Posted on 05/16/2007 6:54:51 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Charles Townes is the Nobel Prize Physics winner whose pioneering work led to the maser and later the laser.
The University of California, Berkeley interviewed him on his 90th birthday where they talked about evolution, intelligent design and the meaning of life.
I thought this would be good to share...
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BERKELEY – Religion and science, faith and empirical experiment: these terms would seem to have as little in common as a Baptist preacher and a Berkeley physicist. And yet, according to Charles Hard Townes, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics and a UC Berkeley professor in the Graduate School, they are united by similar goals: science seeks to discern the laws and order of our universe; religion, to understand the universe's purpose and meaning, and how humankind fits into both.
Where these areas intersect is territory that Townes has been exploring for many of his 89 years, and in March his insights were honored with the 2005 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities. Worth about $1.5 million, the Templeton Prize recognizes those who, throughout their lives, have sought to advance ideas and/or institutions that will deepen the world's understanding of God and of spiritual realities.
Townes first wrote about the parallels between religion and science in IBM's Think magazine in 1966, two years after he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking work in quantum electronics: in 1953, thanks in part to what Townes calls a "revelation" experienced on a park bench, he invented the maser (his acronym for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission), which amplifies microwaves to produce an intense beam. By building on this work, he achieved similar amplification using visible light, resulting in the laser (whose name he also coined).
Even as his research interests have segued from microwave physics to astrophysics, Townes has continued to explore topics such as "Science, values, and beyond," in Synthesis of Science and Religion (1987), "On Science, and what it may suggest about us," in Theological Education (1988), and "Why are we here; where are we going?" in The International Community of Physics, Essays on Physics (1997).
Townes sat down one morning recently to discuss how these and other weighty questions have shaped his own life, and their role in current controversies over public education.
Q. If science and religion share a common purpose, why have their proponents tended to be at loggerheads throughout history?
Science and religion have had a long interaction: some of it has been good and some of it hasn't. As Western science grew, Newtonian mechanics had scientists thinking that everything is predictable, meaning there's no room for God — so-called determinism. Religious people didn't want to agree with that. Then Darwin came along, and they really didn't want to agree with what he was saying, because it seemed to negate the idea of a creator. So there was a real clash for a while between science and religions.
But science has been digging deeper and deeper, and as it has done so, particularly in the basic sciences like physics and astronomy, we have begun to understand more. We have found that the world is not deterministic: quantum mechanics has revolutionized physics by showing that things are not completely predictable. That doesn't mean that we've found just where God comes in, but we know now that things are not as predictable as we thought and that there are things we don't understand. For example, we don't know what some 95 percent of the matter in the universe is: we can't see it — it's neither atom nor molecule, apparently. We think we can prove it's there, we see its effect on gravity, but we don't know what and where it is, other than broadly scattered around the universe. And that's very strange.
So as science encounters mysteries, it is starting to recognize its limitations and become somewhat more open. There are still scientists who differ strongly with religion and vice versa. But I think people are being more open-minded about recognizing the limitations in our frame of understanding.
You've said "I believe there is no long-range question more important than the purpose and meaning of our lives and our universe." How have you attempted to answer that question?
Even as a youngster, you're usually taught that there's some purpose you'll try to do, how you are going to live. But that's a very localized thing, about what you want with your life. The broader question is, "What are humans all about in general, and what is this universe all about?" That comes as one tries to understand what is this beautiful world that we're in, that's so special: "Why has it come out this way? What is free will and why do we have it? What is a being? What is consciousness?" We can't even define consciousness. As one thinks about these broader problems, then one becomes more and more challenged by the question of what is the aim and purpose and meaning of this universe and of our lives.
Those aren't easy questions to answer, of course, but they're important and they're what religion is all about. I maintain that science is closely related to that, because science tries to understand how the universe is constructed and why it does what it does, including human life. If one understands the structure of the universe, maybe the purpose of man becomes a little clearer. I think maybe the best answer to that is that somehow, we humans were created somewhat in the likeness of God. We have free will. We have independence, we can do and create things, and that's amazing. And as we learn more and more — why, we become even more that way. What kind of a life will we build? That's what the universe is open about. The purpose of the universe, I think, is to see this develop and to allow humans the freedom to do the things that hopefully will work out well for them and for the rest of the world.
How do you categorize your religious beliefs?
I'm a Protestant Christian, I would say a very progressive one. This has different meanings for different people. But I'm quite open minded and willing to consider all kinds of new ideas and to look at new things. At the same time it has a very deep meaning for me: I feel the presence of God. I feel it in my own life as a spirit that is somehow with me all the time.
You've described your inspiration for the maser as a moment of revelation, more spiritual than what we think of as inspiration. Do you believe that God takes such an active interest in humankind?
