Sunday, 6 September 2026

Are miracles unscientific?

I read the following article:

What Are “Miracles” and Is Belief in Them Contrary to Science?

The article gives 3 definitions of a miracle:

1) something surprising to an individual or small circle of people,
2) something truly amazing to a large number of people,
3) something whose only cause could be God (or possibly some other supernatural power). 

Definition 3 overlooks the possibility that reality may on rare occasions throw up an extraordinary event entirely contrary to our usual experience of reality, yet not brought about by God nor any other "supernatural" power. But leaving aside the issue of its ultimate origin, would such a conception of a miracle be contrary to science as so many people maintain?

I think people who claim this simply have no idea what they're talking about. Science assumes as a premise that reality is characterised by exceptionless regularities. But science itself in no shape or form proves this premise, nor, I would argue, even give us good reason to suppose it is true. We can appeal to induction and claim that all our experience of the world shows us that the patterns that reality exhibit are indeed exceptionless. But assuming induction is always 100% reliable is question-begging. For how do we distinguish a world that is characterised by exceptionless regularities (universal natural "laws") on the one hand, with, on the other hand, a world that is characterised by "laws" that only pertain 99.9999% of the time? After all, all of our technology will still work (Though I have heard reports of various anomalies regarding technology. For example, long defunct radios that spontaneously start playing music all by themselves after many years of not working).

Perhaps we could distinguish these 2 worlds from each other if we had rare contrary reports of exceptions to such "laws"? But that's precisely what we do get. However, they are dismissed for being anecdotal and contrary to what science tells us about the world! Which, of course, is transparent question-begging.

The truth of the matter is that we believe that reality is governed by exceptionless regularities, rather than merely only 99.9999% of the time (or whatever), because we simply feel that they must universally apply. That reality must somehow be of such a nature, or constituted in such a way, that such laws or regularities must always apply. In addition, supposing they apply exactly 100% of the time is simpler. It's more tidy, it's psychologically more appealing, more comforting even — imagine a rose that suddenly started to sing, it would freak us out!

The article also refers to a science professor asking whether a miracle would leave behind scientifically detectable consequences. I'm not sure what function the word "scientifically" is playing here, but yes, it might certainly leave behind detectable consequences. However, a similar miraculous event could not again be elicited at will, it could only be investigated after the fact. It may be the case that one couldn't explain what happened. But a scientist and most other people wouldn't conclude that a miracle had occurred. At least not in the sense I'm addressing. At  best it might be labelled as having some normal but currently unknown cause. It might also be claimed that although science cannot currently account for it, the stunning ongoing success of science gives us high confidence it will eventually have an explanation. So once again, relying upon induction.

So I don't believe we have any good reason to suppose miracles don't occur, or that science in and of itself shows they are impossible. Whether they do occur is, of course, another question.

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Are miracles unscientific?

I read the following article: What Are “Miracles” and Is Belief in Them Contrary to Science? The article gives 3 definitions of a miracle: 1...

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