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What we know, how we came to be, and what is the whole point of the universe really?  These are three big questions, that seem to get asked a lot.  By religious people, who use it to point out how obvious (it is to them) that a God, or gods, exist.  And the scientists who take the opportunity to point out (how obvious it is to them) that religion is wrong, because they believe that they have all the answers.  Sure, both sides, especially the scientists, admit that they don’t know everything, the religious people saying that ‘God knows everything’, and the scientists, being a bit more agnostic, either say it’s impossible to know everything, or that it is possible, but we are very far from it, however, neither side actually acts with an open mind, despite how much they say they do.  The ironic thing though, is that by saying that, both sides are stating that they know for absolute certainty something about the universe, something, that could possibly in the next hundred or so years, be proven false, do to humanity thinking in a c completely different paradigm that we can’t even fathom at this point in time.

The point of this article is not to discuss evolution, nor to discuss global warming, which I have already have written about.  But rather, to criticise both sides, for the amount of cliché they use, the amount of straw man, snowball effect, and other logical fallacies they use in order to prove with absolute certainty (in their minds) that something is false.  Do I blame them?  No, not a bit, in fact, from time to time, I find myself doing it, which leads me to believe that I’m doing it even more when I’m not meta-conscious.  But please, try to keep an open mind.  Religious people, maybe, just maybe, we did evolve from more simple forms of life.  Or even more fundamental, maybe, just maybe, the concept of God is something that we made, even if not meaning to, in order to give us comfort, something our biology has made an integral part of us.  Scientists, maybe, just maybe, God exists, he may or may not have wanted the Bible, or other forms of scripture, to exist, and maybe  he isn’t anything like what any major religion imagined him to be, but maybe he does exist.  Maybe our idea of the scientific method is wrong altogether.  Sure, it has served us well in the past, but we didn’t actually get the scientific method by the scientific method, at some point we did have to use induction.

An Antebellum era (pre-civil war) family Bible dating to 1859. By David Ball

When I go into a religious setting, I tend to find people who have proven scientifically (in their minds), that God exists.  I begin talking to them, and any time I point out a possible problem with their ‘fact’, they start proving it with other facts, and usually return very fast, using a circular argument, ie God made us because it’s too unlikely we could have evolved, I ask why after all is not anything forbidden, mandatory, or given enough time, anything improbable will happen, at which point they say no.  I point out how they could be wrong, and they continue to talk about how it is illogical, and against anything God would make.  I also have known people to say that they have open minds, just so long as they are good God-fearing people, isn’t that a contradiction.  What if someone were to come up with some magical way of proving he did or didn’t.  I am not a God hater, as some people have branded me as, but rather, for this subject, I am agnostic.  I see no possible way to prove or disprove God.  Even if we did find some gene, or brain activity that caused humanity to believe in God, could not some group of people state how that is sure-fire proof that God exists, as he made us in such a way that we would look up to him?  So, until I come up with some possible way to prove or disprove it, I do not care, and hope that you will continue to think of me as a descent human being, who is seeking absolute truth and knowledge, if indeed, it actually does exist.

On the flip side of the coin.  Scientists, you don’t know everything either.  Maybe we will prove that the scientific method is wrong, or missing something.  And maybe in another millenia we will prove that that new paradigm was wrong altogether too.  From my experience, everything has been relative.  Laws have been broken, Newton’s laws have been rendered invalid at a quantum level, Einstein’s Relativity and String Theory are, at this point in time, completely incompatible with each other.  Sure you may say that they’re incompatible now, but theoretical physicists will eventually find a way to make it work.  Sure, I’ll go with that.  In fact, I’ll even give you your answer.  Q.  The way to solve all of your physics problems is Q.  When asked what Q is, I’ll simply state that it is the answer that makes physics work.  Just append it onto every equation we’ve ever used, we’ll call it the fudge factor, or maybe the Picardian, it makes physics work.  Now the careful scientist will point out that this isn’t following Occam’s Razor.  Just adding a Q onto every equation doesn’t make it more simple.  And to that, I really do applaud you.  Still though, isn’t that how the five flavours of string theory managed to become converge though?  Just by throwing in an eleventh dimension.  Yes, I’m certain there is more math involved, and if any of you happen to know it, please tell me, I really do love math, science, and engineerig (after all, I am majoring in computer engineering at the University of Utah, and possibly minoring or majoring in mathematics), however, it still sounds like you are throwing on another dimension to make it work.  This is the type of science that has proven the higgs boson to exist, either it doesn’t want to be found, or we have found it.  Also, no, that is not a new thing, long before the recent study about the LHC being sabotaged by the future, physicists seamed to speculate that it the higgs existed, and we just haven’t found a way to see it, yet.  Also, what if Occam’s Razor is incorrect in the first place, after all, is it not also just an observation that was made?

At some point we do have to throw in the towel.  We do admit we don’t know everything, even the most fanatical people admit that.  And in order to stop speculating about what is true, what is good, and what we should and should not do, we just plunge in, and take a risk.  Not only that, but rarely do we just stick our belief in just the bible, or just in the science textbook.  Rather, most people that I have seen, look about them.  To a certain extent, they act as scientists.  Taking in any form of input they can get, and processing it with both reason and emotion.  With both what makes sense, and what feels right to them.  And to that, I say good job, I do the same thing.  But maybe someone has had a different set of experiences than you, maybe the way they are set up, causes them to value something differently.  Maybe there’s something we have yet to consider.  The moral of the story though, is that just because someone believes something different than you, that doesn’t mean they’re instantly wrong.  I admit it, this whole paper could be wrong.  But to me, it feels true and good, and I will stand behind it so long as it continue to feel that way.  So please, rather than constantly trying to make your argument look better by tearing others down, why not make yours better, by listening to them.  By valuing what they have to say, by considering their beliefs, despite how illogical they may seem, or may even be.  People are people, we all make mistakes, let’s grow together, whether or not there is a God, whether or not we evolved, whether or not I am just off of my rocker.

