SCIENCE AND HUMANITY

The author of this brilliant and wide-ranging book on science, philosophy and meaning is a professor of physics at Oxford specialising in experimental and theoretical quantum computing. It questions the popular and hegemonic presentation of science as the be-all and end-all of knowledge purporting to give a complete account of the nature of human life and reconfiguring the whole human outlook in mechanistic terms. The first part addresses the structure of science as a network of mutually interacting and informing ideas rather than a bottom-up ladder (p.17) – the author illustrates this with a discussion of symmetry and thermodynamics. He then introduces his embodiment principle whereby 'the lower level and higher level principles are in a reciprocal relationship of mutual consistency in which each illuminates the other' (p. 42). Philosophically, the notions of explanation, insight and understanding represent different discourses and a two-way interaction, rather than postulating a so-called fundamental level on which everything else is built.

The next chapter on logic and knowledge introduces the author's 'Babel Fallacy' - defined as the claim to know the complete truth about the physical nature of anything. For instance, the behaviour of a monkey cannot be understood from its molecular components, hence 'low-level explanations do not do all the explanatory work in science' (p. 57) - nor is an arch explained by its stones. There is an excellent discussion on the difference between cause (owing to what?) and purpose (in order that what?) - Steane shows that these notions are logically unrelated, rightly asserting that goals and ends are associated with thought and intention. He then applies this reasoning to the selfish gene of Richard Dawkins, demonstrating how the gene is misrepresented as having agency and that he is conflating cause and purpose. Moreover, his idea of the human being as a robot blindly programmed to preserve genes does scant justice to the richness of the human person. Steane then develops his own metaphor in the next chapter of the 'eager' rather than the selfish gene and questions the equivalence of impersonal and merciless in describing the process of life.

The second part on value and meaning analyses the limits of science and its place in a larger framework of human explanation and understanding: abstract model making cannot answer legitimate questions about value and meaning. A section on the history of science contains an interesting discussion of the Galileo case within this context, followed by an analysis of completeness and cogency, where the author cautions that the putative completeness of the atheist description is not a guarantor of its correctness - however, 'nor is the completeness of any other description' (p. 136). Moving on to values and moral judgement, Steane makes a convincing case that the tools of logic on their own cannot show us what is valuable or good - values must be embraced rather than derived; nor can the existence of 'that which deserves the deepest allegiance of all free agents' be either proved or disproved: faith entails trust in God as foundational reality rather than the somewhat primitive concept set up as a straw man by public atheists. For Steane, the spiritual path is one of discovery and response – at the end of the chapter there is a striking poetic representation of nonviolence as a principle near the heart of all genuine spirituality; and the book itself contains many of the author's poems and even a short story as a different form of articulation.

An important chapter is entitled A Farewell to Hume and deals with an argument put forward by Aquinas to the effect that the natural world may be self-contained and that theistic religious claims are unwarranted and superfluous. The argument is subsequently restated by Richard Dawkins in terms of lack of explanatory power (LEP) where God is represented as a complex thing regarded as improbable or in need of explanation. For Steane, the fallacy is that God does not fall into the class of things, and that a much subtler language and approach is required. Here he presents four witnesses embodying a deeper approach: Jesus himself from the Gospels stating that human beings are in need of forgiveness and 'a fresh ability to live better lives'; then Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the desert fathers and the poet RS Thomas (elsewhere he brings in Mozart and Bach) - all these represent human experience and effort rather than academic talk.

The final chapters draw the threads together by restating that God is not an explanatory scientific hypothesis but rather 'provides the very concept of explanation, an intelligible universe, and the urge to explain' (p. 213) - indeed science itself emerged historically from theology. This leads on to a discussion of whether the universe suggests design, purpose, goodness or concern or is a place of pitiless indifference as proposed by Russell and Dawkins. The impersonal forces of nature do indeed exhibit pitiless indifference, which is their very nature. However, this is not all since humans experience an inwardness and purpose moving towards, in the author's words, a more complete expression of goodness, beauty and truth where the natural world 'is also the vehicle of transformative and transcendent experiences' (p. 235).

In this wider context, science is part of the humane philosophy underpinned by 'faith expressing itself through love' in the practice of both science and religion, a love that transfigures analysis as a fuller expression of our humanity representing both below and above in partnership, responding with trust. For the author, the context is Jesus and his impact on the world, but more generally the idea 'that reality extends beyond the ordinary processes of the natural world' (p. 265), which we as whole persons can grasp as we try to close the gap between the world as it is and as it could be if modelled on trust and reciprocal giving. The journey of reading this profound book brings a deeply humane encounter with a dedicated scientific and spiritual seeker.