The scientist who recognizes God knows only the God of Newton. To him the God imagined by Laplace and Comte is wholly inadequate. He feels that God is in nature, that the orderly ways in which nature works are themselves the manifestations of God's will and purpose. Its laws are his orderly way of working.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the belief that the natural laws of the universe are a reflection of God's will, contrasting differing views of God held by scientists.
Arthur Compton's quote highlights the relationship between science and religion, suggesting that true understanding of God can only be realized through the laws of nature. Compton argues that the orderly mechanisms of the natural world reveal God's intentions and that simplistic or purely philosophical interpretations of God, like those offered by Laplace and Comte, do not suffice in capturing the divine essence embedded in the cosmos.
In practice
This quote can be used in a scientific discussion about the intersection of faith and the natural laws.
Those whose thinking is disciplined by science, like all others, need a basis for the good life, for aspiration, for courage to do great deeds. They need a faith to live by. The hope of the world lies in those who have such faith and who use the methods of science to make their visions become real. Such visions and hope and faith are not a part of science.
Yet is it possible in terms of the motion of atoms to explain how men can invent an electric motor, or design and build a great cathedral? If such achievements represent anything more than the requirements of physical law, it means that science must investigate the additional controlling factors, whatever they may be, in order that the world of nature may be adequately understood.
All evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence... I had to place myself amidst the variation.
In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.
So the thing I realized rather gradually - I must say starting about 20 years ago now that we know about computers and things - there's a possibility of a more general basis for rules to describe nature.
If everything in chemistry is explained in a satisfactory manner without the help of phlogiston, it is by that reason alone infinitely probable that the principle does not exist; that it is a hypothetical body, a gratuitous supposition; indeed, it is in the principles of good logic, not to multiply bodies without necessity.
The stress response is incredibly ancient evolutionarily. Fish, birds and reptiles secrete the same stress hormones we do, yet their metabolism doesn't get messed up the way it does in people and other primates.
I thought that tackling aging and the mechanisms that promote life would be worth figuring out. I wanted to learn why it is that some people are healthier than others and why some people live to 110 and others only to 60 or 70.
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