One of biologist Stephen Jay Gould’s most famous ideas was his belief that science and religion are not enemies of each other. In his view, the only point of science is to investigate the facts of the universe. Religion, on the other hand, simply deals with questions of meaning and ethics.
This point of view has been readily accepted by both scientists and theologians. On the religious side, many religious scholars have also embraced this idea, and believe that there is no reason why a person cannot accept both scientific ideas and traditional religious beliefs. On the scientific side, the National Academy of Sciences have also taken this view, as can be seen in the preface to its report on evolution and creationism:
Scientists, like many others, are touched with awe at the order and complexity of nature. Indeed, many scientists are deeply religious. But science and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience. Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each.
Unfortunately, this is not always true.
It is true, as Gould stated, that science is a tool through which humans gain increased knowledge about the physical world. But this tool does not exist in a vacuum. The scientific method is based on certain assumptions about the way the universe is. Namely that:
(1) There is an objective reality;
(2) This objective reality can be correctly perceived by human beings, directly or indirectly, through the operation of the physical senses;
(3) The mechanisms of this objective reality are governed by certain, unchanging natural laws; and
(4) Said natural laws are discoverable through deductive and/or inductive reasoning through the observations of the senses.
Just about the entire operation of science is based on the above-mentioned ideas. More importantly, these ideas are philosophic ones. Undermining any of these postulates undermines science as a method of ascertaining facts.
Here is where science and religion can interact. Religion is, in essence, an expression of a particular philosophy. The basis of the teachings of a religion, like science, are based on certain assumptions. As a result, religion and science frequently intersect when these assumptions clash with each other.
Many religions have teachings that are at odds with the assumptions of science. Take this passage regarding the practice of Zen Buddhism from Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, for example:
To begin with, you must give up the idea of substantiality or existence.[...]
Of course the bird we see and hear exists. It exists, but what I mean by that may not be exactly what you mean. The Buddhist understanding of life includes both existence and non-existence. The bird both exists and does not exist at the same time.
Taking this at face value, we see a a view of reality that is at odds with that taught by the scientific method. Science requires that an objective reality positively exist. It cannot both exist and not exist at the same time–that statement doesn’t make sense from the scientific perspective. In this way, science and Suzuki’s version of Zen Buddhism are fundamentally incompatible.
This matters. It’s not something that can be written off. The ethics and philosophy of Zen Buddhism are based upon these assumptions about the nature of reality. If those assumptions are true, then science is wrong. If the assumptions of the scientific method are true, then these tenets of Zen Buddhism are wrong.
This is why, at the heart of it, Gould’s idea of separate realms for science and religion simply doesn’t have merit. Religion may provide answers to moral and philosophic questions, but the answers to those questions pertain directly here to this life on earth. That means that if a religious teaching contradicts the assumptions that underlay science, then there is a contradiction between the two.
Let’s take an example from the Western tradition. In the Gospel according to John, Jesus attends a wedding reception where the wine runs out. At the behest of his mother, Jesus instructs the stewards to pour water into wine jars, and turns the water into wine.
Given physics as we understand it today, turning water into wine instantaneously is impossible. It would violate several natural laws. Therefore, if one is to believe this story, one has to disbelieve in one of science’s key assumptions–that natural laws are immutable. Again, we see the intersection of science and religion. If you believe that Jesus turned water into wine, you have to disbelieve in the idea that natural laws cannot change, and vice versa.
At the heart of it, both science and religion are means through which human beings try to discover the truth about themselves and the universe. In that search for truth, there are right answers and there are wrong answers. Accordingly, while it may be comforting, it is a myth to say that science and religion are perfectly compatible, because science is more than than just a means of gathering knowledge. It is based on a philosophy that simply is not compatible with all religious teachings. When those religious teachings and scientific findings conflict, it is impossible to say that their realms do not overlap. At those intersection points, you have to choose one or the other.
Heretical indeed!
I don’t think science requires a belief in an objective reality. Objective reality is certainly a nice thing to assume in order to avoid a very cumbersome manner of speaking, but science, especially hard science, is the ultimate in po-mo, making no unqualified statements about reality itself, but rather making statements of utility and reproducible perception.
Adam,
You can’t have reproducible perception without an objective reality. Unless you want to go the Bishop Berkeley route.
I think you’d have a very hard time proving that you need an objective reality to get a reproducible perception.
Objective reality is simply an unnecessary assertion that dramatically simplifies communication.
Adam,
The very concept of reproducible perception implies an objective reality. Reproducible perception can only exist if the external world is independent of the mind of its observers. If this is not the case, than results will vary from person to person. The objectivity of reality is at the root of all of the tools of science.
(Yes, there are branches of physics where observation changes things, but those are measurable effects and are due to the nature of the mechanics of observation. The measurability of the effect is reproducible and does not change my overall point.)
I agree that there are certain teachings of most major religions that are incompatible with science, but that is a far cry from saying that science and religion are incompatible. Likewise, there are teachings of religion that science can never touch or refute, and it is from those teachings that we can make the statement that they are not incompatible.
Specifically:
Science cannot conclusively deny the existence of alternate planes of existence
Science cannot conclusively deny the existence of a soul, or of an afterlife
Science cannot conclusively deny the existence of a supreme creator (I do not here invoke the idea of a “god of the gaps”, simply the earlier tenet about planes of existence.)
