If you follow this blog, chances are you also follow sites such as pharyngula, or richarddawkins.net, rationally speaking, or why evolution is true, and if not then you should. They are all maintained by top scientists defending atheism and reason, along with evolution in particular but also science in general. I say that you should follow at least some of them because these bastions of rationality are not just popular but accessible and informative, giving an insight into the difficulties between science and religion. But why are they so popular?
It’s indisputable that a larger proportion of working scientists are atheists compared to the general population¹. Historically, many eminent scientists have been theists and Christians, but until recently atheism was socially unacceptable, with non-Christians facing persecution and discrimination, so this isn’t surprising. There are also some eminent scientists today who are Christians, such as Francis Collins, but they are in a minority.
There are two potential explanations as to why this is: it could be that science education causes people to lose their faith, or that atheists are more likely to pursue a career in the sciences. Neither explanation bodes well for theists. If the former, this has important implications for education. Recently, the UK government agreed to put evolution on the primary school curriculum. If science dispels religion, then perhaps a proper science education is all that is needed to bring religious belief down to levels found in regions like Scandinavia or countries such as Japan². However, I don’t find this outcome very plausible, simply because a number of factors, other than education, negatively affect the religiosity of a country; factors like societal health.
If the latter, then this raises the question of why atheists are more concerned with science than theists? One answer is that many theists are apt to reject the findings of science when they appear to conflict with their religious beliefs. Of course, theists often contend that these conflicts can be reconciled, but I would argue that there is a deeper conflict between science and religion, of which these factual disputes are symptomatic.
Religion and science aren’t incompatible in the sense that science refutes religion, but I believe that science and religion have conflicting approaches to knowledge. On the one hand, science is a method by which hypotheses and explanations of the world are tested and retested against empirical observation and other scientific theories. Since most theories turn out to be wrong, science must be open to refutation and scepticism, so that incorrect views can be weeded out. By this slow and uncertain process of inquiry and refinement, science inches ever closer to knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, uses the methods of revelation and tenacity to come to knowledge. The founders of a religion claim to have special knowledge imparted to them by supernatural beings, which is then codified into dogma, and reinforced over generations.
Whilst the methods of science have led to amazing technological advances and a deeper understanding of the world we live in, religion has led to a great amount of confusion, especially since the dogmas of the different religions contradict one another. This shows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that revelation and tradition are unreliable guides to truth. It also explains why religions have such a bad track record with making testable empirical claims; why, for example, the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant his belief that the Earth orbited the Sun. But if we can't rely on religion to get that right, why should we base ethical and political systems on it? Whilst few religious beliefs can be scientifically disproven, to hold them is nonetheless unscientific, since no religion would stand up to the scrutiny that is applied to even the most widely accepted scientific theories. Put simply, using the methods of science on the claims of religion would be like using a machete to spread butter.
PZ Myers puts this point well in his blog post, “What should a scientist think about religion?”
What should a scientist expect from an idea? That it be a reasonable advance in knowledge; that it be built on a foundation of evidence; that it be testable; that it should lead to new and useful questions and ideas. If we look at religion from that perspective, it doesn't help. At best, the hypothesis of the supernatural and/or a supreme being is vague, unfounded, and inapplicable in any practical fashion—deistic views, for instance, are so abstract and so carefully divorced from risk of challenge that they represent an empty hypothesis, and the most flattering thing you can say about them is that they're harmless. At worst, religion is confused, internally contradictory, and in conflict with evidence from the physical (and near as we can tell, only) world.Most theists care whether or not religion can be reconciled with science, though most scientists don’t care if science can’t be reconciled with religion. Why? Because science doesn’t need to draw confirmation from religion, it can stand on its own merits. Just imagine a world without science, compared to a world without religion.
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¹ See Michael Martin, "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism", Cambridge University Press (2008), p 307-313
² Ibid., p 56
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought or its editors.
5 comments:
"Religion and science aren’t incompatible in the sense that science refutes religion"
I'll have to disagree with you here. Science can and do contradict religion. To use your own example, Galileo's proving of the heliocentric theory refutes the mainstream religious view of his era that the sun revolves around the earth.
Science and religion do not exist in separate magisteria - many religion make claims about the nature of the universe that are testable by Science. And as if often turns out, they're way of the mark.
"I'll have to disagree with you here. Science can and do contradict religion. To use your own example, Galileo's proving of the heliocentric theory refutes the mainstream religious view of his era that the sun revolves around the earth."
I certainly agree with you that science can sometimes refute some of the claims that religions make. However, science can't refute all or most religious claims, simply because they are irrefutable.
For example, theistic evolution is the belief that God set up the laws of physics so that the human race would one day evolve on planet Earth. There's no way of scientifically disproving such a belief. Hypothetically one could base a religion on scientifically irrefutable claims, and perhaps some people have done. That's why I claim in the post that whilst religion isn't disproved by science, it is nonetheless unscientific, because a claim that can't be refuted is too weak to be reasonable to believe.
If you've ever heard of James Randi of the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://www.randi.org/site/), he has to constantly remind his critics that he isn't in the business of refuting claims of the paranormal, what he does is show that there is no good evidence for their veracity, time and again. It's on that basis that scientists rejected the existence of aether, and it's on that basis that we should reject the existence of God.
I agree. Most religious claims are scientifically irrefutable i.e they fall outside the realm of science.
As you noted however, sometimes religion do encroach on Science turf, and that's when the bloodletting starts ;)
Personally, I think the same rigorous standards Science demands should be applicable in our daily life. Any belief that is unfalsifiable would be meaningless, scientific or otherwise. Otherwise we might as well just believe in an invisible flying spaghetti monster in the sky.
Well, religious claims are scientifically irrefutable in the same way that historic claims are irrefutable. For example, can you scientifically prove or disprove that Julius Caesar existed, or that he (famously) said "Veni, Vidi, Vici"? No, but how many children at school were taught this?! (No idea whether Roman history is still being taught at school...)
"Well, religious claims are scientifically irrefutable in the same way that historic claims are irrefutable."
By irrefutable, I meant that nothing could count as evidence against the claim that a God exists. Very few claims can be disproved, except for mathematical claims. But evidence can in principle count against the claim that Julius Caesar existed, for example if we found contemporary historians saying that Julius Caesar was a character in a story.
Many religious claims are stealthily put beyond the realm of evidence, for example when people say that God is mysterious, or that He is testing people's faith.
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