[The maser] was a new idea, a sudden visualization I had of what might be done to produce electromagnetic waves, so it's somewhat parallel to what we normally call revelation in religion. Whether the inspiration for the maser and the laser was God's gift to me is something one can argue about. The real question should be, where do brand-new human ideas come from anyway? To what extent does God help us? I think he's been helping me all along. I think he helps all of us — that there's a direction in our universe and it has been determined and is being determined. How? We don't know these things. There are many questions in both science and religion and we have to make our best judgment. But I think spirituality has a continuous effect on me and on other people.
That sounds like you agree with the "intelligent design" movement, the latest framing of creationism, which argues that the complexity of the universe proves it must have been created by a guiding force.
I do believe in both a creation and a continuous effect on this universe and our lives, that God has a continuing influence — certainly his laws guide how the universe was built. But the Bible's description of creation occurring over a week's time is just an analogy, as I see it. The Jews couldn't know very much at that time about the lifetime of the universe or how old it was. They were visualizing it as best they could and I think they did remarkably well, but it's just an analogy.
Should intelligent design be taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools as religious legislators have decided in Pennsylvania and Kansas?
I think it's very unfortunate that this kind of discussion has come up. People are misusing the term intelligent design to think that everything is frozen by that one act of creation and that there's no evolution, no changes. It's totally illogical in my view. Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here.
Some scientists argue that "well, there's an enormous number of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right." Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate — it assumes there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that ours was planned, and that's why it has come out so specially. Now, that design could include evolution perfectly well. It's very clear that there is evolution, and it's important. Evolution is here, and intelligent design is here, and they're both consistent.
They don't have to negate each other, you're saying. God could have created the universe, set the parameters for the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, and set the evolutionary process in motion, But that's not what the Christian fundamentalists are arguing should be taught in Kansas.
People who want to exclude evolution on the basis of intelligent design, I guess they're saying, "Everything is made at once and then nothing can change." But there's no reason the universe can't allow for changes and plan for them, too. People who are anti-evolution are working very hard for some excuse to be against it. I think that whole argument is a stupid one. Maybe that's a bad word to use in public, but it's just a shame that the argument is coming up that way, because it's very misleading.
That seems to come up when religion seeks to control or limit the scope of science. We're seeing that with the regulation of research into stem cells and cloning. Should there be areas of scientific inquiry that are off-limits due to a culture's prevailing religious principles?
My answer to that is, we should explore as much as we can. We should think about everything, try to explore everything, and question things. That's part of our human characteristic in nature that has made us so great and able to achieve so much. Of course there are problems if we do scientific experiments on people that involve killing them — that's a scientific experiment sure, but ethically it has problems. There are ethical issues with certain kinds of scientific experimentation. But outside of the ethical issues, I think we should try very hard to understand everything we can and to question things.
I think it's settling those ethical issues that's the problem. Who decides what differentiates a "person" from a collection of cells, for example?
That's very difficult. What is a person? We don't know. Where is this thing, me — where am I really in this body? Up here in the top of the head somewhere? What is personality? What is consciousness? We don't know. The same thing is true once the body is dead: where is this person? Is it still there? Has it gone somewhere else? If you don't know what it is, it's hard to say what it's doing next. We have to be open-minded about that. The best we can do is try to find ways of answering those questions.
You'll turn 90 on July 28. What's the secret to long life?
Good luck is one, but also just having a good time. Some people say I work hard: I come in on Saturdays, and I work evenings both at my desk and in the lab. But I think I'm just having a good time doing physics and science. I have three telescopes down on Mt. Wilson; I was down there a couple nights last week. I've traveled a lot. On Sundays, my wife [of 64 years] and I usually go hiking. I'd say the secret has been being able to do things that I like, and keeping active.
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'Faith is necessary for the scientist even to get started, and deep faith is necessary for him to carry out his tougher tasks. Why? Because he must have confidence that there is order in the universe and that the human mind — in fact his own mind — has a good chance of understanding this order.'
-Charles Townes, writing in "The Convergence of Science and Religion," IBM's Think magazine, March-April 1966
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Who created us? U.S. vs. UC Berkeley beliefs
A Nov. 18-21, 2004 New York Times/CBS News poll on American mores and attitudes, conducted with 885 U.S. adults, showed that a significant number of Americans believe that God created humankind. UC Berkeley's Office of Student Research asked the same question on its 2005 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, results for which are still coming in. As of June 8, 2,057 students had responded.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE TABLE THAT SHOWS THE RESULT
WoW.. again good theme/fodder for a novel or movie..
Read Gulliver's Travels in high school. That word ruined the book for me.
And to add insult to injury, I mentally pronounced the word to myself as "HOW-nee-hims". It was only much later, to my acute embarassment, that I found out about your correct pronunciation.
Cheers!
Ooops! Talk about shooting oneself in the foot while one's foot is in one's mouth!
Worser and worser.