Science cannot conclusively deny the existence of Fate, or of some form of divine plan
Science cannot conclusively deny that the universe has an expiration date to be brought about by said supreme creator (although it can prove, and does on a daily basis, that said date is not today)
From these tenets (and I am sure there are others, but these are all I need in order to prove my point), we can form the skeleton of a religion that is perfectly compatible with modern science, and that is what I think of when I imagine science and religion being incompatible. The trouble arises (rightly so) when a religion seeks to base itself in actual events, in the actual world: effectively, the trouble arises when a religion lays claim to miracles. Thus, most if not all of the religions in the world have overstepped the line in the sand, and it is from this zeal that they have come into conflict with science.
Also, I find myself somewhat at odds with your statement of an objective reality. In my own personal worldview, what science is attempting to do is apply an objective framework over the universe, and such a task does not require an objective reality. In fact, there are strong arguments against an objective, quantifiable universe, and at the least science cannot prove the absence of subjectivity on every feasible level.
Science is incompatible with most of the specifics that differentiate religions. It is not, however, incompatible with the fundamental core of religion, and thus I fear you overgeneralize when you say that there is a clash.
I’ll readily concede that the utility of sharing scientific knowledge depends on a shared reality. Someone would have to be an idiot to suggest otherwise. Science also shows that if we control known factors, we get consistent results. It’s a good thing that’s true, or science wouldn’t be terribly useful. But utility is king, here, with useful assertions floating on a bed of useful semantics. It doesn’t make other semantics wrong, unless they clearly represent facts in conflict. The bird existing or not existing is a question of semantics, and to insist on right-headed semantics is something best left to circle-jerking Objectivists, not scientists.
That said, science has given us some great tools for finding out what facts have support. Mr. Bayes even gave us the means to put a mathematical framework to inferring things from what we see. Even where it doesn’t give absolute answers, it tells us what has the most support given what we know.
So, we have framework for justifying things rooted in scientific thought, and most religious assertions about reality (the divinity of Jesus, the existence of karma) don’t enjoy any justification. In fact, thanks to Bayes, there’s good support for the hypothesis that these beliefs rise out of psychology, circumstance, and meme theory. That’s about as damning as it gets.
Adam,
Forgive me, but when I hear people wave away clear definitions as “mere semantics”, I instinctively cringe. Clear, precise definitions are, in my mind, essential for understanding. Vagueness is where irrationality creeps in.
Well-understood semantics are critically important for communication. If you can spell something out precisely, then you probably don’t actually understand it. Alternatively, you lack the semantics to describe your idea in English either due to ignorance or because the semantics don’t exist yet.
Semantics generally carry a set of axioms. “Is” generally implies existence, although if someone is speaking carefully, it can instead imply set operations or identify tentative relationships between mere concepts.
Just as two people cannot hope to have a meaningful argument without some basis of agreement, semantics have to collide for respective statements made within them to have meaning with respect to each other.
Arguably the most important basis of collision is the assumption of an objective reality. We can only talk about conflict in Iraq if we share the assumption that Iraq “exists,” or at least is somehow something we have shared “access” to.
But when someone says that the bird both exists and doesn’t exist, clearly they don’t mean “exist” the way you mean it. It’s an invitation out of your semantic sandbox, which you can politely decline if you don’t think you’d benefit from it.
*If you /can’t/ spell something out precisely
Adam,
I agree completely. Which is why I would say that you can play in the Zen Buddhist sandbox, or you can play in the science sandbox, but you can’t play in both sandboxes.
It is precisely the importance of semantics that generally decline to debate theism with people, because God is generally defined too vaguely to discuss rationally.
You can play in all the sandboxes you want. If the sandboxes intersect, only then do you have the capacity to contradict yourself.
A bird is kind of an emergent property of a physical system that we as humans recognize. We create a very useful sandbox when we start talking about different kinds of birds, but if we switch to the “birds are just an emergent property” sandbox, we may be better able to discuss human psychology, but we’ll have a harder time discussing ornithology.
The pertinent issues remain the same — religious people making claims about reality without justification.
Of course the bird we see and hear exists. It exists, but what I mean by that may not be exactly what you mean. The Buddhist understanding of life includes both existence and non-existence. The bird both exists and does not exist at the same time.
This doesn’t sound so unscientific to me. It reminds me of Schroedinger’s cat.
Stuhlmann:
There have been attempts to draw parallels between these sorts of beliefs and quantum mechanics before. Generally, physicists cry foul and claim that the religious elements are distorting quantum physics. You can find examples of that in scientific critiques of the film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” While the film isn’t about traditional Buddhist teachings, a number of the same critiques could apply.
You really can’t. One sandbox has one kind of sand. The other, a different kind. When you mix the two, you don’t get both a ’science’ sand AND a ‘religion’ sand. You get a mixture. It therefore ceases to be scientific or religious in that although you accepted elements of both, you’ve lost the perspective of either. Instead, you adopted some sort of Frankenstein-like perspective that violates the most important, to-the-core, tenets of each.
When I think marmosets are cute, am I in the science sandbox? How about if I make up rules of cuteness. When Tolkein imagines and fleshes out the internal logic of Middle Earth, what sandbox is he in? When I assign an ethical dimension to human behavior, am I in the science sandbox? (Actually, scratch that last — I’m not in the mood to argue with Objectivists or wrangle over naturalistic fallacies.) When I try to figure out what matters to me and what to pursue in my life, am I in the science sandbox?
No, it really is Frankensteinian, but that’s actually OK.
I think the compromise position here is that all those things are in the scientific sandbox if I realize the extent to which those things are arbitrary.
That’s fine, but then this discussion reduces to an examination of the different ways people claim objective justification to their assertions, with the overarching thesis that people should declare loyalty to one.
As an atheist, I happen to agree, but I don’t find the argument particularly compelling.