I am Leif Andersen, and I am a sceptic, who tries to keep an open mind, even if he fails a lot.

Update:  Upon further contemplation upon this subject, I don’t think this argument is specific to just science and religion.  For example, I see this to a large extent in software, where one group of people believe very passionately about  a certain way of making software, and how it should be delivered, such as open source, where as another group cares more about how it looks, and the hierarchy structure of the people that make it, such as Apple.

I was listening to the most recent episode of TWiT’s Security Now, Episode 225, Same OriginTroubles.  For the first seven or so minutes of the show, they found themselves on a bit of a sidetrack, they were talking about what is engineering, and what is required to be an engineer.  As such, I thought this would be an interesting discussion to have, especially when debating the difference between Computer Science, and Computer Engineering.

The standard repository for all of human knowledge (wikipedia), has this to say on Engineers:

Engineers work to develop economical and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics and scientific knowledge while considering technical constraints.^{[1] [2]} The term is derived from the Latin root “ingenium,” meaning “cleverness”.^[3] The industrial revolution and continuing technological developments of the last few centuries have changed the connotation of the term slightly, resulting in the perception of engineers as applied scientists. The work of engineers is the link between perceived needs of society and commercial applications

That seams like a valid enough place to start.  Engineering is the useful application of science.  So, while scientists are always trying to break things down, and get everything to the smallest possible level, engineers are taking these discoveries, and building them up, in order to make a richer, more powerful world.  Seams simple enough.  Most people in engineering degrees are going to be screaming at me right now, saying I should talk about black box abstraction, but to them I say that will be a topic for another day.  (For those of you who are interested though, black box abstraction is a process in which you take the gritty details of a machine, and simply remove them.  In it’s place, you put a spot for inputs, outputs, and enough documentation to let your users, whether they be end users or more developers, know how to run the apparatus, you can find more information by watching this video from MIT).  Also, those who are particularly cranky about the pseudo debate over evolution and ID (intelligent design) will be begging me to talk about how this either proves that evolution or ID existed and the other could not have possibly happened.  Alas, to them, I also say  no, this is another topic for another time.  If you would like to discuss this, there is a comments section below.

So, this line breaks down dramatically when we discuss computers.  In particular, where does computer engineering end, and computer science begin.  Or, should we go along with the philosophy of “Hackers and Painters” and state that there is on such thing as computer science, but only hacking, and systems administration.  It seams as if academically, the dividing line between computer science and computer engineering is software and hardware.  If you are working more with hardware, you are doing computer engineering, and if you are thinking about software, it’s computer science.  I would like to state that that is completely and utterly untrue, at least based on this definition of engineering, it is false.

Before I go any further in discussing the matter, I must state that like everything else in this world, I am incredibly biased.  I am currently majoring in Computer Engineering, however, I am debating about double majoring in mathematics as well.  If I don’t double major in math, I will certainly minor in it.  As such, I tend to think that that Computer Engineering is something that you can get a degree in, where as computer science is something that can only be learned as a pseudo hobby.  Not something you do in your spare time, but something that can only be learned by doing it.  Analogous to getting a degree in entrepreneurship, why would anyone ever want to do that?   If you want to be good at start ups, you need to play the game, not get a degree in it.  Likewise, if you want to be a good computer scientist, or ‘hacker’, you need to practice, not simply sit and pontificate on some algorithm.  This way of thinking has me so biased in fact, that I would rather hire someone who has got a degree in mathematics, and has dome series computer hobby projects, than hier someone who has got a degree in computer science, at least, depending on the job I wanted done.  If I wanted a computer designed, I would rather higher computer and electrical engineers.

Well, based on the previous paragraph, you can see where I draw the line.  I think that computer engineers, whether they be software or hardware engineers, make things.  They are the people that designed the computer as we know it.  They tend to have a low level knowledge on how the system runs, but can also operate on a higher level.  On the other hand, computer scientists think of the computer as a black box.  Yes, while engineers also think of stuff on as a black box, after all, if any one engineer were to suddenly be able to hold the entire workings of a computer down to an atomic level, or even something like a desktop computer being thought of on the capacitor level, would simply loose their mind.  Believe me, I’m trying to do it, and I have lost my mind already, does that stop me from trying though?  No, not really.  Still, computer scientists look at a computer and see a machine that is capable of calculations.  They are then handed a toolset or an SDK, at which point they mathematically figure out what they want to do.  Oddly enough, this sounds like engineering too me.  So what else separates compute science?  Well, system maintenance, and other IT based stuff.  Computer Scientists work to try to make a computer system, such as Unix or NT, stick together, so that it will be sustainable in the future.  However, that still sounds like trying to build something that will last, based on engineering principles.  Thus, we have only broken down computer science into two parts, comptuer engineering, and system administration, in which a person has little experience on designing computers, and only has used them to such a great depth, that he knows how they work.

Thus, from the great words of the people who made the Wizards’ Book, computer science isn’t really about science, nor is it about computers.  End of story.  I suppose this is where I am supposed to rap things up and make a nice conclusion.  But I won’t, I’ll just end it like that.   Do you think I’m off my rocker?