Ciência em dúvida

FROM SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT TO THOMISTIC ONTOLOGY⁽¹⁾

Wolfgang Smith
Hayden, Idaho

I AM PLEASED and honored to give this Templeton Lecture on Christianity and the Natural Sciences. I regard the objective of these Lectures as a cultural task of prime importance. I believe that the reputed conflict between science and religion does exist, and is in fact far more serious than one tends to think; but, at the same time, I am persuaded that the conflict arises not from science as such but from a penumbra of scientistic beliefs for which in reality there is no scientific support at all. This oft-overlooked distinction between scientific truth and scientistic belief has long been a special concern of mine. I have, for many years, made it my business to hunt down and ferret out major articles of scientistic belief--not as an academic exercise, but in the conviction that the acceptance of such contemporary dogmas is injurious to our spiritual well-being. I have no doubt that the ongoing de-Christianization of Western society is due in large measure to the imposition of the prevailing scientistic world-view.
Meanwhile something quite unexpected and as yet largely unobserved has come to pass: this scientistic world-view, which still reigns as the official dogma of science, appears no longer to square with the scientific facts. What has happened in our century is that unprecedented discoveries at the frontiers of science seem no longer to accord with the accustomed Weltanschauung, with the result that these findings present the appearance of paradox. It seems that on its most fundamental level physics itself has disavowed the prevailing world-view. This science, therefore, can ...
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