The Law of Cause and Effect

For thousands of years, the law of cause and effect guided scientific inquiry. In fact, the history of the concept of causality can be traced through Hebrew, Babylonian, Greek and European cultures. Certain Greek philosophers, however, introduced the atomistic concept of chance-events to oppose the common-sense application of causality. The resulting conflict between cause versus chance has not only shaped the history of science but has imposed lasting effects on Western culture as a whole. This conflict intensified during the Twentieth Century as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) became the leading tool of the proponents of chance. More recent findings have now demonstrated that the HUP fails in six actual cases. Common Sense Science counters chance-based philosophy by returning to causality and other principles of Classical Science such as the conservation of energy and the use of physical finite-sized models for fundamental particles (e.g., the electron). This paper shows how physical models based on the laws of electricity and magnetism fully implement the law of cause and effect in the manner of the four causes required by Aristotle. Chance-based physics is exposed as false science based on erroneous assumptions about supposed chance-events instead of causal relationships. I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens.... For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain [chaos, Revised Standard Version], Who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” [2, Isaiah 45:6-7, 9, 11-12, 18]. From these and other writings, it is clear that the Hebrews believed in a Creator who not only created the universe but who also continues to maintains order in the universe through the law of cause and effect. In the Hebrew concept of causality, God first created (caused) the universe and now controls natural events by imposing physical laws that all creation follows. Thus, the Creator is both the prime cause of and the sustaining cause in the universe. The Hebrew concepts of order and causality by the power of the Creator were subsequently adopted in Christian doctrine: For by him were all things created, That are in heaven, And that are in earth.... All things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, And by him all things consist [3, Colossians 1:16-17]. By the short clause “and he is before all things,” the writer is specific about a feature of the law of cause and effect: every effect has a preceding cause. Babylonian View of Causality. In Mesopotamia, the Hebrew concept of causality was maintained in appearance but substantially changed in form. Stephen Mason explains that these Babylonians believed that various gods controlled events in the heavens and earth: At first the Mesopotamians considered that the earth and the heavens were two flat discs supported by water, though later the heavens were thought of as a hemispherical vault resting on the waters surrounding the flat disc of the earth. Above the vault were more waters, and beyond the waters was the dwelling of the gods. The sun and the other heavenly bodies were such gods who emerged from their dwelling daily and trace finite orbits over the immobile vault. The gods controlled terrestrial affairs, and thus the motions of the heavenly bodies were taken to be indications of the destiny that the gods were to mete out to man on earth [4, p.20, emphasis added]. In Mesopotamia, the law of causality was not recognized. Natural events could happen any time—without natural explanations—for it was the whims of gods that caused events on earth. This perversion of the Hebrew concept of causality made the Babylonian verFOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE Reprint/Internet Article © 2004, Common Sense Science http://CommonSenseScience.org August, 2004 Page 2 sion unsuitable for the conduct of science and attempts to explain any natural phenomena, for the reason that natural laws did not apply to decisions of the gods. Early Views on Causality Held by Greek Natural Philosophers. Initially, the early Greeks conceived of the law of cause and effect in the form expressed by Hippocrates: “Every natural event has a natural cause” [1, p. 12]. Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.), the consummate rationalist, “considered that intellectual designs and purposes were the formative and guiding principles of all natural processes” [4, p. 42]. But Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) had a richer view of causality than Plato as he accepted also some of the doctrines expressed earlier upon the matter. There were, Aristotle indicated, four main types of cause. Firstly, there was the material cause of things, the primary matter out of which objects were made. Secondly, there were formal causes, the designs, patterns, and forms which were impressed upon the primary matter. There were, thirdly, efficient causes, providing the mechanisms whereby such designs were realized, and fourthly, final causes, which were the purposes for which the objects were designed [4, pp.43-44]. Atomists Attack Causality. A strong challenge to the prevailing view of causality began to emerge in Greece with the teachings of Leucippus (c. 440 B.C.) and Democritus of Abdera (c. 420 B.C.): They believed that everything in the universe was composed of atoms, which were physically indivisible. There were an infinite number of atoms, and they moved perpetually in an infinite void. They had existed from eternity, for they had not been created, and could not be destroyed [4, p. 32]. Atomists thus challenged the traditional view that the Creator was self-existent and “before all things.” They asserted a principle that elementary particles called atoms were self-existent and before all things. The eminent spokesman for atomism, Lucretius, asserted about 50 B.C. that Nothing can ever be created by divine power out of nothing [5, p. 31]. But how, then, could atomism explain the combination of atoms into molecules, living cells, plants, and animals that readily are seen to exist and even grow? It’s all possible, Lucretius tells us, by chance events* called the swerve of the atom: Here too is a point I’m eager to have you learn. Though atoms fall straight downward through the void by their own weight, yet at uncertain times and at uncertain points, they swerve a bit— enough that one may say they changed direction [6, p. 34]. Although the swerve was never observed, the concept evolved into the second great principle of atomism, chance, for the atomists imagined that it was a law of nature that made the Creator irrelevant: FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE Reprint/Internet Article © 2004, Common Sense Science http://CommonSenseScience.org August, 2004 Page 3 ––––––––––––––––––––––– * Epicurus (342?-270 BC) is credited for the original concept of chance events in nature. Thus, the inherent power of the atom to move by its own weight plus its equally inherent power to swerve from its normal path, plus its power to cling together with other atoms both like and unlike itself, plus the law of chance, can and do account for themselves without the intervention of any outside force or guiding intelligence, for every form of being that can be observed by one or another of our senses [6, p. xii, emphasis added]. Atomism Versus Creationism. The atomist worldview was extended by Epicurus about 300 B.C. in Greece such that by the middle of the First Century B.C. atomist philosophy had spread to Rome. As noted above, Lucretius promoted the new ideas in a poem that is much studied and still being published today in other languages [5, 6, etc.]. In summary, the leading ideas of ancient atomism are: Atoms were not created, for they always existed. Atoms have inherent power to move by their own weight. Atoms have inherent power to swerve from their normal paths. Atoms have inherent power to cling to other atoms to form new molecules. Atoms give rise to living things which soon die; then the cycle of life and death repeats. The law of chance accounts for these motions and combinations of atoms. The world is inherently chaotic and not deterministic. These powers of atoms suggest there are other universes that we cannot observe. No outside force or guiding intelligence is needed to explain what the atoms can do. Each of these principles of atomism oppose a pre-existing principle of Judeo-Christian creationism. The underlying tenets of these philosophies differ in regard to two important questions: 1. Which entity is self-existent—atoms or a Creator? 2. Which entity has inherent power—atoms or a Creator? From their earliest expressions, atomism and creationism have been in conflict. A few years after Lucretius died, Rome’s greatest orator, Cicero, responded to the atomists’ claims with his own book titled “Nature of the Gods” [7]. The conflict concerns philosophy, science, government, and religion. The controversy “on the nature of things” has great significance in public and private life, particularly in Western Culture. Defense of Creation. As already noted, the Judeo-Christian concept “on the nature of things” includes the scientific premise of order and the law of cause and effect. About 5152 A.D., an influential Christian defended the same premise in a public debate held in Athens, Greece, against Epicurean (atomist) philosophers [3, Acts 17:18]. Paul, the creationist, denied the atomists’ premises by stating that atoms were not (1) eternally selfexistent, nor (2) capable of moving on their own, nor (3) capable of giving life: FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE Reprint/Internet Article © 2004, Common Sense Science http://CommonSenseScience.org August, 2004 Page 4 For in Him [the Creator] we live, and move and have our being [3, Acts 17:18]. Paul concluded his arguments with a reference to the resurrection of Christ [3, Acts 17:32] which Paul presented as evidence that life came from