According to the drumbeat from religious leaders and the media, religion and science are heading for a profound reconciliation and synthesis that will benefit all humanity. The purpose of this discussion is to expose the irrationality of this contention and state the proper relationship of the two.
Let’s deal first with the claims that religion and science deal with entirely different aspects of human existence, complement each other, and are not in conflict.
- A recent letter signed by 10,200 clergy from across the nation stated: “We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist.”
- Pope Benedict has also recently come out with similar statements. Speaking to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pope stated that the dialog between religion and science would actually help the faithful see “the logic of faith in God.”
- An article in The Oberlin Review entitled “Religion and Science” by science columnist Margaret Putney is typical of the thinking of many in the media: “First of all, science cannot answer religious questions. Science can only address the observable. Professor of Physics Dan Styer heard once that a ‘question is trivial if it can be answered with scientific inquiry,’ implying that the questions humans truly care about are those that cannot be answered through observation and physical tests – the basis of all science.”
- The John Templeton Foundation, a powerful voice promoting the compatibility of religion and science, finances scientific research (but only if the study demonstrates compatibility) and its vast Templeton Foundation Press with provocative book titles like Evolution: The Disguised Friend of Faith? and Creative Tension: Essays on Science and Religion.
Many freethinkers will immediately see the obvious fallacy underlying the above ideas: the major conflicts between religion and science have actually not resided in a spiritual realm but in a material one. And the material Universe – how it originated and how it functions – is the exclusive province of science.
As is so often the case, Richard Dawkins has expressed this idea with unexcelled clarity and succinctness: “Most religions offer a cosmology and a biology, a theory of life, a theory of origins, and reasons for existence. In doing so, they demonstrate that religion is, in a sense, science; it’s just bad science. Don’t fall for the argument that religion and science operate on separate dimensions and are concerned with quite separate sorts of questions. Religions have historically always attempted to answer the questions that properly belong to science. Thus religions should not be allowed to retreat away from the ground upon which they have traditionally attempted to fight. They do offer both a cosmology and a biology; however, in both cases it is false.”
I’ve previously mentioned a classic book, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew D. White published by Prometheus. Don’t be put off by the ponderous title. I recommend this book as a must-read by all freethinkers. White extensively documents how Christianity made major pronouncements about the material Universe and how it has been proven wrong in each and every case.
Frequently, the church stated that disproving their beliefs about the natural Universe, thought to be infallible, such as the Earth being flat or the Sun rotating around the Earth, would cause their religion to collapse. In each case, however, religion crawled off, licked its wounds, and returned cowed but with a new contorted rationale to continue its beliefs.
The reason religion is consistently wrong in offering explanations about the natural Universe can be summed up in one word: faith. It is the Achilles heel of religion – the ultimate copout (I’ve written about this in a previous post on this site). Any belief, no matter how absurd, can be justified by faith. Science, on the other hand, must reach its conclusions using rules of logic and collection of incontrovertible evidence that can be replicated by other scientists. Scientific findings are always subject to revision if contradictory evidence is found, whereas an impervious wall of faith usually justifies religious beliefs.
Religious fundamentalists, of course, are the most vehemently anti-science, at least on issues that conflict with their religious beliefs, while not disputing and reaping the benefits of scientific discoveries not conflicting with these beliefs. Generally, fundamentalists have no interest in changing any of their religious beliefs that clash with science since they believe their religious convictions are infallible.
Gradually, many non-fundamentalist religions have come to “accept” scientific findings as a fallback position, yet they still try to save some remnant of their former religious convictions by saying that a deity is behind the creation and the workings of the natural Universe. This manner of “accepting” scientific findings is bogus and shows an ignorance of the main premise of science that no iota of the supernatural is accepted in any scientific explanation. Non-fundamentalist religion, not science, has usually been the initiator when dialogue is attempted between science and religion.
