Some people think it is unfair of science to say that some non-material things, like gravity and time, are more scientific (in other words, more real) than other non-material things - such as God. This is consistent with the kind of attitude Pirsig has.

God is unscientific because it defies analysis. Nevertheless, half of scientists say God is real. How can this be? Should it not be zero? According to the attitude above, science tells us what's real, and science tells us God is not seen under a microscope, therefore God is illegal (as are values, morals, etc). Despite the impressive impact science has had, equating science with the metaphysics of our times is a gross exaggeration and is the hallmark of the SOM strawman. Science doesn't pretend to own the rights to reality, and the great majority of people don't think it does. Most people don't expect science to "discover" God or morals, like they discovered x-rays. Many people do not see a contradiction between science and God, including many scientists, because there is an obvious gulf between science and God that science is not equipped to cross.

Science isn't in the business of defining what's real per se, but of finding out how things work. It is interested in the laws and mechanisms behind phenomena. In the process of doing this it has discovered new things we didn't know existed before, like quasars and radio waves. God is not a phenomena and cannot render itself to analysis. You cannot point to God and say to a scientist, "figure this out".

This is not so with gravity. Everyone understands what is meant by it and shares a common perception of it. You see the effects of gravity every day. People who are watching can confirm that a pencil did indeed drop to the floor. You can measure the strength of gravity and see that it varies at different altitudes. Gravity follows a precise mathematical equation that has been verified. Perhaps gravity is an act of God, or even a kind of god. That's another approach.

Very little is known about time, but unlike God, notions about time (the feeling of something passing and receding into history) are experienced the same way by everyone. Time seems to be axiomatic to understanding other concepts in science in much the way space is. Notions about God, on the other hand, are personal, anthropocentric, and strongly influenced by doctrine, dogma, and culture.

One might think it is unfair that science doesn't consider God as scientific and objectively real as other non-material things like gravity and time, and I've given reasons why I think it is fair, considering the business science is in.

As an aside, I don't think being a moral person is contingent on a belief in God, although I'll readily agree that an important place to learn morals is in a place of worship.

It has also been mentioned (as a complaint) that science and technology keep us alive in our modern culture and it does so without having to acknowledge the existence of morality whatsoever. I can't help agreeing, but don't see this as a thing to complain about. Scientist would have a hard time convincing anyone that the basic operations of atoms and chemical reactions had anything to do with morality (in the conventional social sense, MOQ aside).

From this it is argued that it gets easier to pay less attention to morality, since science takes care of us. This is a misplacing of morals. People think nature is ammoral. But nature isn't giving us our comforts; the scientist and technologists are. It's these people who cared enough to invent air-conditioners and such. I don't think this is lost on anyone in the general public. If anything, people are grateful for modern conveniences, and are not sitting around going, "My God, I'm surrounded by the products of cruel and heartless objectivism!"

Also I don't think just because we have more physical comfort that we have less of a need for moral or psychic comforting (doing kind things, expressing sympathy, smiling at passersby). I see no connection. In fact, having our physical needs met leaves us more time for moral comforting, such as through volunteerism.

Feelings of technophobia and boredom, which result in fretting about oneself and the world at large, are all byproducts of our modern conveniences and physical comforts. We all suffer from them. But let's not be so rash to blame all these problems on "cold and heartless objectivism". Theories abound.

Another complaint about the program of science is that it has an inherent hypocrisy, which is the search for objective Truths that it admits don't exist. I think this is a conflation of Bacon's and Descarte's dream of science's potential with the more reined in attitude of science in the 20th century, thanks to folks like Heisenberg and Godel. But let's not fly in the other direction and say that everything is relative and nothing is certain. The Earth is round. I am certain of that as I am of anything, and science taught me this fact. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle does not throw every scientific fact into doubt.

Glenn's Postmortem MOQ Page