FREEDOM OF THE AIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 327, 28 September 1945, Page 24

FREEDOM OF THE AIR

Sir,-As a student of science may I suggest that scientific theories are not absolute, that they are not true-in the deeper meaning of that word, and that scientists do not believe absolutely in their theories. Rather is a theory the best mechanism or model by which can be explained some experimentally observable phenomena. This idea is easier to understand in the purer sciences where a theory generally consists of a descrip‘tion of some system in terms of mathematical symbols. The atom, for example, far from being the hafd sphere which we could have seen if we had been able ta. see such a small object, has become

in terms of a certain mathematical func~ tion which best describes the measurable effects of its behaviour "a hump in space time-a mush of electricity-a wave of probability undulating into nothingness" (a description which is pretty hard to visualise and certainly very hard to believe in absolutely). Moreover this theory is inadequate and only the best one known. The only things which we can know absolutely without recourse to our senses are those in which we have implicit faith and it is here that science differs essentially from religion. The Christian needs no proof of the existence of God. For him it is true-an article of faith, The scientist, on the other hand, far from believing his theories-if he is a good scientist-does his best to falsify them. He is interested in something called "science" for its own sake and knows perfectly well that ultimate truths and questions like "How did it all begin?" are completely outside his province. It has been well said that "Science consists of theories which no one be-~ lieves except the men who first thought of them and facts which everyone believes except the men who last investigated them," and it has been suggested that the law "of conservation of energy" on which is based the whole of physics is no more than a collection of conventions. I would suggest then that evolution being a scientific theory, is not necessarily true, and to the scientist is merely the best existent theory for his work of unravelling, classifying and predicting. I must point out however that a scientist who as a scientist on the one hand may use evolution as one of the tools of his trade, may on the other hand as a man believe in it-as being absolutely true. His belief is founded on his attraction personally to the theory and his faith in its absolute truth-a faith which has nothing whatever to do with science except that it was through science that he became familiar with the theory. This is not necessarily so, however, and there seems to be no reason at all why the biologist should not use evolution in his work while believing implicity in Genesis as an article of faith. I feel then that the fundamentalist has as little need to worry about Darwinism as the Nationalist has to use it as his first line .of attack.

STUDENT

(Canterbury College).