Good science and religion share skepticism, wonder

[groovedaddy]

Hurrah for contributing columnist Martha Lutz's Jan. 3 essay on science and religion. Very helpfully, she got it right.

That is, she got it right religiously. Her voicing of the integrity of science and its rules allows religion its integrity in developing moral insights and encouraging both social justice and ethical behavior.

There is no belittling or denigrating of religion in her words.

From observing the assumed conflict between science and religion across the years, my conclusion is that most often religion is the cause; that is, religious ignorance and fear. Science is not understood and God appears under attack and needs defending. Consequently religion overreaches, intruding on scientific methodology and insisting on its conformity to religion's doctrines.

What religion has failed to achieve by its teachings and gracious persuasion, it seeks to force by public law or defend with public power. Conflict inevitably follows.

There are authentic areas of difference between science and religion -- real tensions, even profound ones. These need to be pursued but in a manner of searching that can benefit both.

http://www.kentucky.com/589/story/661615.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. If one approaches God as the Great Mystery

That which is not truly known or not fully knowable, then there is plenty of room for science. Science is merely unwrapping the veils from God, making It more known.

[Odin2005]

8. Get rid of the word "god" and replace it with something like "reality" and this Atheist agrees.

French philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville talks about that in his Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.

[TlalocW]

2. How fitting

That I'm wearing a t-shirt with a diagram of a microscope detailing its various evil parts and a slogan that says, "Science is Satan Spelled Backwards."

TlalocW

[dmallind]

3. OK I guess, but still doesnt't challenge the usual tautology

that there IS some province for which religion is epistemologically useful and valid and where science is not. THere may or may not be such an area of investigation but if so it has not been identified and I can't imagine what it would be. The usual suspects that get mentioned tend to be constructs OF religion itself and lacking in objective characteristics - a sort of circular self-justification. Religious folks preen themselves about science's inability to dissect the human soul or detect the meaning of life and claim these gaps for their faith, but they never seem to get the point that faith is the vehicle by which these concepts were originated in the imagination, and are therefore only valid fodder for the arts and humanities. Not because this a separate realm of knowledge but because it is the realm of the imagination. Science is not lacking in reach because it cannot explain the sould any more thanb it is lacking because it cannot explain whether Hamlet is really mad or not.

Nothing here makes these questions lesser than scientific ones. I am more interested in and better educated in the humanities myself, and certainly see the value of these musings. But we should be clear about what they are. They are questions about our own creative output - questions about the stories that shape our society and our interactions with each other. They are not questions about facts and data and the concrete function of nature. Those things are questions only for science, and religion should play no part in them. Religion itself is also not the TOOL for answering the other kind of question either. In fact religion is one of those questions itself.

[BridgeTheGap]

4. Many of the world's greatest scientists have been people of deep faith.

They found a way to reconcile the two and, I would assert, that many knew the fundamental difference.
Both science and religion can be used as powerful forces for good or evil.
I have faith, but I disdain those dogmatists who say that I must believe exactly as they do. I lean heavier toward the mystical side when it comes to "God."
While scientists may not site their faith in their practice of the scientific method, it often is part of who they are. They may even pray for a back though in understanding a vexing problem.
There are also many examples of scientists who are so dogmatic in their ground of being, they can't see the possibilities that exist. Some seem to go out of their way to disparage those who are out of the mainstream or want to offer a different explanation.

[moggie]

5. Scientists are human, and subject to human frailties

Feynman was a womaniser. William Shockley, the "father of the transistor", was a racist and eugenicist. Newton and Leibniz had a bitter feud over who had first developed calculus. Edward Teller = Dr Strangelove. Women in science have had a particularly raw deal, often being marginalised by their male colleagues. In this light, I think the fact that some scientists compartmentalise so that they can cling to their religious security blanket is not particularly compelling. But how many do this? A survey of members of the Royal Society found that only 3.3% of its scientists believe in God. I think the figure for the USA's National Academy of Sciences is higher, but considerably lower than that of the US population as a whole.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. Absolutely. "Believe" it or not, faith doesn't necessarily have to do with

"belief in God." To me, it has as much to do with knowing there is "something" inteligent beyond/higher than human life.

[skepticscott]

9. Don't mistake that as evidence

that science and religion have some deep connection. Put it down to the fact that, for most of the history of science, it was impossible to hold a civilized job or accomplish anything of significance if you were openly atheistic. It is no coincidence that most of the world's leading scientists nowadays (when lack of religious display is not a career impediment) are not people of deep faith. In fact, just the opposite is true.

And yes, scientists do get into heated discussions, but the debates are ultimately settled by testable evidence, unlike religious debates, which are settled by who knows what. Scientists frequently change long-held and powerful convictions and openly admit their error when they are confronted with adequate evidence. How many religious fundamentalists ever do that?

[laconicsax]

7. Talk about trying to have it both ways!

Consequently religion overreaches, intruding on scientific methodology and insisting on its conformity to religion's doctrines.

...

For religion, skepticism at least means weighing and often rejecting religion's mean side of conformity and persecution and its manipulative side of over-claiming and deception.

...

On the "wonder" side there is even more. It begins with a shared humility that belongs to science and religion. Both affirm there is so much we do not grasp about our world, about human life and its formation, about its development and outcome.