Science and Religion
"One cannot ask whether a theory reflects reality, just whether it agrees with observations."
-Professor Stephen Hawking
That was from an interview with Professor Hawking broadcast by the BBC on Thursday (hear the whole thing as an mp3 download here, it's fascinating). He was talking about the prospect of other dimensions, not really relevant here, but I think what he says is enlightening when related to the current evolution/intelligent design debate.
At the debate's heart, I believe, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. While we may talk about scientific truth, when we distill that, what we mean is an idea which has been tested by the scientific method through observable, repeatable occurrences. Intelligent design or creationism, however we package them, are inherently immune to such analysis - they cannot be scientific because they cannot be tested. Evolution, on the other hand, can be tested multiple ways, both through the development of cells and fast breeding species in the lab, and real world observations of ecosystems and the fossil record.
Where I think a mistake is often made is the confusion of the realm of religion with the realm of science. As Hawking says above, we cannot ask whether a theory reflects reality, just whether it agrees with the observations and tests we use to scrutinise it.
Any religious adherent or spiritualist would be the first to tell you that under those terms, science is an incomplete reflection of the universe. Those things which are testable and observable do not make up the whole of the universe, nor the whole of the human spiritual experience. Much of the point of religion is that it is made up of faith and personal experience. It defies those tests and observable phenomena which are required for sound science. This isn't a criticism of science - for what science has set out to do, it is the best tool we could conceivably have, and insofar as science's aims go, it has given us an extraordinarily good idea of how our universe works and develops. But when we hear science make claims about the nature of the world, we ought to remember that science is only capable of working within certain methods and criteria, and cannot address the religious ideas and imperatives which inform faith, and therefore ideas such as intelligent design.
Where both sides of the current debate have failed is in assuming that one should rule the other. We try to press religion into the science classroom where I hope I've at least begun to demonstrate that it doesn't belong (not because it isn't necessarily correct, but simply because it isn't science), and a group of scientific fundamentalists try to justify maligning religion simply because it isn't science. We're both failing when we don't address the key issue here - that one is not the other and cannot by definition address those things the other concerns itself with. Our fights are unnecessary because we are looking at the universe in fundamentally different and incompatible ways.
"Science is a way of talking about the universe in words which bind it to a common reality. Magic is a way of talking to the universe in words it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible."
-Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic
Substitute "magic" with "religion," and I think you have a good reflection of the true state of the world and the reason we find religionists and scientists so often at odds..
Cross Posted to my journal here, and Street Prophets
-Professor Stephen Hawking
That was from an interview with Professor Hawking broadcast by the BBC on Thursday (hear the whole thing as an mp3 download here, it's fascinating). He was talking about the prospect of other dimensions, not really relevant here, but I think what he says is enlightening when related to the current evolution/intelligent design debate.
At the debate's heart, I believe, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. While we may talk about scientific truth, when we distill that, what we mean is an idea which has been tested by the scientific method through observable, repeatable occurrences. Intelligent design or creationism, however we package them, are inherently immune to such analysis - they cannot be scientific because they cannot be tested. Evolution, on the other hand, can be tested multiple ways, both through the development of cells and fast breeding species in the lab, and real world observations of ecosystems and the fossil record.
Where I think a mistake is often made is the confusion of the realm of religion with the realm of science. As Hawking says above, we cannot ask whether a theory reflects reality, just whether it agrees with the observations and tests we use to scrutinise it.
Any religious adherent or spiritualist would be the first to tell you that under those terms, science is an incomplete reflection of the universe. Those things which are testable and observable do not make up the whole of the universe, nor the whole of the human spiritual experience. Much of the point of religion is that it is made up of faith and personal experience. It defies those tests and observable phenomena which are required for sound science. This isn't a criticism of science - for what science has set out to do, it is the best tool we could conceivably have, and insofar as science's aims go, it has given us an extraordinarily good idea of how our universe works and develops. But when we hear science make claims about the nature of the world, we ought to remember that science is only capable of working within certain methods and criteria, and cannot address the religious ideas and imperatives which inform faith, and therefore ideas such as intelligent design.
Where both sides of the current debate have failed is in assuming that one should rule the other. We try to press religion into the science classroom where I hope I've at least begun to demonstrate that it doesn't belong (not because it isn't necessarily correct, but simply because it isn't science), and a group of scientific fundamentalists try to justify maligning religion simply because it isn't science. We're both failing when we don't address the key issue here - that one is not the other and cannot by definition address those things the other concerns itself with. Our fights are unnecessary because we are looking at the universe in fundamentally different and incompatible ways.
"Science is a way of talking about the universe in words which bind it to a common reality. Magic is a way of talking to the universe in words it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible."
-Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic
Substitute "magic" with "religion," and I think you have a good reflection of the true state of the world and the reason we find religionists and scientists so often at odds..
Cross Posted to my journal here, and Street Prophets