Future Life in the Light of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science

God must keep on resetting the orbits, he believed, or БЂњwind the celestial watch, lest it run down.БЂ«However, Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827), commonly known as Laplace, argued that the perturbations would be periodic, that is, marked by repeated cycles, rather than being cumulative. The solar system would thus reset itself, and there would be no need for divine intervention to explain why it had survived to the present day. It is Laplace who is usually credited with first clearly postulating scientific determinism: Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. This would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God. The scientific determinism that Laplace formulated is the modern scientistБЂ™s answer to question two. It is, in fact, the basis of all modern science, and a principle that is important throughout this book. A scientific law is not a scientific law if it holds only when some supernatural being decides not to intervene ...»