Fr. Stanley L. Jaki named by ALETEIA as one of five Catholic scientists that 'shaped our understanding of the world'
"One challenged the idea that the earth was at the center of the universe. Another developed the theory of the Big Bang. One provided the foundation of modern genetics. The other was one of the greatest seismologists of his day. They were all great scientists as well as faithful Catholics. All but one were priests. One held dual doctorates in theology and physics. Here are five scientists who transformed their disciplines, revolutionized our understanding of the world, and demonstrated the harmony of faith and science in their works."
Continue reading this article at ALETEIA
"BEFORE one can raise with C. S. Lewis the question, "What is the Purpose of it all?", one has to affirm that purposive act is a reality, an act inseparable from that conscious being which is man. Such an affirmation is indispensable if one is to consider the broader meaning of that question. It relates to much more than the purpose of the entire series of purposeful actions in an individual life. It implies even more than the purpose of all such series, that is, the purpose of mankind at large. It bears on the purpose of all living and of all that non-living material reality that makes life possible and is indeed an integral part of all life, non-conscious as well as conscious life.
"To answer that question one has therefore to answer the question about the sense in which the reality of purposeful conscious action can serve as a justification for seeing some evidence of purpose in non-conscious living organisms. To see that evidence one needs eyes different from the ones used in science. There, in ultimate analysis, one can see only measurable data, their correlations and their succession. When a scientist claims to see more, he uses the eyes of philosophy whether he knows this or not, or whether he admits it or not. Further, his use of those philosophical eyes cannot be justified by his seeing, measuring, and correlating data. The predicament of the biologist, as the one who, even more than a physicist, cannot think without philosophy, is well summed up in the now more than a century-old dictum: "Teleology is a lady without whom the biologist cannot live but with whom he would not appear in public." [E. von Brücke] In spite of its close resemblance to theology, teleology, or the study of purposive or goal-directed activities, is philosophy. Whatever the possibility of exorcising theology from teleology, the philosophical nature of teleology cannot be changed by, say, Monod's tactic of replacing it with the word teleonomy."
~Stanley L. Jaki: Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth, Chap. 5.
Available at
Real View Books
Recommended Reading:
THE PURPOSE OF IT ALL
By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki
"What is the purpose of it all? Is an abiding sense of purpose assured by scientific and technological progress? Is biological evolution a carrier of purpose? What is the ultimate purpose of economic prosperity? These and similar questions turn up in most unexpected contexts. One such context was a blueribbon conference hosted in Moscow by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in June 1989. There a US Senator effusively praising free-market economy was stunned by a Soviet scholar's blunt question: "What is the purpose of life?" An answer to that question is offered in this book, the expanded version of eight lectures the author delivered in Oxford in November 1989. True to his reputation as an internationally acclaimed historian and philosopher of science, Professor Jaki, winner of the Templeton Prize for 1987, casts in a new mould the argument from design. In doing so he submits its traditional and modern forms, among them the anthropic principle and process philosophies, to penetrating criticism. He shows that both historically and conceptually the idea of purposeful progress is rooted in the biblical recognition of free will as a carrier of eternal responsibilities and prospects."
@ Real View Books
Excerpt from the INTRODUCTION by Jaki:
"In making this book available again, after it had been out of print for ten years, I find it necessary to make more specific only one point. It relates to my further reflections on Darwinism as science, as distinct from philosophy [or, ideology]. Today I would emphasize more forcefully two factors which give the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin and other Darwinists a truly scientific status. Those factors are the variability of offspring and of the environment. They can in principle be evaluated in quantitative terms, which is the indispensable condition for an intellectual to qualify as science, that is, exact science. Recent developments, known as the genome project, have made a tremendous progress concerning the first factor. The second factor remains very elusive to a fully quantitative analysis.
"Such are the scientific limits to evolutionary theory, which more than any other such theory implies a large number of philosophical considerations. These must stand or fall with their philosophical merits. The latter point is very much to be kept in mind, in respect to the so-called "intelligent design" argument constructed with an eye on biochemical data. While a very good case can be made in support of the contention that some biochemical processes connote a very high degree of improbability, this does not eliminate the fact that even the highest degree of improbability is not equivalent to impossibility. Champions of "intelligent design" invariably fail to show sufficient sensitivity to strictly philosophical questions. Among these is the one, amply discussed in this book, which relates to the extrapolation of one's immediate assurance of having a purpose and acting for a purpose to non-conscious biological processes. Unfortunately, those who take evolutionary theory for an ideology, indeed for the chief support of the religion which is secularism, are refractory to philosophical arguments. Even more is to be deplored that advocates of "intelligent design" show time and again a woeful lack of philosophical sensitivity."
℘ Visit Real View Books
Hear two Catholic scientists, Dr. Stacy Trasancos and Dr. Michael Behe, debate Intelligent Design theory at Chronicles of Strength
In this conversation:
• What does Intelligent Design (ID) actually say about the theory of evolution?
• Is ID an argument from ignorance, or an inference to the best explanation?
• At what level is design obvious in nature?
• Is ID too narrow, or telling of something much greater?
• Can you settle the matter of design (or no design) apart from evolution?
• How do we best explain the complex structures and genetic codes we’ve discovered in life?
• Can Neo-Darwinian processes account for this?
• What does “random” or “unguided” mean with respect to natural selection?
• Can “brute forces and matter” account for the structures and complexity we see in nature?
"WHILE THE ABSOLUTENESS ascribed to the speed of light in special relativity reveals something specific valid across the whole cosmos, the latter is given special recognition in general relativity, a point made by Jaki with striking originality. The true philosophical import of general relativity lies in its ability to give, for the first time in scientific history, a consistent or contradiction-free treatment of the totality of gravitationally interacting things. Therefore, Jaki argues time and again, from the viewpoint of science the notion of the universe is a valid one, a point of utmost importance with respect to Kant's criticism of the cosmological argument.
"Jaki also notes that the general theory of relativity provides further data about the specificity of the cosmos. Through that theory one can obtain specific data valid for the whole cosmos, such as it's curvature or space-time. This specific value determines, depending on whether it is a small positive or a small negative quantity, the net of permissible paths of motion. In the former case, the universe is spherical; in the latter case its total matter is distributed in a hyperbolic space-time, analogous to a saddle with no edges but with well-determined slopes. Jaki, who wrote extensively on the paradoxes of an infinite homogenous universe, can therefore authoritatively note that "the only possibility which is excluded is Euclidean infinity whose curvature is 0, an age-old symbol of non-existence."
"According to Jaki, the universe looks "no less specific than a garment on the clothier's rack, carrying a tag on which one could read if not its price at least its main measurements." Such a tag, in Jaki's words, "cannot help evoke the existence of a dressmaker," because there is no need for the garment to be of a particular size. Analogously, there is no scientific reason why the universe has to have the overall specificities established about it by modern cosmology. Consequently, those specificities can be taken for so many pointers of cosmic contingency which in turn can legitimately be used as a ground for invoking the existence of a Creator." (*To be continued)
~Reverend Dr. Paul Haffner: Creation and Scientific Creativity: A Study in the Thought of S.L. Jaki, Chap. 3. (Christendom Press)