the Creator and not the atoms. To this evidence, the atomists could only respond by mocking Paul or saying they would hear him again on another occasion [3, Acts 17:32]. For many centuries following, the influence of atomism declined and Western civilization sought knowledge by studying the extensive writings of Aristotle whose premise of causality was inherent with creationism. Causality Assumed in Classical Science. Around the Sixteenth Century, a scientific revolution began to emerge with explanations of natural phenomena explained by the law of cause and effect. Galileo, 1564-1642, professor of mathematics at the University of Padua, used mathematics to state scientific processes with rigor and relationships that clearly showed cause and effect relationships. The principle of causality became a fundamental principle of the Scientific Revolution that explained how Events on Earth would help explain what could be seen in the sky, [and] the sky could show us how things happened on earth. Everywhere nature behaves in an orderly manner, which we can understand... [1, p.29]. Until the end of the Nineteenth Century, scientists who believed the law of cause and effect applied the law in their research on the structure of the atom and ultimately produced the Periodic Table of the Elements—a great achievement in knowledge of the order found in nature. With convictions that order could be found in the universe, Classical Physics searched for the cause of that order. Models of matter had to be physical models for interactions in a physical universe. And discoveries in electricity and magnetism by Michael Faraday, 1791-1867, fully incorporated causality and quickly spawned the Industrial Revolution with enormous benefits to mankind. Atomism in the Twentieth Century. As the Twentieth Century began, most scientists optimistically believed that the Scientific Method employed with the Classical Principles of causality, reality, and unity would continue to unravel the remaining mysteries of physical entities and processes. But tragically, Niels Bohr, among others, led many physicists astray by abandoning the law of cause and effect. In 1913, Bohr proposed a model of the atom that polarized particle physicists into one camp of admirers and another camp of protesters. Among other problems, the Bohr Model depended upon many chance-events that came to be called the “quantum leap”: an orbiting electron was supposed to jump from one orbit to another orbit at the whim of nature. This was not an original idea: As noted above, another atomist had proposed about 300 B.C. that matter swerves “at uncertain times and at uncertain points.” FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE Reprint/Internet Article © 2004, Common Sense Science http://CommonSenseScience.org August, 2004 Page 5 There are remarkable similarities of Bohr’s “quantum leap” and Epicurus’ “swerve” that link together ancient and modern atomism: Both assert the power of an elementary particle to swerve from its previous position by changing its motion. Both assert the existence of chance events by the power of nature and reject “the intervention of any outside force or guiding intelligence” [6, p. xii]. Both deny determinism in the physical universe. As Quantum Theory developed, the infamous “quantum leap” came to be associated with emission of photons—quantized particles of light that travelled from one electron to other electrons or protons. These photons have no mass, yet they are endowed with the power to carry momentum and a force from one charged particle to another. Robert Walgate explains the Quantum Theory of force: Force Carriers. What causes a force between one particle and another at a distance? Modern physics answers: the exchange of yet other particles. Imagine two skaters throwing a ball at one another. The act of giving momentum to the ball in throwing it—and of receiving momentum in catching it—pushes the skaters apart. This accounts for repulsive forces. But in Quantum Mechanics, which affects small-scale phenomena, there is a strange extension and delocalization of events that allows a seemingly impossible event: one skater throws the ball away from the other, in the opposite direction, but the other skater is still able to catch the ball. A little thought shows that if such events were possible—as they are in the world of elementary particles—they would cause an attractive force between the skaters [8]. Atomists state that these (imaginary) random forces (from force-carrying particles called ‘bosons’*) put sub-atomic particles in constant motion. The concept of chance-events was quantified and elevated to a principle to quantify the amount of this action: The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) became the defacto law of chance that dominated the theory of particle physics in the Twentieth Century. HUP asserts that “if you measure position accurately you must sacrifice an accurate knowledge of momentum” in an elementary particle: