in time, according to the Feynman-Stueckelberg interpretation?( See an interesting examination of this issue.)
But outside of quantum theory, scientists generally consider themselves able to identify an explanation for any action, and weeping statues, liquefying 1,000 + year old blood, and spontaneously igniting candles should all be capable of examination and explanation – even if the explanation itself may be in the form of a negative; i. e.,“ we don’ t understand how it does this, but we can confirm that it does happen in the manner understood.” The religious won’ t take this step, and therefore can offer no explanation other than“ Divine intervention.” So the religious have nothing to learn from repeated“ miracles” other than trying to understand whatever God’ s cryptic message is supposed to be in causing oil or blood to leak from the eyes of some porcelain object.
4. Understanding
As I have noted above, in science, explanation does not always come with understanding. My favorite quote on this point comes from Nobel winning physicist Richard Feynman:
Richard Feynman, the late Nobel Laureate in physics, was once asked by a Caltech faculty member to explain why spin one-half particles obey Fermi Dirac statistics. Rising to the challenge, he said, " I ' ll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But a few days later he told the faculty member, " You know, I couldn ' t do it. I couldn ' t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we really don ' t understand it."- Richard Feynman.
Understanding involves verification. For science, that is a simple matter of replication; can the result be duplicated. The result is the conclusion,
P a g e | 285