
The Genius and Faith of Faraday and Maxwell - drjohnson
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-genius-and-faith-of-faraday-and-maxwell
======
gjm11
The author evidently wants us to take away the idea that Maxwell's and
Faraday's religious positions were causes of their scientific success. But
nothing in the article (so it seems to me) actually suggests any such thing;
the great majority of it is simply observing that Maxwell and Faraday were
both (1) very good scientists and (2) devout Christians. Which, indeed, they
were, but that's a far cry from saying -- as the author does at the end of the
article, on the basis of pretty much no evidence at all -- "These men’s
insights into physics were made possible by their religious commitments".

The author claims that belief in God "encouraged analogy as an explanatory
strategy" and "encouraged the idea of conservation as a fundamental unifying
principle". You might think, from this, that Faraday or Maxwell had actually
written something to support this. "What the Creator does in one domain, we
may expect to find him doing in another", or "As all things are sustained in
existence by Eternal Perfection, so we should find that certain of their
qualities remain unchanging through time". But in fact he cites nothing from
either scientist along such lines. The few connections he finds them actually
making between their scientific and religious beliefs and attitudes are of
quite a different sort (e.g., Maxwell suggesting that if all molecules have
identical properties, this suggests they're manufactured by someone).

One quite frequently encounters works like this one, arguing that religion
somehow provides a particularly congenial basis for science to flourish. I
would find them more plausible if I ever encountered a single one whose
research and writing weren't funded by the Templeton Foundation.

(Not because there's anything very terrible about the Templeton Foundation.
But because if everyone they fund argues for this position and no one else
does, it does slightly call into question what's going on. Not necessarily
anything dishonest, but it's at least possible that the only reason we hear
such ideas so often is that when the Templeton Foundation finds someone
expressing them it reaches into its deep pockets and buys them a megaphone.)

~~~
scottlocklin
You really need to google Robert Grosseteste and the invention of the
scientific method.

One of the most surprising things about my scientific career was the over
representation of devout religious men in the highest levels of the hard
sciences. Medium low levels; not so much.

~~~
CamperBob2
And you really need to Google "selection bias." If you weren't devoutly
religious, you didn't get the support from society you needed to do science.

Keeping this unfortunate state of affairs from happening again is becoming a
very serious problem, even in the twenty-first century.

Meanwhile, nobody credits Newton's passions for alchemy and astrology for his
insights -- only his Christianity.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
> If you weren't devoutly religious, you didn't get the support from society
> you needed to do science.

Where is the data supporting this?

~~~
CamperBob2
Look who's interested in data all of a sudden.

~~~
dang
Please follow the HN guidelines and remain personally respectful.

Also, please abstain from flamewars on this site, especially religious
flamewars.

~~~
CamperBob2
I respect anyone who asks for data, actually. I just respect them more if they
ask for data from _everybody_ , not just me.

(Also, it's nice if what they ask for can be answered with unequivocal
objective data, which I'm sure you'll agree isn't the case with cscurmudgeon's
request.)

~~~
cscurmudgeon
Social scientists and historians engage in data collection and processing like
the one you described almost all the time.

There is a ton of data out there.

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=christianity+and+science...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=christianity+and+science+middle+ages&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5)

~~~
CamperBob2
Go back to my original assertion ("If you weren't devoutly religious, you
didn't get the support from society you needed to do science.") You hear
stranger stuff from your clergyman every Sunday. Do you hold him to the same
standard of proof?

~~~
cscurmudgeon
Why do you think I believe in Christianity or what the clergy say? I don't.

------
judah
I'm a religious guy who loves science and technology, and I greatly
appreciated this article.

Men of faith need not be anti-science, indeed, many great men of science were
men of faith. And not by an incidental flaw in their minds, as the article
puts it, but as a driver and strengthener of their science.

In the last 100 years especially, religious people have grown anti-science,
largely because we see science growing increasingly atheistic. Others feel
threatened by evolution, as if natural selection undermines the existence of
God.

I am working in my own religious circles to counteract that and to bring back
a love of science and a love of knowledge back to my own Christian circles.

