Reader]

“Science says religion isn't so much wrong, as it is unnecessary”

Potatoes, Potahtoes, surely?

I mean, sure, that’s the precise thing to say. But it’s a distinction without a difference, for all practical purposes. The only time when this distinction is relevant, is when one is actually exploring the details of the philosophy of the scientific worldview. Which is what Hossenfelder's doing here, I guess, so fair enough. ...But, in general, both mean the same thing, really, for all practical purposes.

All of these God ideas floating around? Religious ideas? Some, like the Christian idea of God, are actually provable, testable, and therefore disprovable, and therefore can be rejected direcly, via disproof; while others, like Advaitic deism, aren't provable, aren't testable, and therefore do not admit of disproof directly; but still, in as much as there is no evidence to back it up, therefore we dismiss that claim, we reject it. And of course, both claims can be rejected via the second method, by looking for evidence and not finding it and therefore rejecting the claim.

Potatoes, potahtoes. Amounts to the same thing, which is, rejection of the claim, by any reasonable standards. Best to stress that, lest the cross-eyed woo gang run away with taking this as an endorsement of belief in deism and the like.

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Sure, religious practices, taken standalone and divorced from the woo that props them up, that can be seen as truly “ascientific”.

That recalls a longish exchange I’d had with um. Churches and all churchly ritual are essentially a lie, are essentially “wrong”, in as much as they are predicated squarely in belief in Christian woo. However, if the Pope were to say --- not just murmur quietly, but announce repeatedly until the message hit home --- that all of factual claims that the RCC teaches is complete nonsense, utterly wrong; but nevertheless, they’ve got these cool churches with great architecture and history, and these cool rituals as well: and specifically on that basis if he were to invite folks to come and partake of RCC rituals: then sure, that’s properly, unarguably ascientific, ascientific in every sense of the world. That kind of thing reasonable scientifically minded people may well turn to, if it appealed to their taste.

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My point is: While one is “free” to believe anything at all, including outright woo: but belief in deism is entirely as deserving of rejection on grounds of reasonableness as belief in outright theism, even though the routes to rejecting these two kinds of beliefs are different. (Or at least, there’s two routes to rejecting these beliefs, and, while one route---the burden of proof---can be used to reject both claims ; but the other route---direct disproof---can be used to reject only the one kind of belief and not the other.)

That recalls a very interesting discussion we'd had here, Spence, and Osho Robbins, and I, and um also I think, unless I misremember : where Osho Robbins brought up the interesting and completely apposite analogy of the three kinds of verdict in Scottish Law: Guilty, Innocent (or Not Guilty), and Guilt Not Proven. When the defendant is found guilty he's found guilty; else, regardless of whether he's ruled Innocent (or Not Guilty) or whether the jury finds Guild Not Proven, but in either case the result is the same, the defendant is free to go, he isn't convicted. ...Likewise, regardless of whether a factual claim is not testable and therefore ascientific; or whether the claim is testable and, on testing, found to be wrong: but in either case, the claim is rejected. That's the bottom line.

This clarification, this nuance, this emphasis, is probably wise to clearly present, so that the message in this post isn’t misconstrued, particularly by the woo-minded.

---
(Heh, your header, the blog post title, it recalls that famous exchange, so *many* years ago, when Laplace responded to his king’s asking about his never mentioning God in his book on physics/mechanics, with those lovely --- albeit maybe apocryphal! --- words of his, “I had no need of that hypothesis.”)

(The fact is, the God hypothesis fails. Whether it is testable scientifically, and thereby disproved, and so found wrong, and so set aside; or it is found not to be testable, and therefore deemed ascientific, and therefore, for want of evidence, set aside: but, either way, the fact is that the God hypothesis fails.)

[um]

Way back, walking in a lane, in the far distance I saw a a dark amorphous blob coming towards me. It had to be a human but from that distance I could not distinguish the head, the arms and the legs. I do not know why but my eyes locked on the blob coming closer and closer.
During that time span I became aware of the fact that withing the environment that blob had no value or meaning as it looked like a moving amount of dark matter. When the blob came closer and closer and its amorphous shape changed in that of a human being,in passing that human being I saw its face, its expression and realized that inside that face, that head, that brain, that mind there was a living creature ..not only that but that creator like myself contained a whole world

Science cannot study what is there inside that head and yet what is there, is all that matters to a human being.

Religion is something inside the mind of people and its meaning and value for them can never be object of scientific study.

Science can only study those visible aspects related to religion etc , that by itself are meaning less and valueless.