But if religion and science are irretrievably and fundamentally incompatible, why do the media give the impression that many scientists are religious and find no conflict between religion and science? Again, let’s look at the evidence.
The media often cite the religiosity of great scientists, especially Albert Einstein, as compelling evidence of religion-science compatibility. Like other scientists, Einstein sometimes used the word “god” as synonymous with the laws of nature. He never believed in an anthropomorphic god; biographical accounts record that he rejected religion from an early age.
Upon being asked if he believed in God by Rabbi Herbert Goldstein, Einstein replied: “I believe in Spinoza’s god who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.” In the book Albert Einstein: The Human Side is this quote: “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
The beliefs of scientists as a group are much less religious than the general public, particularly those in the natural sciences. The very best and most prestigious scientists are barely religious at all.
A Harris Poll in 2003 found 90% of the general public believes in God, a figure that can be used to compare with the beliefs of scientists described below.
In 1998, an important report appeared in Nature entitled “Leading Scientists Still Reject God” by Edward Larson and Larry Witham, who did a follow-up study on two landmark studies by psychologist James H. Leuba done in 1914 and 1933. Larson and Witham stated: “Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever – almost total.”
Leuba found in his initial 1914 study that 40% of scientists in general believed in God; Larson and Witham found this figure unchanged. The story was different and highly significant in the case of “greater scientists,” defined in the 1998 study as members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, where 93% (72% atheists and 21% agnostic) did not believe in God.
Among the “greater scientists,” belief in God decreased steadily over the years (1914, 28%; 1933, 15%; 1998, 7%). Larson and Witham included in their report this explanatory quote from Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins: “You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don’t think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge.”
In a 2005 scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists, all Nobel laureates, this question: “Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?” Herbert A. Hauptman, speaking for the panel, replied rapidly and forcefully with an unequivocal, “No!” He explained that belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science but also that, “this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race.”
Stephen Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a winner of the Nobel Prize in 1979 for his work in particle physics, expresses views that are typical for the academy. In regard to the effect of science on religion, he observes, “I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That’s a good thing.”
Weinberg further notes that, “The experience of being a scientist makes religion seem fairly irrelevant. Most scientists I know simply don’t think about it very much. They don’t think about religion enough to qualify as practicing atheists.” He added that most scientists he knows who do believe in God believe in “a God who is behind the laws of nature but who is not intervening.”
The effect of science on scientists’ religious beliefs now seems clear. It leads to a progressive loss of these beliefs, and among really top-level scientists, dramatically so. This weakening hold on scientists has increased as the explanatory prowess of science has increased about the material Universe and as scientific investigations of the historical claims of sacred texts have shown them to be grossly unreliable.
Science has come a long way since Isaac Newton wrote a lot more about the Bible than the laws of nature, and scientists thought their primary function was to glorify God by elucidating the workings of his marvelous creation.
Given this evidence, what can be done about religion’s efforts to force reconciliation with science in explaining the natural world?
First, our best scientists have to improve communications with the general public to explain clearly why science and science alone has dominion in the natural Universe.
Second, responding with lawsuits can be effective, as in Dover, Pennsylvania, where an effort to introduce “intelligent design” into a science curriculum was resoundingly defeated. The courts, where conclusions are supposed to be based on logic and evidence much like science, can expose the irrationality of many religious claims.
Third, not only the findings of science but also its basic nature in relation to religion must be better taught in schools.
Fourth, scientific knowledge must be imparted to all of society and more skillfully than it is presently. Most polls show a woeful lack of scientific knowledge in the general population.
Science must stand firm and resist the encroachment of religious explanations of the natural world. As the history of the relationship between religion and science reveals, religion always gradually readjusts its beliefs to accommodate new scientific findings. This interplay eventually results in a progressive weakening of the hold of religion on society, much to the benefit of all.
When the natural world is legitimately ceded to science, religion can freely romp in whatever illusory supernatural world is left to them.
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