Comment (46)
Email
Print
del.icio.us
Technorati
diggIs it kiss and make up for science and religion?
Two leading science bodies in the US have agreed that acceptance of evolution and belief in God are compatible.
In recent years the words evolution and religion in a single sentence have been like firesticks which almost burst into flame on the page. It is rare to find a calm, detached discussion of the major issues. That’s why I was fascinated to read this landmark publication from America’s leading scientific organisations.
Science, Evolution, and Creationism was written by a committee on science and creationism the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. This is a fascinating book. Its fascination lies not so much in its description of the evolution of picture-winged Drosophilids but rather in what it says overall and in who is saying it. Essentially, this is the first explicit statement by a significant scientific body asserting that that acceptance of evolution and belief in God are compatible.
Science Evolution and Creationism emphasizes the importance of evolution in modern science and technology, and provides a concise summary of the evidence supporting evolution by natural section and the arguments against various creationist positions.
It was written in the context of recent debates regarding the teaching of evolution in US public schools. Indeed, the book gives some very useful excerpts from historical court cases touching on this precise theme. The authors are adamant that there is no room for creationism in science classroom.
But the school-room scuffles ought not overshadow what is really significant about this book. Not only do the authors attempt to pull apart scrimmaging scientists and creationists, they also chalk in boundaries between the two by offering and applying a definition of science: "The use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process."
Really this entire debate is about boundaries and definitions. Religion has historically stepped into the domain of science, often disastrously. Science has also stepped outside of its own definition to offer explanations of aspects of reality beyond its scope.
The failure of many to accept the basic tenets of evolution is a source of continual angst for science educators, especially in the United States. Clear and concise explanations of evolution may help. But what is probably more important is that science knows its own boundaries. Disaffection with evolution in the past 150 years has probably come as much from scientific philosophizing as from creationist fundamentalism. This book acknowledges that: "regrettably, those who occupy the extremes of this range often have set the tone of public discussions."
Science studies the testable aspects of natural phenomena. This means that outside of science lie not only "supernatural phenomena" (theology) but also phenomena that are partly natural and partly supernatural (anthropology) AND those aspects of natural phenomena that are non-testable (philosophy of nature). Science can never really answer the question: Why is it so? It cannot fully answer questions about the human person. It cannot even say why it cannot answer these questions. And importantly, science cannot answer the question: how ought we to live (ethics)?
All this could be very frustrating for a scientist. Doing science properly means that, at least during working hours, one cannot seek answers to the really important questions in life. With the theory of evolution it is tempting to drift into the realm of philosophy and theology, something many people, at least unconsciously, consider more exciting.
Real scientists however can go all day on picture-winged Drosophilids. Chesterton once suggested that "a history of cows in twelve volumes would not be very lively reading", but science ultimately depends on its dryness for its success. Boredom is its particular strength.
This publication issued by the National Academy of Sciences is a careful, sober account of what science is, what it has achieved, and what its boundaries are. For New Scientist magazine, the attempted reconciliation of science and religion is "pure pragmatism". This may be, or it may be just jittery self-reassurance on the part of the editor. I believe that this booklet is an important step on the part of the scientific community towards a deeper, more general acknowledgement of the compatibility between evolution and religion.
Phil Elias studies Medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Dear David Page,
Well, I’ve written way too much, so note that this response covers several posts below. I hope it doesn’t scare you away from responding.
Regarding your interpretation of one of my points to mean that “anything you postulate, without any proof, is true until it can be proven not to be true” – you are right that’s not what I’m really saying – rather, to put it in a sentence, I would say that a) a postulate may or may not be true independent of its accessibility to proof or testing, and b) regarding postulates that are truly important, a person may have good reasons for believing in them that are nevertheless not “proof”, strictly speaking. That is very different from what you interpreted me to mean.
The word that jumps off the screen at me from your previous post is “proof” – perhaps in your mind, this is the key word of this whole discussion. For now, let me try to contextualize the concept for discussions of the supernatural, personal, spiritual, and even scientific.
The only ambit where “proof” can be a term that really bears its own full weight is abstract mathematics (and perhaps also abstract philosophy). To the best of my knowledge serious philosophy of science gave up on the term “proof” decades ago, largely because experimental-scientific theories are *by definition* open to refutation with new data. What’s more, I believe the prevailing contemporary view in philosophy of science indicates that, in terms of the mind of the scientist, discoveries are an intuitive process, that are driven by insight, with “raw data + logical methodology” playing only a secondary role.
