I must admit, I used to think that science and religion were natural enemies. How can something that relies on faith not be in direct opposition to a practice which specifically relies on reason and evidence? The thing is, it wasn’t always like that, and to some it still isn’t. Of course, there are those who choose to create conflict, but conflict isn’t necessary. Historically, science grew from the church. The first scientists were clergy, and scientific research was sponsored by the church. The church wanted to understand God’s world, and science was one of the ways they tried to do that.

Before I really began looking into things myself, I thought that the only rational scientific view could be that God (as always, I use the term very loosely) does not exist. But there is so much magic in the universe that we can’t help but feel insignificant in it. Even if the universe does exist due to a cosmic fluke, that’s still pretty darn amazing and if we could ever truly understand that, I think that would be on par with a religious experience.

Arthur C. Clark’s famous quote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” seems to be true not only of technology as we know it, but also the natural world around us, which possibly explains why many seem to believe the only option is that this world was created by a “sufficiently advanced being”. As our science advances, we discover more and more things that seem like magic – we continually discover new exciting things that seem completely unreal and magical. The quantum world, for example – even the greatest scientific minds still can’t fully grasp what happens in our world on a quantum level. As time goes on, our science progresses, and we understand these things differently, but that doesn’t make them any less amazing. While I accept that both science and spirituality/religion have limits to what they can explain, they both seem to be striving to understand this same magic.

Can’t science be a path to God? If God exists in all things (as is often claimed), then by understanding the world around us through science, we could begin to understand God. Sure, the God we might find wouldn’t be Yahweh, Allah or Jesus – but some parts of the bible have to be interpreted as metaphor, right?

Further Reading:

• The Myth of Conflict
• Ferngren, Gary (2002) Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction

Just to being with, I’ll just say that in general, I don’t agree with Atheistic evangelism. I get really pissed off when Christians (I only single them out because no one else has ever tried to convert me, but I’m sure they’re not the only evangelists) don’t understand that I have no interest in joining their religion (or any other, for that matter). It is for exactly that reason that I disagree with atheists doing exactly the same thing. I don’t care if we’re right – I’ll happily debate with someone, and explain my position, but I’m not arrogant enough to think that everyone else should necessarily share my views. Before you say “why are you giving these religious people so much respect?” (as I’m sure many Dawkinians might), I would treat peoples political beliefs or choice of ice cream flavours in exactly the same way. “You don’t like rocky road? But what could possibly be better than the mix of smooth sticky marshmallow with crunchy nuts?” … “You don’t like nuts? Well ok, then…”.

I’ve had three discussions/arguments with various Christians/creationists recently², two of which have been quite interesting, and possibly even productive.

That said, blatantly stupid comments still draw my ire – fine – be religious, believe in a personal God. I’ll disagree with you, but it’s still your right. Claiming that “we’re working on it” is not a better answer than “goddidit”, and you’ll get my argumentative juices flowing. Further trying to claim a law professor is somehow an expert in evolutionary biology, and even further that biology is not a natural science is beyond me.

I can’t imagine (note: sarcasm) why the Gay Conservative didn’t post my most recent comment³:

Last time I checked, biology IS a natural science.

Secondly, if you want to quote someone reputable about evolutionary biology, an ex-Berkley law professor⁴ is not my idea of a credible source… Find me a reputable biologist (or even a reputable scientist in a related field), and I might take more notice…

Did I have a point? Was I too argumentative? Feel free to read through the comments on Gay Conservative’s post, and see if anyone else can get their comments published.

1. Apologies if the CoComment site doesn’t display the comments properly, but this is the only method I can find for a permalink
2. One in the comments of my post “Misquoting Jesus“, one on Facebook, and the other one I’m discussing here.
3. which should follow directly under Steves post of the 20th July
4. Phillip E. Johnson

(via GoComics)

• Letter to the Editor: Kick the Atheists out of America – “I don’t care if they have never committed a crime, atheists are the reason crime is rampant.”
• Philosophy and the proof of God’s existence by Roger Jones – A nice summary of many of the traditional “proofs” of God’s existance, including the argument from design, pascals wager, and the philosophies of Kant, Hegal and others.
• What Evolution Left Behind On Humans – “I?ve always been fascinated with human evolution. To me, the most fascinating part of human evolution is learning about what was ?left behind? on our bodies from our ancestors and from our prenatal development.”
• Wife Beating – It?s therapeutic – I’m glad someone’s cleared this up. Wife beating is not a rule, it’s just therapeutic. Oh, but there are limits!
• Pharyngula: They’re running out of virgins! – Nice tasteless video about terrorists debating how many virgins they get in paradise

God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, “Lord, we don’t need you any more. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning.”"Oh, is that so? Tell me…” replies God.