In the meantime, articles like this one are helpful to dispel the modern
notion that one cannot be religious and still love knowledge and science.

~~~
Kalium
> In the last 100 years especially, religious people have grown anti-science,
> largely because we see science growing increasingly atheistic.

If I may have a moment? I want to discuss this comment. For a very long time,
many people rooted their faith in mystery. Nobody knows how the weather works,
therefore God does it. That sort of thinking was very commonplace.

Science has always been "atheistic" in that God has never been a coherent part
of any scientific system. It's difficult to account for an uncontrollable and
omnipotent force, after all. Nothing there has changed in centuries. What has
changed in that science has advanced enough to pull away the mysteries that
used to be attributed to God.

Ever hear the phrase "God of the gaps"? For a lot of people, that was - and is
- how they understand God. Anything they didn't understand, that was God.
Science was just something those rich eggheads did.

Over time, it became possible to see the material world in which we live as
comprised of matter and energy that are governed by natural laws. It was no
longer necessary to see God in everything you didn't understand. The human
body wasn't divinely created in its current form, we're the product of
millennia of evolution.

To a great many people, whose primary understanding of divinity is that of a
God of the gaps, knowledge and faith are fundamentally incompatible. If they
acquired knowledge, the unknowns on which their faith rests will vanish and
their faith be shaken.

I suppose this is a very long-winded way of saying that I don't perceive
science as becoming more atheistic over time. I perceive religion as being in
a slow, painful retreat from territory it never should have occupied.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
"God of the gaps" is one big straw man argument. Lots of religious
philosophies don't even have a place for God directly acting in the world.

Evolution is again a straw man argument. Lots of religions accept it.

Ever hear of Gödel's rigorous ontological argument?

[http://mally.stanford.edu/Papers/ontological-
computational.p...](http://mally.stanford.edu/Papers/ontological-
computational.pdf)

Science is the not end of it all. Science rests on logic and rational thought.

What would be the scientific experiment for validating the scientific method?

My point is that arguing against simple-minded religious folks is easy.

But nobody has come up with any serious objections to arguments like those
coming from Kurt Gödel and the like.

I am not holding my breath! :)

~~~
nitrogen
_But nobody has come up with any serious objections to arguments like those
coming from Kurt Gödel and the like._

Reality is measured by evidence, not arguments.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
So math is not real? (So if science uses something imaginary, why is it better
than religion?)

I should have been more clear.

By "argument", I mean't rock solid logical proof from axioms.

(This is more of a logician's term.)

I will show you a neat simple trick used in introductory logic classes.

"Reality is measured by evidence, not arguments."

What is the truth value (or probability of being true) of that sentence? Where
is the physical data for that?

~~~
nitrogen
What is Godel's argument that proves Jesus was born to a virgin and came back
to life?

~~~
cscurmudgeon
Straw man.

As I said nobody is saying that is true. I don't believe in Christianity.
Probably Godel didn't too.

~~~
nitrogen
Then what is Godel's argument, and why is it so perfect?

Once you've answered that, what kind of god does this argument "prove", and
why should I believe in it, especially if it's not going to give me eternal
life? How does a perfect argument conjure a god into being but not the perfect
ice cream sundae and the universal pizza I can imagine?

------
pdevr
Michael Faraday worked as an assistant to Sir Humphry Davy for some time. He
used to travel along with Sir Davy and his wife. During these travels, it is
said that Davy's wife used to treat Faraday shabbily, because he came from a
lower economic class. Faraday was hurt so bad that he wanted to leave it all
and go back.

Good for us that he endured and chose to stay on.

------
dcre
Great article. Most scientists today probably don't think much about the
religious roots of their pursuit of truth.

------
gregfjohnson
I greatly enjoyed and appreciated this article. Thanks to the person who
posted it. As with all things human, there is a wide diversity of expressions
of Christian belief. The thing that stood out most for me in this article was
the human depth, compassion, and wisdom of Faraday and Maxwell. There is a
vein of Christianity today (as ever) that is wise, mature, sane, and
thoughtful. There is also, of course, a type of Christianity today that is
none of these things. Generally, it seems that the most vocal are the least
mature. One averts one's eyes with sadness and pain at the many vocal displays
intellectually trivial Christianity. All too often, immature proponents of
atheism and materialism delight in heaping contempt and ridicule on this sort
of Christianity, as though it were the whole of Christianity. It is indeed a
humbling experience to be a believing member of a community that is the object
of such frequent, intense, and painful contempt and hatred. The experienced
intimidation is such that it fills me with dread even to make a comment in
this forum. However, I would note that the uppermost echelons of science and
engineering are not without a non-trivial representation of people of active
and profound religious belief, even today. (This constitutes a sort of
existence proof; "there exists at least one leading scientist who is also a
person of active religious faith.") Personally, I am stellar neither as a
scientist nor as a Catholic, but they are the twin foundations of my being. My
faith motivated me to make a momentous decision, and devote the remainder of
my career to the alleviation of human suffering insofar as I am able; I have
the privilege of developing embedded software that runs ventilators for
neonatal intensive care and other applications.

------
conistonwater
Let's not forget, as the author does, that _not_ being a devout Christian was
really quite dangerous (and not just career-wise) for much of the time,
including 19th century. If you accept that being a Christian was not really
much of a personal choice, then being a Christian also loses quite a lot of
weight in Christian apologia illustrated with religious scientists of old.

~~~
etse
Somewhat tangential thoughts...

