Biologists vs. physicists

“If we need an atheist for a debate, we go to the philosophy department.  The physics department isn’t much use.”

–Robert Griffiths, winner of the Heinemann Prize in mathematical physics.

Do biologists and physicists have very different world views? Of course they agree on the scientific method and the validity of scientific inquiry. They seem to diverge sharply on the question of what their disciplines' respectively reveal and mean.

And on no question more than whether theism or atheism is scientifically supportable.

Relevant to the disagreement between modern physics and mainstream biology on this topic, biophysicist Harold J. Morowitz writes in his article Rediscovering the Mind:

“What has happened is that biologists, who once postulated a privileged role for the human mind in nature’s hierarchy, have been moving relentlessly toward the hard-core materialism that characterized nineteenth-century physics.  At the same time, physicists, faced with compelling experimental evidence, have been moving away from strictly mechanical models of the universe to a view that sees the mind as playing an integral role in all physical events.  It is as if the two disciplines were on fast-moving trains, going in opposite directions and not noticing what is happening across the tracks.’”

Physicist Richard Conn Henry explains why people (such as atheist biologists) cling to materialism/naturalism despite the fact that it has been completely discredited by modern physics:

“Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism.” ["Solipsism" is defined as "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."]

Naturalism/materialism, simply put, is critical for maintaining an atheist worldview.  Mind must be the eventual product of mindless matter for atheism to stand.  An atheist must therefore ignore, remain ignorant of, or rationalize away the insights of modern physics in order to prevent his/her belief system from collapsing. 

Read the whole thing.