“Well,” says the scientist, “we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of you and breathe life into it, thus creating man.”

“Well, that’s interesting. Show Me.”

So, the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mould the soil.

“Oh no, no, no…” interrupts God,

“Get your own dirt.”

(via Vanessa Byers)

• What if the Women of the Bible Had All Been Feminists? – “After the ladies loosen up around the table, Mary Magdalene would begin by talking about sex workers? rights, and returning belly dancing to its origin as an exercise for giving birth.”
• Intelligent Design Ruled “Not Science” – Thank God! (pun intended) At least ID is officially not science in the UK.
• Calvin & Hobbs: Do you think there’s a God? – Calvin and Hobbs on God.
• FSM on Calculator – How to draw the Flying Spaghetti Monster on your TI graphing calculator
• Non Sequitur – Moses – Moses using MapQuest Version 1.0 (BC) to lead the Jews through the desert
• Paris finds God in jail | Herald Sun – So that’s where God’s been hiding…

“I think we face an equal but much more sinister challenge from the left, in the shape of cultural relativism – the view that scientific truth is only one kind of truth and it is not to be especially privileged.”¹

Sure, Dawkins has a point. While I certainly would disagree with his implied (correct me if I’m wrong) view that scientific truth is the only legitimate form of truth, suggesting that scientific truth should not be privileged above that of, say, religion or even philosophy would certainly be a mistake. Religious “truth” seems almost an oxymoron, but philosophical truth does have some merit. Perhaps we could also talk about “personal” truth (gotta love Dr. Phil). Of course, if science and philosophy (or science and my “personal truth”) were to ever disagree, I’d side with science – no question.

That said, I found the link to Dawkins’ quote from Atheist Revolution, who seems to take Dawkins’ argument to some strange extreme. I started reading:

For a more current example of Dawkins’ concerns, we turn to Philadelphia where police officer Kimberlie Webb sued her department for their refusal to allow her to wear a hijab while on duty…

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission actually concluded that the police department had violated Webb’s rights by prohibiting her from wearing Muslim garb while on duty.

Fortunately, federal judge Bartle had more sense²

Now, the judge’s reasons might have some validity – he suggests that (and this is me paraphrasing) by disallowing “religious symbols and attire” puts officers in a better position to deal with varying cultures/religions of people who they have to interact with.

But, I digress. My issue is not with the judge’s decision, as I clearly don’t know enough about the facts to disagree with him. I do, however, take issue with the comments made on Atheist Revolution:

Why must freedom to practice one’s religion become freedom to practice one’s religion in public?³

Isn’t that exactly the point of the legal right to practice one’s religion freely? Things that we do in the privacy of our own home are protected by the mere fact that the government cannot enter our homes without a warrant. The only practical benefit of providing a legal freedom to practice one’s religion is to allow people to freely do this in public.

1. Dawkins, Richard (2007) Quoted in Dawkins’ Christmas Card List by James Randerson of the Guardian
2. Dawkins Says Threats to Reality-Based Community Not Limited to Right @ Atheist Revolution
3. Dawkins Says Threats to Reality-Based Community Not Limited to Right @ Atheist Revolution

Creationist: You can’t prove evolution is true, 100%.

Me: But evolution has been proved true beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s like in court, to prove a defendant is guilty, the jury needs to decide that it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the claim is true.

Creationist: A ha! But innocent people are sent to jail all the time!

Me: Okay, but imagine a different court. In this one, a juror has to first pass years of tests to prove that he knows about the law and the case at hand. Then, he and a million others who also passed the test hear case after case after case. A million different defenses [sic.] are launched against the truth of the claim. Every single of the million jurors after every single of the million cases concluded that there was no reasonable doubt that the claim was true. A single juror, in one case, could say “Not true” and the defendant would go free. But that never happened, and still never happens to this day. Because this defendant gets a million trials every day. And still, not one “Not true” has been found.

That’s the case that evolution is true.

Creationist: Yeah but someday we’ll find a Not true, but for you it’ll probably be too late. Enjoy hell loser.

