The Human Mystery [antikvár]

PrefaceUnder the terms of the endowment by Lord Gifford, the Gifford Lectures have been an annual event in the University of Edinburgh since 1887, and also in three other Scottish universities. According to the will of Lord Gifford they were set up " to promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term - in other words, the knowledge of God". The assignment is for ten lectures, and I delivered them from 20 February, to 13 March, 1978.I chose the theme of the Human Mystery because I believe that it is vitally important to emphasize the great mysteries that confront us when, as scientists, we try to understand the natural world including ourselves. There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explantation in principle of all phenomena in the world of nature including man, even of human consciousness in all its manifestations. When that is accomplished scientific materialism will then be in the position of being an unchallengable dogma accounting for all experience.In our recent book (Popper and Eccles, 1977) Popper has labelled this claim as promissory materialism, which is extravagant and unfulfillable. Yet, on account of the high regard for science, it has great persuasive power with the intelligent laity because it is advocated unthinkingly by the great mass of scientists who have not cirtically evaluated the dangers of this false and arrogant claim. The danger is already evident in the counterproductive flourishing of anti-science.