For David Page,
I appreciate your thoughtfulness on this, too. I’m sorry for not writing back sooner, but look forward to doing so, I hope this week. Eastertime travels and some family responsiblities have left me a little behind at school. Wishing you peace and every good thing.
Br. Joseph Said: “one could question whether Ben Franklin even had personal faith in the divinity of Christ, or just a historical opinion about it.”
I’m sure Benjamin Franklin had just an historical opinion on the divinity of Christ. Personal faith would negate the necessity for proof.
Br. Joseph said: “Empirical, philosophical, and spiritual reasoning can remove obstacles to faith and give it much support, but if one does not hear God’s interior call, real faith in him will not result.”
I see no empirical evidence for the divinity of Christ. Philosophical reasoning would require parameters and a premise. I’m not sure what spiritual reasoning is, in the context of faith in the divinity of Christ. As far as belief in God is concerned, if one has a personal experience of God then, of course, one will have faith in God. There should be no need to support the faith of that individual from then on. What could be more convincing than a personal experience of God. For the rest of us proof is required.
Br. Joseph daid: “the fact that something is not emprirically proveable does not make it a question of “mere subjectivity”. This is certainly true in the realm of philosophy, as it is in religion; “unproveable” or “invisible” does not equal “unreal” unless beforehand you’ve made that decision for other reasons;”
What you seem to be saying is that anything you postulate, without any kind of proof, is true until it can be proven not to be true. Also, you say that I am wrong when I say that there is no eyewitness evidence for the divinity of Christ. Could you be more specific? It isn’t enough to refer me to Keretsky. Tell me what you know. I look forward to your reply.
Br. Joseph, I certainly am interested in continuing this exchange. Family responsibilities will keep me from replying for a few days, but I will respond. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the civility of this exchange.
David Page
For David Page,
Thank you for your interesting and thoughtful contributions to this conversation. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner, but I want to add a couple of things.
First, I agree that if someone doesn’t have faith in God, that cannot be produced by empirical evidence; indeed, one could question whether Ben Franklin even had personal faith in the divinity of Christ, or just a historical opinion about it. Empirical, philosophical, and spiritual reasoning can remove obstacles to faith and give it much support, but if one does not hear God’s interior call, real faith in him will not result.
Second, I ask you to reconsider the way you use the term “subjective”; the fact that something is not emprirically proveable does not make it a question of “mere subjectivity”. This is certainly true in the realm of philosophy, as it is in religion; “unproveable” or “invisible” does not equal “unreal” unless beforehand you’ve made that decision for other reasons; if God exists, then the influence of his grace on world history could most definitely be real, even if no one knew it. Likewise, the question of whether or not we will still exist after our deaths and will be judged by God is not merely a question of motivational speaking, it’s a real question of both subjective (i.e. personal) and objective (i.e. with consequenses outside my own mind) truth.
Third, although I reason to the sending of the Holy Spirit in a somewhat different way (see above), you are mistaken about the quality of historical testimony which exists for Jesus’ historical existence and for the unexplainable phenomena surrounding his resurrection. Here again you should really consult Kereszty’s book for a good summary of the state of scholarship on the question. It’s true that our understanding of this has changed in the last 100 years, but in my mind the quality of the evidence has actually gotten better, not worse. If you wish to continue this exchange, let me know.
Phil Elias, your right, there is an underlying Philosophy to everything. Human reason can, and sometimes does, lead to valid conclusions. The problem for me arises when one uses Empirical evidence, evidence from the world, to support Philosophical arguments. Then the evidence has to be provable. The evidence for the divinity of Christ must be proved empirically. Believable, first hand, eye witness accounts must be produced. Failing that, truth becomes merely insight. Important to the individual but meaningless to those who don’t share the insight. Having said that, I still consider Philosophy to be a superior discipline to the Sciences. A chain of logic can be a beautiful thing but it is always in the context of a premise. I suppose you could say that there is an underlying premise to everything.
Br. Joseph said: “David Page, now who ever said that every concrete reality could be proved by human reason? That’s a big assumption that I want to point out right away. I said this particular theological truth requires faith in its core respects, but that doesn’t mean it falls outside of the realm of serious, disciplined reflection.”
