principles.txt

Principles of the Apostolate on Modern Science and the Catholic Faith

I. A scientific theory can be ruled out but never ruled in.[a]
   A. Therefore, scientific realism[b] should be treated with some skepticism.
   B. So far as it remains in play, a theory represents not truth but
      possibility.
   C. A scientific theory may be ruled out only by repeatable sense experience.
      1. A theory is not ruled out even if it conflict with the Church's
         teaching.[c]
      2. A theory is not ruled out even if it seem to the non-expert as though
         it violate some principle of logic.
      3. The competent authority to rule out a scientific theory rests with the
         community of researchers who regularly compare the predictions of the
         theory with observations in the ordinary course of their work.
      4. Ruling out a theory is not the same as ruling out a general idea.[d]

II. Scientism[e] is not science.
    A. The quantum-mechanical distinction between the observer and the observed
       presents interesting challenges for the advocate of scientism.
    B. The capabilities of the human mind also present interesting challenges.
    C. The apparent reality of subjective experience, which is fundamentally
       beyond scientific explanation, also presents interesting challenges.
    D. While not definitive, the above considerations point to a position that
       is consistent with Catholic teaching about the special status of the
       human person but not dependent on revelation.

III. Aquinas's doctrine of secondary causality is important.[f]
     A. Secondary causality stands against Intelligent Design (ID).[g]
     B. Secondary causality affirms the possibility (not the certainty) of
        evolutionary theory as regards living bodies.
     C. Secondary causality stands opposed to the brute-fact notion of
        the-universe-itself-as-the-first-cause.

[a] For example, Lemaitre urged the Pope not to claim that the Big Bang theory
    proves the finite age of the universe. Even a theory that fits all of the
    observations in the present might be ruled out in the future.

[b] Scientific realism is the idea according to which a thing, like the
    electron or the motion of the Earth, can be considered real even if it be
    known only by way of a scientific theory and not by way of sense
    perception.

[c] Catholic physicists entertained the standard, steady-state models of
    cosmology before the Big Bang models. A proper understanding of a theory as
    a claim of possibility with respect to the current observations helps one
    to see that there is simply no conflict with the teaching of the Church
    (such as that the age of the universe is finite). The problem comes when
    one tries to make a scientific theory into a strong truth claim.

[d] A static model universe, according to which the universe is infinitely old,
    has been ruled out, but the idea of an infinitely old universe is not
    something that can be ruled out because that idea is not itself a
    scientific theory.  Science is limited in what it can rule out. Only
    specific theories can be ruled out, not general principles.

[e] Scientism is the philosophical belief according to which everything that
    exists can be described in terms of science. It is the present and dominant
    form of materialism, the belief according to which only matter exists.

[f] According to the doctrine of secondary causality, God is the primary cause
    of all things, and in the natural world what God creates are secondary
    causes.  Because every created thing is a cause, it has natural effects
    that can be recognized. This is why science works.

[g] Although the Catholic view is that God is both intelligent and the
    Designer, the idea of Intelligent Design, particularly as it regards the
    notion of irreducible complexity, lowers the action of God to that of an
    ordinary cause. The advocates of ID intend to show by examples of
    irreducible complexity the necessity for special divine intervention in the
    realm of ordinary causes to explain ordinary things that we see. But this
    is not far removed from pagan ideas of divinity, ideas that were eliminated
    not only by Judaism and Christianity but also by the classical theists in
    the line of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and by modern-day atheists. ID
    smacks of the god of the gaps.