How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [45]
What is perhaps most striking about this group, however, is the quasi-religious nature of their beliefs, including an almost faithlike devotion to science as a higher power. Scientism is their religion, technocracy their politics, progress their God. They hold an unmitigated confidence that because science has solved problems in the past, it will solve all problems in the future, including the biggest one of all—death. Why not follow the curve of scientific progress to its ultimate end, they argue? Medical science has cured many of the world’s major diseases—why not eventually all of them, including aging? They point optimistically to “Moore’s law” (in 1965 Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, accurately predicted that the density of transistors on integrated circuits would double every eighteen months) and speak fondly of nanotechnology, where some day computers will be the size of cells, capable of being injected into our bodies to repair organs, maintain tissues and systems, and eradicate cancers and other destructive agents.
Since death is something most of us would like to transcend, we must be particularly skeptical of claims that play on this deepest of all human desires, be it religiously or scientifically based. It is doubtful that the Extropians are right in their prediction that one day we will live into the thousands of years, if not achieve actual immortality. But I must admit it is fun to think about and occasionally, in quiet moments, I wonder … what if they are right?
In his 1996 book Leaps of Faith, psychologist Nicholas Humphrey speculates that true believers are in search of “supernatural consolation.” There is what he calls a “paranormal fundamentalism” among the faithful who maintain “an unshakable conviction that no matter what the evidence, ‘there must be something there.’” I would take this a step further and suggest that for all of us it is tempting to believe that “there must be something there.” For secular religions like Marxism, Something There is the force of linear history inexorably marching through the stages of economic development toward communism. For capitalists, Something There is the invisible hand gently guiding markets to produce higher-quality products at lower prices. For Extropians, Something There is the vision of a paradisiacal future of longevity, intelligence, health, and wealth, delivered on the wings of scientific imagination. For some, science, or more precisely scientism, is a secular religion in the sense of generating loyal commitments (a type of faith) to a method, a body of knowledge, and a hope for a better tomorrow. Perhaps seeing Something There is partly hard-wired in us all.
SEEING THE PATTERN OF GOD
As we have seen, humans are pattern-seeking animals. Our brains are hard-wired to seek and find patterns, whether the pattern is real or not. Psychologist Stuart Vyse demonstrated this in his research with his colleague Ruth Heltzer, in an experiment in which subjects participated in a video game, the goal of which was to navigate a path through a matrix grid using directional keys to move the cursor. One group of subjects were rewarded with points for successfully finding a way through the grid’s lower right portion, while a second group of subjects were rewarded points randomly. Both groups were subsequently asked to describe how they thought