Me: :-\¹

It comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of science. I just recently finished my final undergraduate essay ever, On The Nature of Proof for my “History and Philosophy of Mathematics” subject. One section of the essay deals with this issue specifically²

The scientific notion of proof is not dissimilar from that in general use. While scientists (or, perhaps, the media which portrays scientific research to the public) may occasionally be casual in their use of the word “proof”, when questioned about the certainty of their results (and thus, whether their work actually constitutes “proof”), they might reply: “Scientists don’t talk about ‘proof’, period. We leave that to the mathematicians… Change the word ‘proof’ to ‘evidence’, and it makes more sense.”³

Scientists seem to have little problem admitting that they do not, in fact, prove anything. Karl Popper, whose ideas defined the modern scientific method, suggested that “scientific experimentation [is not] carried out with a view to verifying or finally establishing the truth of theories; … we can never finally prove our scientific theories, we can merely (provisionally) confirm or (conclusively) refute them”⁴

It should be clear that any use of the word “proof” in science is either accidental, or a deliberate attempt to promote “pseudo-science” or non-science as legitimate. Scientific theories may be contingently true, but it is not the goal of science to provide “proof”. While science may have higher standards of evidence than the general population, scientists (like the general population) seek “evidence that is sufficient to establish knowledge of a conclusion”⁵, not certain truth.

1. About Atheism: Proving Evolution is True
2. Rosalion, Richard (2007) On The Nature of Proof
3. Myers, P.Z. (2005, June 16) “Volokh’s question“
4. Thornton, Stephen, “Karl Popper“, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
5. Chappell, R. (June 17, 2005) “Evidence, Knowledge, and Proof“.

Essentially, in matters for which we are unable to understand and evaluate the facts for ourselves, we try to evaluate the trustworthiness of the source.

Few of us are qualified to assess claims about the merits of string theory, the role in mercury in the etiology of autism, or the existence of repressed memories. So rather than evaluating the asserted claim itself, we instead evaluate the claim’s source. If the source is deemed trustworthy, people will believe the claim, often without really understanding it.¹

It seems only natural, and a perfectly valid way of making up your opinions about things. The problem occurs when we don’t know what sources to trust.

(Scientific claims) clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals — and, in the United States, these intuitive beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities.²

If our own political leaders (Well, thankfully not my political leaders to the same degree – although he did seem a little iffy on global warming for quite a while) show an inherent distrust of science, and people are brought up to believe the church is a reputable source of scientific knowledge, is it any wonder that there’s so much distrust of science?

I’ve read suggestions by scientists that claim that it’s simply not worth arguing with creationists in public forums because those who listen to the creationists already distrust science, and nothing they say (no matter how rational) will convert them. Maybe we need to start earlier? I read a post the other day (dammed³ if I could find it again – help me out if you know what I’m talking about) that suggested the idea of creating a textbook for use in school which rationally outlined the creationist vs. evolution debate in an easy-to-understand yet scientifically accurate way. Maybe if we can help establish that scientists are the ones who should be trusted when it comes to scientific matters⁴, and not politicians or the church.

(Via A Whore in the Temple of Reason)

1. Bloom, Paul & Weisberg, Deena S. (2007) Why Do Some People Resist Science?
2. Bloom, Paul & Weisberg, Deena S. (2007) Why Do Some People Resist Science?
3. Figuratively, of course
4. I can’t believe this actually needs to be said!

In “Flatland” Abbott explores the fictional life of “A. Square”, who lives in a two dimensional world and is visited by “A. Cube” (a 3-dimensional creature). While it’s a rather simplistic example, it raises the possibility that we (3-dimensional creatures) may be surrounded by “beings of a higher dimension” who could interact with us in God-like ways. While I don’t necessarily believe that God is, in fact, a creature from a higher-dimensional universe, the book suggested the possibility that maybe God can physically exist, but still be “omnipotent”.

²

Rudy Rucker gave me a way of thinking about the nature of a higher power that still allowed me to understand the world from a scientific viewpoint, and while I’m sure it wasn’t his intention – Rudy Rucker opened my mind to the possibility of “God”.

• View my review on “The Fourth Dimension: and how to get there“

1. Also known as “The 4th Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality“
2. Image taken from Rudy Rucker, “The Fourth Dimension: and how to get there“, p.41