Br. Joseph, your original statement, ‘Christ’s sending of the Holy Spirit among us’, requires an historical precedent which, in turn, requires empirical data. I accept that Theological truth is different from Empirical truth. But Theological truth is, by nature, subjective truth that has meaning only to the individual who has the original insight. Your statement implies not only the existence of Christ but also the Divinity of Christ. Benjamin Franklin believed in the divinity of Christ because, he said, there were just too many eye witnesses. We now know that none of the Gospels were written by eye witnesses. The only non-biblical reference to Jesus is from Josephus at least three decades after the events in question. It was a passing reference at that. It’s fine to believe that Jesus was the son of God, but it is not Empirical truth. I understand that you accept the divinity of Christ to be true and, logically, that truth becomes a precedent upon which you can build meaningful conclusions for yourself and other believing Christians. You must understand that these conclusions will have no sway over me because I don’t accept your original premise. In no way is this a criticism. I also believe in things that can’t be proved. I believe, for instance, in universal moral principles. I can argue for them, but I have no Empirical data to prove them.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me.
Br. Joseph,
Thankyou for your post. Yes, I agree that “non-overlapping magisterial authority” are ultimately inadequate and that science and faith must fundamentally be linked.
I take ‘testing’ at the level that is used in the book, which essentially is empirical investigation. As you say, the danger of implying that only the empirical sciences involve evidence is that you create a false dichotomy between ´sciences´and ´humanities´ as David Page does. ´Science´ after all simply means ´knowledge´ and it is a reflection of a positivist prejudice that we equate science with biology, chemistry, physics etc.
In the 21st century we also tend to think that if philosophy or theology are ‘sciences’, they must be very ‘soft sciences’ with unreliable conclusions (because they don´t depend so much on empirically testable evidence) that must ultimately yield to the conclusions of ‘hard sciences’ like biology or physics. The problem here is a failure to recognise, taking the case of philosophy, the validity of the conclusions of human reasoning and, more importantly, that they are fundamental to and prerequisites for other sciences. Physics and chemistry depend (at least implicitly) on philosophical assumptions, and this essentially means that philosophical knowledge is more ‘certain’ than that of physics or chemistry.
David Page, now who ever said that every concrete reality could be proved by human reason? That’s a big assumption that I want to point out right away. I said this particular theological truth requires faith in its core respects, but that doesn’t mean it falls outside of the realm of serious, disciplined reflection.
Moving on, here we have a realtively easy case, since Christ’s sending of the Holy Spirit – in embryo, breathing it out on the cross, and then in force, upon the apostles in the upper room – both at concrete times and places in the material and spiritual universe, is a question of truth or falsity, of reality – physical-historical, human-spiritual, and otherwise.
It is interesting that you use the word “intuit” for this knowledge, presumably because it’s not arrived at (exclusively) because of historical research. Maybe “intuition” works as a category for faith itself, but once one has faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, the intellect begins working on that data, too, and can arrive at various rationally extrapolated or reinforced conclusions opened up by that additional first principle: for example, on the basis of the faith that Jesus of Nazareth is presently alive and avaliable in a unique and transcendent way, I can very defenceably reason to the conclusion (which I probably already committed to in a pre-rational way), that he really did give 12 particular men extraordinary gifts on the day of Pentecost – and so on.
It is also worth mentioning that there are truths very relevant to religion that can be arrived at without the givenness of faith, by one form or another of secular reasoning: eg, Jesus of Nazareth did exist as a man on earth, and no satisfactory ordinary explanation exists for widespread faith in his resurrection in the period shortly after his death. (If interested cf. Chapters I and II of Kereszty’s “Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology").
I hope this helps.
Br. Joseph, how can you describe ‘Christ’s sending of the Holy Spirit among us’ as a concrete reality? You may intuit it to be so, but you can’t prove it.
Congratulations to Phil Elias on his thoughtful work here. While I don’t think the idea of “non-overlapping magisterial authority” of science and theology is adequate at the end of the day (and maybe he doesn’t either), he makes a very helpful point about scientists wanting to do more than science, which of course is perfectly natural as long as it doesn’t lead them to claim professional authority in fields where they are really laymen.
