As Mark brings us erudition through a post on the sociology of religion I bring you stoushing on science and religion.
In Court, Judge Snyder looks over the case.
Judge Snider: Lisa Simpson, you are charged with destruction of an historic curiousity. A mis-demeanour. By the larger sum, this trial will settle the age old question of Science vs. Religion. Let the opening statements commence.
Religion Lawyer: Your honour over the coming weeks and months we will
prove that Lisa Simpson willingly destroyed…[Lisa notices the angel on a nearby grassy hill through a window]
Lenny: There’s the Angel!
[they all run out to see the angel]
Judge Snider: I find the defendant not guilty. As for science vs. religion I’m issuing a refraining order. Science should stay 500 yards from religion at all times.
The Simpsons – Lisa The Skeptic
An interesting stoush developed regarding whether evolution is compatible with religion. It started at Slate, moved the Panda’s Thumb (here, here and here) before moving onto Pharyngula with various skirmishes on the side .
For those who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible evolution has long been a target. Evolution counters the idea that we are special in nature. That there is some grand purpose for human kind. Evolution reveals to us that we are simply one twig of a large bush that began some 3.8 billions years ago. If it wasn’t for an asteroid or possibly the Deccan Traps (take your pick) the history of life would have been very different.
However it is not simply evolution that is a problem for a literal belief in the Bible. It is the entire field of science. And to be blunt science has won that battle. Not that there was any intention of science to do so. It was a natural outcome of scientific progress. Adherence to a literalist view of the Bible (especially Genesis) is an act of faith and not one based on what we know about the world or the universe.
For other religions, science is not a problem (for example Catholicism). However there is still this barney regarding the implications of what science means to religion. The root of the stoush (via Slate to the Pandas Thumb) reflects the influence of religion in the United States in shaping society and politics.
In Australia being agnostic or even atheist is not barrier to becoming Prime Ministers. In the United States the Constitution Article IV, Clause 3 states:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
In a pure sense the clause stands but in a real sense a religious test is required of anyone seeking office. Being an atheist or even agnostic is a sure fire way to not get elected. On the other hand, the United States political arena is full of instances of elected officials who gladly pander to the extremes of religious attitudes. It is the grievances with the excesses of the religious right and prejudice against anyone who doesn’t profess faith that brings some of the hostility to the science versus religion debates in the United States.
The reaction against religion is based in a caricature of religion as being intrinsically fundamentalist in nature. Given how religion is played out in the public sphere in the US I can understand why. But not religions have a fundamentalist nature. Many others have adapted to modernity quite well. This narrow view of religion does fuel some of the fires in regards to science and religion.
Stephen Jay Gould wasn’t a man afraid of a good stoush. However in his book, Rock of Ages, Gould argues the concept of NOMA — Non Overlapping Magisteria as being a solution. In Gould’s words:
NOMA is a simple, humane, rational, and altogether conventional argument for mutual respect, based on non-overlapping subject matter, between two components of wisdom in a full human life: our drive to understand the factual character of nature (the magisterium of science) and our need to define meaning in our lives and a moral basis for our actions (the magisterium of religion).
With Gould’s death this idea is never to be really pursued. At a fundamental level Gould got it right. Science is about the universe and how it came to be and what happened after. It offers no ethical or moral guidance for our lives. The magisterium of religion is where we do the philosophical heavy lifting in regard to moral and ethical principles. And I agree with some criticism that is has philosophical flaws. However I think that one of great misunderstanding in regards to NOMA is in regards to Gould’s concept of religion. Religion for Gould was a philosophical arena that encompassed any thinking about how we are to live our lives from traditional religious beliefs to postmodernism attitudes on morality. I feel that some of his critics take a narrower view of religion that Gould and criticised him based on that mistaken view. Hence NOMA never had the intellectual traction it may have deserved.
