Strand Two : A New Kind of Science
Introduction
The crisis in physics and cosmology is, in fact, part of a larger problem concerning the identity of the scientist which has been building up for over a century. Scientists, who once called themselves natural philosophers, have become wedded to technology and Big Business, but they are regarded, and tend to regard themselves, as a class apart, having knowledge denied to the ordinary person, and their pronouncements on everything, when made as scientists, carry a particular authority, as those of priests have always done in religion. In this respect it would hardly be untrue to say that science is the new gnosis. This is not a healthy state of affairs, a point made by many thinkers and encapsulated in C. P. Snow’s famous phrase “the two cultures”.
The answer to this problem is revealed – and it is a genuine revelation – when we consider that physics, chemistry and astronomy fused in astrophysics, and as Big Bang theory became universally accepted, astrophysics became part of a grander new science of cosmology.
Insofar as cosmology seeks to know the origin of the cosmos, it is more properly called cosmogony or cosmogenesis. It comprises one half of a new creation story, and it is worth noting that the first words of both the Old Testament and St John’s gospel are, “In the beginning,” for science is now offering hope of uncovering the real facts of how it all began. It is a new, non-mythological kind of “In the beginning,” and its relevance to religious faith hardly needs to be emphasized.
The new vision goes along with a new sense of time. Galactic time, measured in light years, co-exists with the timeless realm in which the Big Bang was seeded. We live, in part at least, where "time stands still." As the poet T. S. Eliot put it, "We apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless with time." This is for each of us, to quote him again, "the still point of the turning world."
The other half of the creation story came into view with the publication of Darwin’s epoch-making book, The Origin of Species, which accumulated evidence to show that human consciousness – which is the essence of being human – had its origin in lower forms of life. The book itself constituted a biological Big Bang. Molecular biology and genetics have taken our understanding to a crisis point, for while we know through science that the double helix expresses biological form, we have no idea how it is encoded, or indeed what is encoded, other than the form which is expressed on decoding. It is probably true to say that almost every professional biologist closes down his or her mind at this point, for to embark on the question seems to be an invitation to invoke those “occult forces” which Newton and Descartes once exorcised from science.
These are deep intellectual waters, but we can stay within our depth by considering that both physical and biological science have now become historical disciplines, each on its own scale and using its own methodology. In a word, as science has evolved, it has become a branch of history, and one of its major tasks now – indeed, perhaps its most important task – is telling a story to all those who are curious, not just to the small circle of professional scientists. It should be telling us how we came to be human and supporting religion in its task of helping us to become fully human.
The ideas on this part of the website are a mixed bag of physics, cosmology, biology and neurology, without much connection being made explicit. They are presented as snapshots of a the vast field of energetics and neoscience which is in turbulent motion. Click on the titles to open the document.
Before the Big Bang
A short, unpublished paper, which considers the consequences of taking the origin of our universe to be a point of no size but immense energy.
A History of the Universe Since the Year Dot
The time line of creation, from the Big Bang to 2007. (Excerpted from Jehovah and Hyperspace )
Is There a Purpose in Evolution?
Review article of Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box. (First published in the Quaker magazine, "The Seeker")
Darwin Revisited
A letter in reply to an article in the Quaker weekly "The Friend" which argued that evolution is a purely mechanical and random process, without design or cause.
An Introduction to Neoscience
A follow-up to the long essay “The Physics of Ultimate Reality” in Jehovah and Hyperspace, partly explanatory, partly expanding the theme. This is very much work in progress, and the finished work, Neoscience: A New Paradigm, is expected to be published in 2008.
Brain Structure and the Emergence of Homo novus
Human nature has changed over the course of evolution, and four stages can be identified in the four level structure of the brain. A simplified diagram makes this point, and opens the question as to what parts of the brain are now capable of driving evolutionary progress.