Absolutely adorable, hosepipe! (:
Your lips, God's ears, my Brother! The fodder really is all over the place! Themes, dreams, etc., just abounding, and just waiting for someone to pick them up and weave them into an art form (:
Still working on the lighthouse shining in an Arctic landscape at night with the northern lights vaguely in the shape of an eagle.. in the sky.. Triple metaphorical threat..
Thank you betty . . . for the ping . . . and for stating the obvious. It seems from time to time that we have to be reminded of the obvious, even if it is obvious. In this instance, we need a little perspective restored; we need to be reminded that science is the handmaiden of philosophy. Specifically, Western Civilization science and Western Civilization philosophy. Science didn’t invent Western Civilization; Western Civilization invented science and, on the whole, it has turned out to be one of its happier inspirations.
We are told that the ‘education establishment’ has determined Western Culture to be unworthy of passing on to the next generation. If that be true, as we must think it is, then the education establishment condemns itself, for it is a product of Western Civilization. In the some five thousand odd years of the cultural development of Western Civilization, it has been only in the last two centuries that we have witnessed the denial of that civilization by those who should be its staunchest defenders: the intellectual community. I find this to be utterly astonishing, but undeniably true, and confirmed beyond question by the failure of the intellectuals to defend Western Civilization against the stark evil of Islamic terrorism.
As you point out, to undermine a culture is to undermine the foundation of that culture's civilization, leading ultimately to its collapse. Indeed, that seems to be their intent. Do these intellectuals not understand that its collapse will bring to an end their splendid little academic and intellectual environment? It would seem not. They apparently labor under the illusion that they can bring about the destruction of the culture and civilization which supports them, and that their cozy, protected lives will go on, unaffected by the event.
It had been our custom, until of late, that each succeeding generation learned from those who had gone before (verily, even to the times of the Greeks and Romans, upon whose backs we have constructed our marvelous little civilization), rejecting the false, building upon the true (or at least the more true). Thus, Galileo, an example often cited in this forum, may have received more than his share of grief from the political correctness of his time, but mankind was advanced nonetheless, and along the way, from his experience and that of others, we learned the value of free inquiry and free speech (A lesson, it seems, requiring endless reminders).
In an attempt to explain this truly bizarre thirst for self-annihilation, many have sought to lay the blame at the feet of Marxist/socialism, to which all the bloody little state tyrants of the socialist persuasion have lent their enthusiastic assent, proclaiming that it is, indeed, their intent to destroy Western Civilization. To whatever extent there is validity to this interplay between the protagonist and antagonist, to that degree both betray a profound lack of awareness that the theories and ideas of socialism arise directly from the mainstream of that very civilization the one seeks to preserve and the other seeks to destroy.
Since the latter has seized control of the intellectual community, that side seems to presently be getting the better of the struggle, but that is not to say that significant progress was not made in the Twentieth Century. Progress has been made, but it occurs under the ideas and philosophies of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. It is these centuries that the modern intellectual community most specifically seeks to deny and destroy. And in the midst of all this, the ‘Science Community’ muddles along, apparently oblivious to its peril.
It is not necessarily that I am *impressed* with it, but I am trying to make sure I both point out the potential flaws AND portray it accurately and fairly.
As far as I can tell, my efforts got a mixed reception.
Cheers!
At the risk of bringing the discussion back to the thread topic, how does abandoning empiricism contribute to science? Can anyone give and example of a useful finding in science that depends for its authority, on personal revelation?
And America has been made ignorant fairly lately that this country is a Republic because of that..
And in the midst of all this, the ‘Science Community’ muddles along, apparently oblivious to its peril.
Call it progress or evolution, motion is not necessarily improvement. Either progress or evolution can be motion around a circular track. When you find dogma and faith reappearing you will be back to start. As evidence that dogma and faith are appearing out of science, --Global Warming.
...in their satanic arrogance. No good comes to anyone from this attitude, least of all to themselves. FWIW
What a beautiful essay/post, YHAOS!
Fortunately, not all scientists disparage this tremendous cultural legacy. And not all have written off God. Here's Francis Collins, Director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute on the Bible:
When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1-billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can't survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can't help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God's mind.Thank you so much YHAOS for your truly beautiful post!
I think he was talking about the human genome, but I'm sure he intended to refer to the Bible, even though his number would be off by three orders of magnitude.
I’ll have to dispute that ‘ignorant’ part. You cut the Western World way too much slack. They (the WW) aren’t ignorant of their peril; they simply don’t wish to disturb their cozy little womb by confessing a knowledge requiring radical action that would be distasteful. They cannot, however, escape their fate (dragging us along with them, of course), and the reckoning approaches. The atmosphere reminds me of the late Thirties. Spooky.
Point taken. I simply wished, at this time, not to be overly harsh. Figured I had already kicked enough sleeping dogs. { 8^)
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