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as to how we think the cigarette ash or the universe got to be where and how it was or is.

This is where many people assume that the conflict between science and religion comes in. Can we prove scientifically (that is, through the process of deduction) that our suspect smoked that cigarette and dropped the ash, or that God operated in such and such a way, "Big Bang" or direct creation, and so brought the universe into being?

No!

As any viewer of popular crime shows or reader of detective novels knows, there can be some (usually extremely unlikely) plot twists before we find that somebody else (the real criminal) framed the suspect by collecting fallen ash and some DNA and planting it on the scene or some other equally improbably (but possible) act, or that scientists differ, sometimes wildly, on the specifics of how the universe came into being. There is evidence, of course, that the Big Bang caused the universe, but none at all that God (Big Man) caused the Big Bang . . . until we apply inductive reasoning to the theory we've developed based on empirical evidence, and conclude that something caused the Big Bang, and that Something must, logically, have been God. How? We can't prove that scientifically. We are forced to go to whatever faith we happen to believe in for details of that sort, and they don't usually get into that as being beyond their competence.

The bottom line is that, until we can get a suspect on the witness stand and force a confession, or produce an eyewitness, we cannot prove who committed a crime (and even eye witness accounts are chancy). It's all circumstantial evidence. Similarly, we can't prove that the Big Bang caused the universe until, surprisingly, we can ask God how He did it, which fact we CAN prove through inductive reasoning.

Galileo? "Everybody knows" that he got into trouble with the Inquisition for teaching that the earth goes around the sun. Unfortunately, what "everyone knows" is slightly wrong. What Galileo got into trouble for was demanding that the official interpretation of the Bible had to change to accommodate to his discoveries. When the Inquisition said that he would have to prove his theories before any change could take place, Galileo failed to make his case. His "theory of tides," if you'll pardon the expression, didn't hold water, as the top scientists of the day realized. Geocentricism was not, in fact, proved until 1828 when an astronomer established a parallax on Proxima Centauri, demonstrating (finally) that Galileo's theory was a scientific fact . . . only not for the reasons Galileo believed!

Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
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