And this is where I stand on science versus religion. It is a needless stoush most of the time. When someone states, “God has vouchsafed me a blessed nose which when touched will cure cancer” or finds a statue of the Virgin Mary that weeps beer there is a testable claim and faith and science are in conflict (I’ll wager on science in these instances). Outside these rare instances of alleged divine intervention science cannot provide evidence in transcendental matters. Nor can religion offer any reliable guide to divine interference in matters of nature. They are two systems of knowing dealing with quite different aspects of our existence.
I regard religious beliefs or non-beliefs as being something very personal. I do not regard my lack of belief as being superior to any other system of belief or non-belief. As an atheist I regard life as having great meaning and importance. So I offer the following as a personal statement, not intended to persuade, as a hint of my views.
Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out.
Lovely rant, Irant. Sums up my position too.
“I do not regard my lack of belief as being superior to any other system of belief or non-belief.”
If only more people would say that.
Damn – hate to admit it – but that is the part I would have changed.
Its like football teams, wbb. You think your team is the best and most worthy of being supported, but you know that it is not inheretly superior to any other team.
What saddens me, Irant, is being religious ought to be a stimulus to radical action for justice. If God made all of us equal, we ought to question why the sinful stuctures – inspired – one can realistically say – by Evil – of Global Capitalism – still persist? And as human beings who care for others – we should fight against them. Just sayin…
Damn straight.
You say it, brother!
Sigh. Carl Sagan. My hero. I watched a bit of Cosmos yesterday, have the DVD and like to revisit bits and pieces quite often, always makes my day.
Irant, I get kind of sick of praising a Parra fan, but another great piece.
I am getting sick of this.
When Darwin’s book came out several of the writers of the fundamentals ( from which we get fundamentalist) saw no contradiction between Darwin’s views and the bible.
given that I am probably the most conspicious supporter of a literal translation of the bible around here I see no contradiction either.
There are holes in the Evolutionary theory although I note the present theory is different to that put up by Darwin ( evolution becoming evolutionary?).
I usually find this subject is written about by people who have not read much on the religion side.
I am still in awa concerning ignorance about ID. ( It can’t replace evolution by the way, it can stand as helping explain it however.
Kirsten Beckett wrote a good little book on this subject.
Sagan quote. that’s emergence.
Homer, the specifics of Darwin’s writings are no longer of any great interest to scientists; they are of specific interest only to historians of the development of science. Like most scientific theories, Darwin’s has been modified and expanded to take account of the wealth of new data that has become available over the past 150 years.
Robert,
That was the point I was making.Still calling that movable feast evolution is somewhat misleading however.
Homer,
At the core Darwin’s main ideas are still the driving principles behind modern evolutionary theory. So as far as that goes it still makes sense to regard it as the evolution. Of course what is frequently mistaken is the idea that “evolution” – species changing over time was new to Darwin, when it was not. Rather his idea was about how it occurred, not via divine intervention ala the IDers, not due to animals passing on learned or practiced improvments ala Lamarck, but due to random mutations and natural selection within these mutations.
These core darwinian ideas are still present in modern evolutionary theory so It makes sense to think of it as the same.
Homer, science does not need explaining. That’s the point. Science is a system of inquiry about the world, not a position.
Your version of ID, whatever it is, sounds like a pretty fair compromise: leave science to the scientists, just add an invisible Creator as the one who put the coin in the pinball machine, and pulls the spring to start the whole game. OK, cool.
The problem is that the cause of ID is constantly being used to question science as a system of inquiry in its own right, and to barrack for ‘equal time’ in science classes for outright creationists.
Steve,
that is a bit like me adopting some or even most of Keynes’s ideas and adding some of mine and still saying this is Keynesian economics!
Liam,
creationists insist on using the early chapters of Genesis (badly)from the bible. you are implying ID and Evolutionists are the same. They are not indeed not even related
I’m not implying ID and creationism are the same thing. It wouldn’t be such a stoush if they were.