[sant64]

"There's no phenomenon that requires a divine explanation."

I can think of 3: How the universe began from nothing 14 million years ago.
How life began on Earth (and nowhere else)
How that bullet only nicked his ear.

[sant64]

Correction: 14 billion years ago. Billion, as in what the dems spent and then some.

[Jim Sutherland]

@Um,,, in case your unaware, that last post of yours simplifies the Teaching of Kashmir Shivaism.
“ALL is God, and ALL is ONE, including us.” ALL we need , we already have, and we need not do any more to obtain it ALL, which is inside of us, as our Master Within, and we don’t need to be initiated by any human, read any books, do any Yoga exercises, ….all we have to do is REALIZE it!
OSHO Robbins will explain it to you, if you haven’t already figured it out for your self.
That’s why my Bucket List is empty, and all is fulfilled, and I’m just hanging around here, waiting to ………??
Jim Sutherland

[um]

@ Jim Sutherland

I have no Idea what GOD means and whatever I know about my self is like the tip of the iceberg ...the memory of the interactions with my surroundings since birth ...but that too does not tell me what I am.

I came to understand by looking into nature that everything is and , unique variation of the same, ..vertical that means that there is one "source, and that that source, permeates in everything there is. ..not that difficult to understand, some coffee will do.

I do not need anybody to explain anything to me about life... I am alive, like the crow and the tree and I do know how to behave in the public domain.

I do what I have done ever since I can remember .. observe ...being aware

[um]

@ Jim Sutherland

And .. yes there are people that related about there inner experiences and yes it was a pleasure listening to these people, being part of their happiness

Yes there are people that with whole their heart invest in something, be it their religion, yoga or following a path or just investing in their work ..that too is a joy to see and be part of their joy when they share it with me.

I never had such a thing in life and that too is all right as I understand that whatever happens is a gift, a gift one has to deal with ...absence of .. was the gift to me and I had a long live to perfect that gift

[um]

@ Jim Suther land

Nobody "HAS TO ...." realize anything ..anything, ... anything.

Humans can and o realize things .. these realizations do just happen.

Humans can and do sleep,but thet cannot realize it [at will]
It is a GIFT

Like everything else.

[Ron E.]

@ sant64 "There's no phenomenon that requires a divine explanation."
I can think of 3: How the universe began from nothing 14 million years ago.
How life began on Earth (and nowhere else).
How that bullet only nicked his ear.

*If nothingness actually existed, nothingness would have to be something – so, nothing is something.
*Life only on Earth – not determined yet, but the possibilities of life on other planets is quite likely.
*The bullet only nicked his ear – perhaps because the shooter was a bad shot.

The three questions only show the limits of the human mind. Similar seemingly unanswerable questions have been posed for centuries, only to be eventually answered by science. Perhaps because of our human fears and insecurities we desperately look for a supernatural answer.
---
@um. Nice comments, especially the last one: - Nobody "HAS TO ...." realize anything ..anything, ... anything.

[Trez]

Religion is so wrong and not necessary

As we see in the world today, it is the very root of all evil.

Wars, hate, killing, greed all of it, you can thank religion for it

Take Radha Soami and Gurinder Singh Dhilion he himself says we're not a " re lie gion ", he knows but at times still uses we are a religion as in the building of the Australian satsang centre building , Gurinder just lied, to get his way again

Radha soami shows us all that religion is a deceptive way of luring and getting the world to do, what they want.

Who are they? The slim balls we know as Baba, as in Gurinder Singh Dhilion who lies for a living on stage and never does as he preaches.
Stealing and bullying the poor just so they can have they're full. Tax frauding, Land Stealing, even robbing his own relatives the list never ends..

Is there one thing that Gurinder Singh dhillon has done right by?

No, and how could he when he's batting for himself and his evil ways

And why is there a need for a New religion like Radha Soami when there where so many others created thousands and thousands of years ago?

Are they all wrong now and were they never the truth?

So Gurinder Singh Dhilion has now come with the truth and all the other religions are a total lie?

Gurinder has now showed the ugly truth by being so Exposed and riddiculed like P.diddy that he never was what we thought he was.
Ugly as it may be but its the truth and we should now except what is starring us in the face blatantly

Religious organisations like Radha Soami should be shut down and the Baba like Gurinder Singh Dhilion sentenced for the crimes they have committed

This World would and still can be somewhat a better place for us all

[um]

@ Trez

>> This World would and still can be somewhat a better place for us all<<

You mean atheist regimes like that of Pol Pot, in the recent past and regimes like North Korea???