There a phrase that has been rattling around my mind for a long time, so I’d might as well get it out on the table early on in the blog. It’s from Guardians of Creation by Lawrence Osborn:
[S]cience … is more than ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’. The freedom I envisage implies that science involves the creative interpretation of nature.
The idea of science as ‘creative interpretation of nature’ always appealed to me. It was only when I read Kuhn that it really fell into place. If you think of science as steady progress to the ‘right’ description of the way things are then ‘creative interpretation’ doesn’t quite fit. On the other hand, if you think of science as competing descriptions/paradigms that fit more or less well to what we observe, then I think it makes a lot of sense.
I think this view cuts a nice path between the ‘we are descibing nature as it is’ view of realism and the ‘we simply describing what our instruments tell us, nothing more’ view. Creative interpretation implies we are describilng nature without the assumption that we have it pinned down accurately & completely. It also captures the creative nature of science that is clearly a key part, but often gets missed.
The reference to ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’ is an interesting one. It’s a phrase that’s often used in Christian descriptions of science. It seems to me that it’s one of those phrases that could either reflect humility or pride, depending on your perspective. Looking at science within modernism, perhaps it hides the assumption that we have the ability to grasp God’s thoughts?
This raises the question, why do we think we would be able to ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’? Perhaps it is better to take the view that we (graciously) have the ability to understand something of the way the universe works, without thinking we can match God.
This bit interests me:
“If you think of science as steady progress to the ‘right’ description of the way things are then ‘creative interpretation’ doesn’t quite fit. On the other hand, if you think of science as competing descriptions/paradigms that fit more or less well to what we observe, then I think it makes a lot of sense.”
… reminds me of how theology is increasingly being talked about. I’m not sure what genre of thought it falls in to: post-modern or perhaps post-postmodern – not that it matters too much what we call it – but it’s certainly something beyond modernity. Which is interesting as I was talking to someone who (in response to a theological discussion like this) was convinced that we haven’t left the modern world at all yet.
hmm…
As Kuhn was writing in the eary sixties, maybe we should call it pre-post-modern