In a perfect example of the limitations of scientific thinking, Robert Jastrow explains how science has reasoned itself into a corner that it can not reason itself out of. More precisely, science does not have to reason itself out of the corner because logical deduction got it there, and why would it want to leave? What we can not know, was not. Thus we have a neat, tidy and wholly unsatisfactory explanation for one of the most basic questions facing humanity.
Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the universe? Was the universe created out of nothing, or was it gathered together out of pre-existing materials? And science can not answer those questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion. An entire world, rich in structure and history, may have existed before our universe appeared; but if it did, science can not tell what kind of a world it was. A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our universe; but if it does, science can not find out what the explanation is. The scientists pursuit of the past ends at the moment of creation.
Now we would like to pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory. At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of Creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
From The New York Times
Sunday, June 25, 1978
Conclusion of an article entitled "Have Astronomers Found God?"
By Robert Jastrow