You are taking particle physics for the totality of science throughout, cherry-picking a part of science most remote from everyday concerns, ignoring the rest of the elephant.
Perhaps I was not clear enough, but that wasn’t my intention—far from it. I was trying to highlight the diversity of scientific inquiry, by choosing a few representative fields. The elephant has many, many parts to it, and some of them are distinctly less useful or likely to “work” than others. But note that you can’t even talk about what’s likely to “work” without adopting some normative standards first, as you implicitly did in your reply: and our general worldview, with its cosmology (what’s out there? or—even more critically—what’s important? What should we be paying attention to?) and morality (“what should we do?”) is going to have a big impact on such choices, in any but the most crudely-technocratic or runaway-capitalist society.
These are not trivial issues—indeed, scientists of such caliber as Einstein and Oppenheimer were famously forced to grapple with these when they found out—much to their horror and dismay, if popular accounts are to be believed—that “science” had given them the ability to build catastrophically destructive weapons. And our own MIRI is often said to be facing similar concerns in its work on AI.
Whether “religion” is relevant here depends mostly on how you define the term. But AIUI, many scholars would argue that Confucianism qualifies as one, despite it being quite non-theistic, and more in the nature of a collection of moral maxims, and of course, a basic worldview highlighting such principles as cultivating basic kindness, showing loyalty and care where appropriate, and participating in rituals that foster a sense of unity and social harmony. Many people would argue that such a “religion” could be highly appropriate for our hyper-”material” world—whatever it is that we choose “material” to mean.
But note that you can’t even talk about what’s likely to “work” without adopting some normative standards first
“Working” is as objective as it comes. Nobody wants to die of smallpox, and smallpox vaccination works, while prayers don’t. Nobody wants to die at sea, so sailors have to know the tides, and how to determine where they are. No-one wants to starve, so farmers have to know how to make their crops thrive. They won’t get that knowledge by praying for revelation. In short, people have purposes, and can observe whether what they are doing to achieve them is working. The better they can find out what works and what doesn’t, the better they will achieve those purposes, whatever they are.
That is the pressure, objectively and insistently exerted by nature, to find things out. The carpenter making a better table has no need of God to tell him what sort of glue will give way and what will hold fast.
Confucianism is an interesting case, but I think it was sustained not by its own virtue but by the power of the centralised and authoritarian Chinese state, with which it was a good fit with its emphasis on loyalty and deference to superiors. The scientific revolution didn’t happen there. So theocracy isn’t the only thing that can stop science from happening.
As for a religion appropriate to the modern world, the traditions of the past are available to all in the Internet age. Anyone can pick and choose or make their own. But I see little future for mass religions based on fictions and unenforced by state power.
Perhaps I was not clear enough, but that wasn’t my intention—far from it. I was trying to highlight the diversity of scientific inquiry, by choosing a few representative fields. The elephant has many, many parts to it, and some of them are distinctly less useful or likely to “work” than others. But note that you can’t even talk about what’s likely to “work” without adopting some normative standards first, as you implicitly did in your reply: and our general worldview, with its cosmology (what’s out there? or—even more critically—what’s important? What should we be paying attention to?) and morality (“what should we do?”) is going to have a big impact on such choices, in any but the most crudely-technocratic or runaway-capitalist society.
These are not trivial issues—indeed, scientists of such caliber as Einstein and Oppenheimer were famously forced to grapple with these when they found out—much to their horror and dismay, if popular accounts are to be believed—that “science” had given them the ability to build catastrophically destructive weapons. And our own MIRI is often said to be facing similar concerns in its work on AI.
Whether “religion” is relevant here depends mostly on how you define the term. But AIUI, many scholars would argue that Confucianism qualifies as one, despite it being quite non-theistic, and more in the nature of a collection of moral maxims, and of course, a basic worldview highlighting such principles as cultivating basic kindness, showing loyalty and care where appropriate, and participating in rituals that foster a sense of unity and social harmony. Many people would argue that such a “religion” could be highly appropriate for our hyper-”material” world—whatever it is that we choose “material” to mean.
“Working” is as objective as it comes. Nobody wants to die of smallpox, and smallpox vaccination works, while prayers don’t. Nobody wants to die at sea, so sailors have to know the tides, and how to determine where they are. No-one wants to starve, so farmers have to know how to make their crops thrive. They won’t get that knowledge by praying for revelation. In short, people have purposes, and can observe whether what they are doing to achieve them is working. The better they can find out what works and what doesn’t, the better they will achieve those purposes, whatever they are.
That is the pressure, objectively and insistently exerted by nature, to find things out. The carpenter making a better table has no need of God to tell him what sort of glue will give way and what will hold fast.
Confucianism is an interesting case, but I think it was sustained not by its own virtue but by the power of the centralised and authoritarian Chinese state, with which it was a good fit with its emphasis on loyalty and deference to superiors. The scientific revolution didn’t happen there. So theocracy isn’t the only thing that can stop science from happening.
As for a religion appropriate to the modern world, the traditions of the past are available to all in the Internet age. Anyone can pick and choose or make their own. But I see little future for mass religions based on fictions and unenforced by state power.