Steven Weinberg R.I.P.

Steven Weinberg, one of the greatest theoretical physicists to have ever lived, passed away last week at the age of 88. According to the obituary at the CERN Courier, Weinberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1979,

[R]evolutionised particle physics, quantum field theory and cosmology with conceptual breakthroughs that still form the foundation of our understanding of physical reality....His inimitable way of thinking has been the inspiration and guidance for generations of physicists, and it will certainly continue to serve future generations.

[He] is among the very few individuals who, during the course of the history of civilisation, have radically changed the way we look at the universe.

Steven Weinberg 1933-2021

Unfortunately, his naturalism prevented him from seeing the theistic implications of the cosmic fine-tuning of which he was, of course, well-aware. Instead, he opted for the only (remotely) plausible alternative, the multiverse hypothesis, the weakness of which he recognized but which he believed to be the only alternative to a cosmic Creator.

An adamantine naturalistic materialist, he had an aversion to any suggestion that there might be a Divine mind behind the cosmos. In a 1999 speech he assured his audience that “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from that accomplishment.”

His refusal to acknowledge that the universe was the product of intelligent agency led him to insist that it was all just a vast expanse of meaninglessness. He once wrote that “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”

His naturalism also led him to the brink of despair. In an article in 2008 he stated that,

... the worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature....

We even learn that the emotions that we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over millions of years.

And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our emotions. At our best we live on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.

This is indeed where naturalism leads. It's a sterile worldview that lacks any basis for morality, love, hope, meaning, justice or human dignity. It's certainly bleak, but, of course, if it's true one should, like Weinberg, have the courage to accept it.

Fortunately, there's no evidence that it's true and much evidence that it's not. Embracing it is not a question of where the evidence lies because for many it's not a question of evidence. It's a question of will.

Those who embrace naturalism do so, often, for the same reason Weinberg embraced the multiverse - they simply don't want the alternative to be true.