ID is the soft, buttery voice at the door, that starts people wondering ‘well, why can’t we let a bit of spirituality into science classes?’ while the well-funded creationists wait around the corner to see if they can crash the party too.
This isn’t an evolution stoush, let’s all remember that. Science can take care of itself. This stoush is about politics and education.
Um, yeah. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a canard.
I don’t think anyone’s implying that ID and Evolution are the same. However, ID and Creationism are the same in their reliance on one essential, unfalsifiable assertion: God is the creator. They’re thus equally worthless in any scientific discussion.
Nic: it is so not like picking a football team.
Rob: You obviously don’t live with an obsessed football fan…
One thing about ID is that, like many religious beliefs, it supposes that there is a point in inquiry at which one can’t or shouldn’t ask questions – a point where “faith” takes over. This seems quite insulting to me.
I’m with Rob. As much as the vicious tendrils of political-correctness pain me to say it, I don’t believe science is just another religion, or that religious belief can be intellectually perceived as being on par with the findings of scientific research.
Everyone is of course entitled to believe whatever the hell they want when it comes to life, the universe, and everything. But I don’t think it would be sensible or clear-headed to claim that all schools of thought on this matter are as rigorous as scientific thought is.
Irant, great post.
Homer, I really think you’re very confused about what all this is about. You don’t seem to understand either the terms of the debate nor the scientific basis of it. You don’t seem to grasp that scientific theories are always a work in progress — you seem to assume this is a bad thing, when in truth it is the power of scientific inquiry that it is a moveable, adaptable thing, unlike the dogma of many a religion or ideology.
I respect your religious beliefs but your grasp of evolutionary science is rather week.
To say that we shouldn’t call it evolution because it was a term that Darwin used and that the theory that Darwin espoused has been built upon, expanded, corrected, revised, revisioned etc is just silliness. Darwin’s book wasn’t a religious, infallible tome, it was a proposition and one that modern scientists have been building on ever since.
…and Darwin wrote it before we had discovered genes. He deduced the basic mechanism, but neccessarily didn’t know ANY of the process, agents or biochemistry behind it.
Evolution without genes would be like Christianity without the resurrection.
…and Lovelock’s ideas of biogeochemistry (about coupled evolution of life and the Earth) could lead to an enhanced evolutionary theory. Of course, the thing distinguishing science from religion is that in science you never presume to know something “finally” – ideas are always open to testing/re-evaluation. Even in pure mathematics, which many people think as separate to science, this is true – eg, the status of the Axiom of Choice, which is often assumed in obtaining results, is unclear (although I recall that I’ve read that it is known to be unprovable using the standard Set theory – but don’t quote me on this!).
The Axiom of Choice, which sounds quite innocuous, is something like this. Imagine you have a set X containing lots of little sets A, B, C, etc, and that the little sets A, B, C contain elements (things). Then there exists another set Y that contains one element (or thing) from each of the little sets A, B, C, … This idea might sound completely obvious, but it’s status in pure mathematics is not clear.
Enough maths for the day! I have to get back to work.
“Evolution counters the idea that we are special in nature. That there is some grand purpose for human kind. Evolution reveals to us that we are simply one twig of a large bush that began some 3.8 billions years ago.”
For one that cites Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA theory with approval later in the post, this is an example where it breaks down. To say that evolution proves that there is no grand purpose for human kind is drawing exactly the sort of conclusions that science should not be drawing.
In fact, evolution doesn’t say anything about the purpose of human kind – as we have pointed out, biological processes operate independently of “higher” purposes.
As a christian person, not many people would describe me as believing the bible literally, but I have found genuine young earth creationism to be rare. It is perhaps one of the least mainstream beliefs to be ascribed to the “conservative” or “fundamentalist” christians and enjoys very little academic support (whilst there is significant academic support for a range of other “conservative” beliefs.
The problem with ID is that it seeks to answer a question which science doesn’t ask. ID seeks to use science almost to demonstrate the existence of God, something that science is supremely ill-suited to do. In any event, to draw on the old Hitch Hiker’s guide quote, “proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing”.