Being a devout Christian does seem quite dangerous career-wise today. I was
going to conclude that being a devout Christian in the sciences today seems to
"not really be much of a personal choice", but actually I think there is some
room for it. There seems to be little freedom to avoid being a closet
Christian if you are in biology and would like to not have to guess if you
would have colleagues who support your work. On the other hand, astronomers
and physicists seem to be friendlier to the devout Christians in their
respective fields.

~~~
justin66
> Being a devout Christian does seem quite dangerous career-wise today.

When does it even come up?

------
michaelsbradley
Andrew Kassebaum has written a couple of articles on the role that men of
faith have had in the development and spread of the physical sciences:

 _Scientific Geniuses and Their Jesuit Collaborators_

[http://www.strangenotions.com/scientific-geniuses-and-
their-...](http://www.strangenotions.com/scientific-geniuses-and-their-jesuit-
collaborators/)

 _How Catholic Missionaries Brought Science to China_

[http://www.strangenotions.com/how-catholic-missionaries-
brou...](http://www.strangenotions.com/how-catholic-missionaries-brought-
science-to-china/)

He's also writing a massive, probably multi-volume work on the same broad
subject, but I suspect it won't be published online and may take him years to
complete (it's a side project!). I look forward to reading it if and when it's
finally published.

------
tokenadult
Having grown up reading a certain amount of that kind of Christian apologetics
embedded in historical accounts of science, I think I have to mention
something here that may be of interest to other readers who have read a lot of
the same kind of thing. My childhood best friend is someone I met in two
successive summer science programs (1968 and 1969) for gifted students
arranged by our public school district. He was a very devout follower of a
very evangelical denomination, certainly one of the most devout Christians in
our school. (I was a church-going Christian child when I met him, and rather
devout myself, but he helped me turn it up to eleven in being dedicated to
what I was learning in church and Sunday school.)

He has pursued a very successful career as an electrical engineer in safety-
critical industries such as aviation and medical device manufacturing. I
actually skewed my studies to doing formal church work, missing out on a lot
of the hard science courses my friend took during his university and
postgraduate studies. Along the way, we each had to individually discover that
the "creation science" we heard about in church has no firm scientific basis,
and these days when I see friends here on Hacker News posting from a
background similar to the background I grew up with, I gently remind them to
refer to the multiple lines of evidence for macroevolution[1] so that at least
we have common ground here on Hacker News to discuss biomedical research and
other aspects of biological science. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in
the Light of Evolution,"[2] so it is very regrettable when we have discussions
here without checking the facts about evolution first.

AFTER EDIT: Huh, I see I am still in my edit time limit here as I expand this
comment to note that there is evidently strong disagreement with my comment
here. Because there is a lack of replies here, I don't know what prompts the
disagreement. I hope there is no disagreement here that the great weight of
scientific evidence shows that biological evolution is a true phenomenon,[3]
and I hope that everyone participating here is aware that not everyone
receives factually correct information about evolution.[4]

Feel free to let me know what you really think about what I have written in
this comment. I can't learn from you if you won't speak up. Speaking up with
evidence is the way to convince thoughtful people that your ideas are correct.
Oh, and happy new year to everyone here.

[1]
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/)

[2]
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/l_102_01.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/l_102_01.html)

[http://biologie-
lernprogramme.de/daten/programme/js/homologe...](http://biologie-
lernprogramme.de/daten/programme/js/homologer/daten/lit/Dobzhansky.pdf)

[http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/?p=92](http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/?p=92)

[3]
[http://www.nas.edu/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html](http://www.nas.edu/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html)

[http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/](http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/)

[http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/excerpt.html](http://jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu/excerpt.html)

[4] [http://ncse.com/polls-evolution](http://ncse.com/polls-evolution)

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-
intel...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-
design.aspx)

[http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/public-opinion-on-
religio...](http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/public-opinion-on-religion-and-
science-in-the-united-states/)

[http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-5-views-on-
re...](http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-5-views-on-religion-the-
bible-evolution-and-social-issues/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/13/opinion/willful-
ignorance-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/13/opinion/willful-ignorance-on-
evolution.html)

~~~
noonespecial
have an upvote from me too.

But I think what people might be doing is driving this comment to the bottom
because actual debates on religious beliefs usually go badly on internet
forums in general. Without collapsible comments, such things have a tendency
to blow up a thread.

I've heard that it was considered extremely impolite to discuss politics or
religion in public in the 1800's. I wish that were a little more true today.

~~~
tokenadult
Well, I thought I was mostly discussing science, especially with the first two
footnotes (and in light of how these issues usually come up on Hacker News),
but I appreciate your thoughts on how the comment was interpreted by other
readers.

~~~
jacquesm
Don't sweat it, and a Happy 2015 to you from NL.

