Jim Holt in the New York Times Sunday Book Review section, reviews Lisa Randall’s new book, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” Holt tells us that she is a professor of physics at Harvard and “one of the more original theorists at work in the profession today.”
. . . Can a scientist be religious? Only at the price of inconsistency, she argues, because scientific determinism is not compatible with belief in a deity who can willfully intervene in the world. Sympathetic though I am to her conclusion, I would point out that scientific determinism is equally incompatible with free will and moral responsibility.
Except some determinists think we don’t really have any free will. And moral responsibility some argue is a learned cultural accommodation to survival. The article is a short two pages, worth every minute needed to read it though: Knocking on Heaven’s Door — By Lisa Randall — Book Review – NYTimes.com
The book, $17.99 hardcover, $14.99 for Kindle, and a whopping $29.95 for audible.