Science and religion exist for different reasons. Just my humble opinion. I’m a lifelong (kinda-sorta-not-really-practising) catholic and I see no contradiction between evolutionary development of life, and a God, loving or otherwise. I don’t know, that’s just how I feel. Using religion to answer scientific questions is like trying to sing about architecture.
On Kieran’s point, it’s only really been quite recently that people have understood religion as having answers to cosmological questions or religious beliefs about creation as being akin to truth-statements. Catholic practice in the Middle Ages and earlier was to read Genesis allegorically and none of the Fathers of the Church believed that the world literally was created in 7 days.
The debates we’re now having are really a rerun of the Protestant reaction to Darwin in the 19th century, which was also fuelled by the beginnings of historico-critical scholarship on the Biblical text.
I gave a lecture on all this a few years ago, and I might dig out some of the readings I looked at on science and religion when I have time and write a post on it. IMHO there’s nothing stopping religious believers having respect for science – the two are quite separate domains and religion is not “knowledge” in the sense that science is.
Righty o,
Homer, you confuse me so IÄôll just say “what Kate said” and wonder what these holes in evolutionary theory are that you keep mentioning.
Dan, to expand a bit. Evolution is often viewed as a ladder with homo sapiens at the top. The implication is that we are inevitable outcomes of the evolutionary process. However life looks more like a bush with branches and twigs going in all directions. Gould (which I do agree) made a point that contingency has played a big part in evolution. If we could rewind the tape of life and start it again from scratch the result would be different. I think that sentience does make us special but it is not a necessary outcome of the evolutionary process. I think this is consistent with NOMA.
Guy, it is not about whether religion is as rigorous as science, they deal with different domains. I also appropriate the expanded Gouldian notion of religion that deals with a lot more that a simple belief in a god.
Kim, good point. I think religion has changed a lot. When I was a young Catholic the Church back the (in the 80Äôs when I was religious) seemed to inoculate the idea of social justice. It seems to have changed a bit since then. The idea of prosperity doctrine ala Hillsong preaches to put your interests first is a good example. I was watching some TV show a few months ago and some of winners of American Idol were singing a gospel tune and whipping up religious fervour. The trouble was that their exhortations to Jesus seemed so self-centered. It was like a competition to gain favour. There was no humility. Disturbing to be honest. A good dose of the Blind Boys of Alabama always works in such situations.
Thanks Amanda, we Parra fans get a few things right. Note I will be insufferable come finals time (worse when we win). And Nic is wrong. The Eels are demonstrably a better team that the others. Best attack and defense in the comp. Officially second but we all know they are really number one.
Finally, a good book on the history of creationism is The Creationists.
Hah! Really number one indeed
Sigh, Rugby.
Pick a better analogy without changing the meaning then.
Rugby.
Kill him.
Also, whoever makes the eight, whoever wins indisputably for courage, character and spirit (and Joey) my Knights must be Team of the Year.
Im a Perthie, I care nothing for the religion of Rugby. Unless its world cup time – I was tramuatised when we lost. But then I can tolerate Union. It’s League I can’t stand.
*runs*
Ah, from science and religion stoushing to football code stoushing.
Much more interesting, I’d wager.
Kate, I would say my understanding of this subject isn’t week rather a bit fortnight.
I have no problem with a moving feast I do have problems with calling a theory the same name as the original when it has clearly changed.
This doesn’t happen in economics, politics, statistics, management or even subjects I have slighty dabbled with like pscyhology or sociology.
Irant, I ooled at this area some 15-20 years ago when I was an atheist and I found the grates critics of evolution were atheists.
Some of the most prominent supporters of ID are in fact deists not christians.
There are various strands of ID just as there are regarding Darwin.
Mark is mixing up different continents.
When origin of the species came out the Father of Fundamentalism Benjamin Warfield and leader of the Fundamentals said he saw no contradiction between this theory and the bible.
