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Science Text Attempts to Reconcile Religion and Science
terrymaster69 writes "The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences has just published their third book outlining guidelines for the teaching of evolution. 'But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"
I once used to think that making concessions to people who oppose this branch of science because of their religious sensitivities was a decent and reasonable thing to do.
Public figures like Sam Harris help me realise that they simply don't deserve it. Their position and the means they used to arrive at that position have no merit what-so-ever.
Who's the hypocrite?
The problem some religious people have with Evolution is that it allows disbelief in god. Without Evolution, you need the watchmaker, and this is one of the best arguments for the existence of a creator. Logically, there is not much different between the spontaneous creation of simple and complex mechanisms (if its creation, there is a great difference when we're talking about evolving mechanisms), but in the human mind there is a great difference. Many might accept the Big Bang with no creator, only few would accept spontaneous creation of earth as it is now. So, although Evolution "does not require abandoning belief in God" it allows it, and this is bad enough for those who choose religious dogma over scientific discoveries.
Public education *should* include the limitation of science. Too many lay people see scientists as modern priests, and take our models as gospel. It is important to realize that unlike fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts, scientific laws and theories are mutable (they change whenever conflicting observations are made) and limited in scope (they are only really trustworthy within the scope of the measurements they are based on).
Much of the creationist/ID nonsense is due to people not understanding how science should be hold to different standards than religious texts. "The theory of Evolution" is very much different today than what Darwin proposed. This would have been a weakness in a religion, but is a strength for a scientific theory.
> So what's left in the god basket?
Every question asking for meanings ("why") rather than mechanisms ("how").
I'm an atheist, I believe the only meaning that exists is what we create ourself. But that is a philosophical position, not a scientific position. There are excellent philosophical arguments for why I'm right and the theists are wrong. But they are philosophical, not scientific. Those who believe science can disprove God is as delusioned as the ID people who believe science can prove God.
Those religions that has a well-educated clergy, such as the Catholic Church, have long ago decided to leave the Emperor (science) what is his, namely the mechanisms, and leave God (religion) what is his, namely the meanings. Only, Those churches that mainly consist of in-breed hillbillies, mostly some US Protestant groupings and some Arab Sunni-Islamic groups, still want religion to describe mechanisms, despite the overwhelming evidence that religion sucks at mechanism.
In science class, don't ask why it rains, ask how it rains. Mechanism, not meanings.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Oh, please stop. God does not exist. Religion is bullshit all the way through. Religion contains nothing worth of respect whatsoever. What, the "do unto toers as you would have them do to you" part? As if our evolved group-survival trait of altruism was not enough to take care of that.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Why didn't God just create us all as souls in Heaven? Everyone sings happily ever after, end of story.
But no, he has to create us with bodies in a material world and leave us unattended so we can fall prey to temptations we don't understand and get condemned to Hell for it, so he can show how much he loves all of us by saving a tiny, tiny fraction of us from eternal torture.
The factual errors in the bible can be swept under the rug if you're so motivated, but the theology is stupid beyond belief.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
To tell you the truth, even the Agnostics and many 'practicing' Christians have figured this out, we just don't want to talk about it.
You may not want to talk about it, but the most powerful country on Earth is electing Presidents on the basis of this stupidity. So we'd better start "talking about it."
Why people insist on giving religion a free pass in public discourse is something I'll never understand.
I guess it's just my Aspergers acting up, huh.
Mod parent up. Science has limitations, but the only way around it is more scientific research, not substitution with religion. In fact, if you view religious beliefs from a scientific view point, there is no evidence to back religious claims (including the God hypothesis) and there is no reason to believe in God more than in a celestial teapot revolving around the earth (Bertrand Russell) or in the Flying Spagetti Monster.
As HL Mencken says "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." I think it is a good thing that religious belief should be questioned in the classroom and what better forum than a science class.
Dawkins makes all these points and more in his book "The God Delusion".
> So the old pope didn't believe in the bible?
It might come as a big surprise for you, but the Pope was Catholic, and it has always been the position of the Catholic Church, like it has been for all educated Christians, that the Bible requires interpretation.
This is quite unlike the certain inbreed American hillbillies, who has never read a book in their life, who therefore believe the King James Bible is God's words which can somehow be read directly without interpretation.
Oooh, a challenge! Shiny, shiney new toy. Thanks Santa!
Now let's break it, fast.
Our abilities to plan into the future, remember the past, recognize patterns, abstract thought, and infer by analogy are survival traits. Right?
Now, parallel research on split-brain patients and in AI have arrived to a similar model of the mind. It is a group of agents, each specializing in one task. What split-brain research has demonstrated is that the inference module is not accurate : it infer an explanation for anything, as long as it can apply a pattern that's been memorized before.
For example, paranoia seems to work by forcing the inference module to find scary explanations to ordinary events. Agents are interacting, but independent. A paranoid person may know full well that there isn't, say, a sniper hiding just there in the bushes, but will have to go see to be sure, even if that's several times.
Religion is an explanation for things that science has figured out by now. It appeared as primitive explanations to
But someone finally decided that they'd seen enough the pattern of "the world around me seems to work in a consistent ways" and inferred "maybe I can figure out all the rules". Now that is an other way to get the answers, and it's better, because it yields perfect results when everything is right (ie, you test an hypothese that happens to be correct). The scientific method is a better tool than religion, so it will supplant it some day.
What's frustrating is knowing there is a reason why people still believe in God : the ssurvival trait to find new ideas dangerous, weird, strange. It is a group-survival trait : if we didn't have it, the genuinely dangerous new ideas would kill us all off damn fast.
Now you know the mechanisms by which both religion and science appeared, and because of which there is a fight between them memes. Happy?
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.