Monday, May 12, 2014

Science Has Not Disproved God

I just finished mathematician Amir Aczel's Why Science Does Not Disprove God.

Have you ever had someone say to you, "Science proves there is no God." Consider the person who says this uneducated as to science; viz., what "science" is and is not, and what it is able to do. Aczel shows how science has clearly done no such thing, and may never be able to do such a thing, in principle. 

Here's something I found fascinating. Aczel thinks, as a mathematician, the idea of an "infinite multiverse" to be absurd. This is because real numbers are "infinitely dense." Between any two real numbers, no matter how close they are, there is yet another number, and another, and another... "Thus, for any number, there is no "next" one, because if you choose a "next" one, there are still infinitely many numbers between the given number and the one you've designated as "next."" (228)

Aczel asks, "Where are all the "infinitely densely packed" other universes?... These universes must be as "close" to each other as the points on the real line (or at least as close as the rational points on the line are to one another). The mathematical situation is physically hard to imagine. If so many universes existed out there, surely at least some of the would by now have bumped up against us?" (229, emphasis mine)