The principle paradigm of natural sciences is creating models that can be verified by doing the experiment properly prepared. Miracles are phenomena or events , individual, unique, inexplicable. They are therefore in opposition to the foundations of science. And therefore, is there any room for them in the world of scientific realism?
Any consideration in the context of the natural sciences must begin with a clear clarification of what we have to deal with. It seems that a word miracle has at least three different meanings:
1. unexplained phenomenon, about which we think that is the result of an act of God
2. unusual, lucky coincidence
3 person or a thing that is perfect or very beautiful
Aesthetic wonders
It is clear that science can not speak about the miracles. The sense of beauty or excellence is not a scientific category but it is an issue of interest in aesthetics. Scientists do not deal with resolving such issues such as sensitivity to beauty is a feature of a human as individual. And that is not a subject to empirical verification.
Probability of a miracle
It seems that we have mostly to do with miracles as an extraordinary coincidences. Each of us can cite many situations from our life, in which something unexpected and practically impossible happened. For example when we meet our neighbour on the other end of the world. We have a feeling that a small miracle happened. I think that most people that won the lottery think it had been something like a miracle that in a normal world could not have happened. When we hear about a person who hasn’t perished in a plane crash because he got locked in a toilet and happened to board the plane, it is hard to resist the temptation to conclude that it was the miracle or God’s intervention.
Disbelief in a success
Miracle sensation may result from the inability to estimate the probability of success in a given situation. Classic example here is the game of heads or tails. In everyday perception receiving seven times the tails seems so unlikely as to be almost impossible. Indeed the chance is 1 to 128. Contrary to appearances, it was not enough. Enough to realize that the chance of tipping three sixes in three consecutive rolls the dice is almost two times smaller ( it is 1 to 216). Of course it is said that ejection 3 sixes in a row is an amazing coincidence, but nobody argues that it is a miracle.
Unexplained but possible.
Remains for us the last category of miracles the most mysterious, unusual, provoking the largest number of emotions. Miracles involving the existence of natural phenomena which are inexplicable by scientific methods, and sometimes even conflicting with them. In ancient times, such miracles were mostly inanimate natural phenomena lightning, eclipses of the Sun, the great floods and earthquakes. Their appearance was often presented as proof of the existence of divine beings, as well as used to frighten people and to subordinate the uneducated.
Does science recognize miracles?
It is time to return to the question put at the beginning- whether we speak of the miracle in the context of science? I think that recognizing the researcher has any phenomenon as a miracle ceases to be the scientist in true sense of the word. The miracle is in fact the very definition of something inexplicable and does not fit the same in terms of scientific thinking. The scientist seeks to find the answer to every question and explain every phenomenon in nature. However, the researcher should be in a position that if miracles exist, they exist only in our heads, and are complex of our ignorance about the world around us.