The major ‘prot’ reaction came originally in England.
The the beginnings of historico-critical scholarship on the Biblical text I am assuming is the school which came from principally from Germany.
Finally we do not know what the days are in the first chapter in Genesis,
Peter says in N/T that days could even be a thousand years.
In other words we don’t know what God considers a day.
finally it was only a few years ago that a person was appointed editor of a prominent scientific magazine who was sacked before he started because he said there problems with regard to Evolution.
That that was scientific!
I am bored with this topic as ID can never replace evolution in School as they are not substitutes.
“This doesnÄôt happen in economics, politics, statistics, management …”
It happens in science Homer. Get over it.
Well Homer, why not call Darwin’s ideas, “Darwin’s original ideas about evolution” and current ideas “current ideas about evolution”? It doesn’t matter what you call them – anyone versed in science knows that ideas can change – whether the overall label for a set of ideas changes or not is irrelevant. Eg, do you call the General theory of Relativity different things depending on whether you consider it containing a cosmological constant or not? (Here, you can take one case being that the cosmological constant equals zero and the other case where it is non-zero to do calculations, but conceptually, at least as Einstein originally thought about it, the two cases are quite different.)
Another thing: the “theory of gravity” has radically changed from Newtonian to Einsteinian notions but it’s still called gravity because it’s attempting to describe the same thing.
The thing about science is that it’s not fixed and immutable, and that’s its beauty.
Homer, you’re wrong. When you talk about, say, in economics, the idea of the ‘market’ we haven’t changed the name just because theories on the market have evolved and changed over time.
Object to calling it Darwinism if you must, but not evolution. Evolution is the process. No-one disputes that evolution has occured (except some ID believers and some religious folks). There is some on-going debate on the mechanics of evolution — not the fact of its occurence.
My two cents.
The reason why the religious fundy set hate science is simple. It asks questions, and asking questions is anathema to religious fundamentalism.
All else is window dressing.
Religious, or any other type of fundamentalism, is bred from ignorance (educationally, about the world, about it’s own religion/belief system) and sustained through a hierachical system of community governance. You can’t argue with Brian Houston, he’s appointed by God. You can’t argue with the mullah of your extremist mosque, he’s appointed by God. You can’t argue with Hitler or Stalin, then you would be a traitor (because they as nationalist dictators emobody the nation, to question them is to question the Fatherland/Motherland).
We all know one of the first things totalitarian regimes do is shut down universities, because they’re the centre of learning, research, questioning, and the freedom of the mind. And who knows where THAT shit could end up?
The psychology is exactly the same in religious groups. So circle the wagons, Brother Cletus, and keep them scientist folk away.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
Irant, you said
I think that sentience does make us special but it is not a necessary outcome of the evolutionary process. I think this is consistent with NOMA.
This missed my point a little. Your original quote suggested that evolution establishes that there is nothing special about humankind and there is no grand purpose for the human race. My point is that the question of the grand purpose for humankind is in the realm of religion rather than science. Science can show that mankind didn’t result from a linear process of purposeful evolution, but religion can still posit that humans and humankind are special (and indeed many religions do so). The two are only contradictory when they violate NOMA from both sides – if religion were to say that we are theologically special and therefore must be scientifically special or for science to say that we are not scientifically “special” and therefore we are not special at all.
Dan, I think we are talking past each other a little. I agree with that you said and looking back at my last post I suggest we are hair splitting as I thought that is what I was intending to say.
Since economics keeps coming up in this ‘stoush’, the question I have is: why aren’t the Christians objecting more to the unfettered greed that forms the basis of orthodox economics? You know … camels passing through eyes of needles, and doing unto others etc could be nicely juxtaposed with rationality and profit maximisation (and, of course IR change).
Surely we need some sort form of a more collectivist approach taught in schools to be more in line with my vague recollections of what the Son of God taught.
Other than that — what Irant said. Except for the stuff about rugby.