Relevant to that, I think it is necessary to clarify two things: how do we define “natural phenomena”, and what do you mean by “testing”? Without getting into the natural-supernatural problem head-on, I think you’d be much better talking about discovering something like the “normative patterns in material phenomena” instead. That may be necessary to sidestep some confusion about your definitions of theology, theological and philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of nature—for all of these involve “natural phenomena” in some significant way, all of them admit the possibility of testing at least some of their core aspects (at least in the form of thought-experiments and historical research), and all of them can be approached as “sciences” in the classical sense, that is disciplined research that involves discovering intelligible truth. David Page’s comment that “Philosophy and Theology are humanities, not sciences” shows the danger well if we risk setting things up so that “science” pertains to what is really discovery and everything else is your personal search for meaning. Let us not forget, the principle of non-contradiction, the existence of ethical justice, and, in the realm of the gift of faith, Christ’s sending of the Holy Spirit among us, are all concrete realities that involve the human intellect in all sorts of concrete ways—much like the material theory of evolution, though on entierly different and more fundamental planes.
Jame Franklin said: “And as often happens, the evidence provided in the first few pages (the fossil record etc) only bears on the thesis of evolution strictly so-called (i.e. the thesis of the descent of present organisms from primitive forms over a long time) and not at all on the mechanisms of that (natural selections of chance variations), which is the distinctive and contentious thesis of Darwinism.”
Your point is well taken. The argument, though, here in America is usually more starkly delineated. Religious conservatives here argue that dinosaurs and men lived at the same time. They want this taught in schools as an acceptable alternative to evolutionary theory. Intelligent Design is a fall back position for them. Their purpose seems to be to inject religion into the science classroom. I think they’ve forgotten what a lousy idea that was five hundred years ago.
In the 1960s, Carl Sagan proposed on how to Colonize a planet like Earth was ‘in the beginning’. Earth had a soupy watery atmosphere like Venus, where the sun does not reach the land area. They would send an algae bomb into to start breaking down the elements.
The Bible, in Genesis, has the outline on High Tech Colonization. In Genesis 1:2, I accept this was a blue-green algae bomb, sent into our soupy atmosphere. A Day of Space travel time, is 1000 years of Earth time. Day 1 and 2 changed the elements into the Ozone Canopy, and the water above the firmament made an Ice-Crystal Canopy: Genesis 1:7-9. The waters below made the sea. Day 3. The grass, herbs, fruit trees, etc. were added, that cleared the atmosphere. Day 4, the Sun reached land area. Day 5, the fish and fowl were added, and on Day 6, the animals and humans were added.
Genesis 1:27. God/Ancestors made Humans in their Image. Adam was reproduced without the sex act. Today, we make a human fetus, without the sex act, and then put it into the female womb. A High Tech Womb would prevent Birth damage and death.
Genesis 2: 21,22. The Lord God put Adam to sleep, took a rib and made a female Copy/Clone of Adam. Today, we also know how to Clone. Adam and Eve were Brothers/Sister twins, with the same Genetic and Physical makeup, each the better half. Cain and Abel were made by Body Birth, and Killed. Fallen Humans also kill ever since. We have ruined our Eco System with our pollution, and have nuclear waste, and nuclear bombs, on land and sea. We are destroying our Ozone Canopy, that protects us from the ultraviolet rays of the Sun. When this is gone, life as we know it, cannot continue on our Home planet.
Phil’s basic point about the boundaries between science and religion is well made. But I must say I agree with Rebecca Fleming that there is something very inadequate about the document. The statement in the first few lines that “Evolutionary science provides the foundation for modern biology” is false: if evolution turned out to be completely false tomorrow, medicine and virtually all other biology would be quite unchanged - of course, because medicine is about how living things work whereas evolution is a theory about history. And as often happens, the evidence provided in the first few pages (the fossil record etc) only bears on the thesis of evolution strictly so-called (i.e. the thesis of the descent of present organisms from primitive forms over a long time) and not at all on the mechanisms of that (natural selections of chance variations), which is the distinctive and contentious thesis of Darwinism.
hmmm…
Haven’t noticed the trade secrets? ...and the ‘yes’ between them all along? Both need to sell for their own reasons. Some in them were just loud practitioners, ...pandering, ...or are just lost, ...where science and religion are only means, ...and not THE end.
ck :-)
Page 2 of 4 : < 1 2 3 4 >