Science & Tech Quote by John Polkinghorne

A physicist’s polite understatement can land like a verdict. When John Polkinghorne says Whitehead’s metaphysics “doesn’t fit very well on to physics,” he’s not merely quibbling over technicalities; he’s drawing a boundary line between a grand philosophical system and the hard-won constraints of modern science. “Fit” is the key word: it frames metaphysics as something that ought to map onto physics with minimal strain, like a theory overlaying data. Whitehead’s process philosophy famously treats reality as becoming rather than being, a vision that can feel intuitively compatible with an evolving universe. Polkinghorne’s point is that intuition isn’t enough. Physics “as we understand” it is built from specific mathematical structures, experimentally disciplined, and often counterintuitive; it doesn’t reward metaphysical elegance unless it cashes out in the right kinds of correspondences.

The subtext is a double move: respect without surrender. Polkinghorne isn’t calling Whitehead nonsense; he’s implying the mismatch is systematic, not cosmetic. Whitehead’s categories aim to be universal, while physics is parochial by design, tethered to what can be measured and modeled. That tension matters because Whitehead has been a frequent refuge for theologians and science-friendly metaphysicians looking for a worldview that avoids static substance and embraces creativity. A former working physicist (and later theologian), Polkinghorne signals that importing Whitehead into contemporary scientific realism comes with costs: you may get a satisfying story about “process,” but you risk losing contact with what actually governs “the process of the world” in the language physics can test.