Science and the Question of Purpose

 
Lawrence Krauss has a column in the Aug. 2 issue of New Scientist [Why God and Science Don't Mix].¹ The article is mostly about why scientists should not support the Templeton Foundation but I want to focus on one particular statement.

Krauss says,

Science must follow nature wherever it leads us. If it turn out to suggest that we are alone in a universe without purpose, we must accept that.

Let's not quibble about the "alone" part. I think that science does, indeed, reveal a universe without purpose. In particular, it strongly indicates that humans have no special place in the universe and no special role to fulfill. This is one of the reasons why science and religion are in conflict.

Theistic evolutionists and soft intelligent design creationists claim that the universe was set up by God in a way that makes intelligent life inevitable. Many of them claim that the goal is to evolve humans—or something like humans—whose purpose is to discover God and worship Him.

Here's the question. Does science really tell us that there's no purpose and humans aren't special? I think it does suggest exactly that and anyone who chooses to think otherwise is in concflict with science. It's one of the reasons why I think that science and religion are in conflict.

Now, I admit that the inference of purposelessness isn't obvious to the average person but I think it's plain to those people who study science for a living. Perhaps it explains why so many scientists are nonbelievers and perhaps it's why religious scientists such as Ken Miller, Francois Collins, and Simon Conway Morris have to develop such convoluted arguments to rationalize the conflict [Does the Univese Have a Purpose?].

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1. It's interesting that the print version of this essay is titled "Let's Listen to What Nature Says." A much better title IMHO.