Slashdot Mirror
Science and Religion Can and Do Mix, Mostly
coondoggie writes "A recent Rice University study found that in one of the more vitriolic social (and increasingly political) battlegrounds, science v. religion, there is more common ground that most folks believe. In fact, according to the study, only 15% of scientists at major U.S. research universities see religion and science as always in conflict."
Discarding scientific knowledge because of a book written originally for a nomadic group of shepherds is ridiculous.
Discarding the moral teachings that have been handed down over thousands of years is equally ridiculous.
ALWAYS in conflict? ALWAYS? To anyone who has ever been part of the educational system, and has gotten used to taking multiple choice tests, the word "ALWAYS" when applied to something like science/religion is a big red flag.
Finding that 15% agree with an "always" statement in that context is rather an amazing find.
Ask the question in terms of "overwhelming frequency" or some other next-to-absolutist statement, and you'll get more honest answers. But this report on the study, at least, only presented the "ALWAYS(15)/SOMETIMES(70)/NEVER(15)" range, which doesn't seem useful at all.
With the statement presented, and the specific granularity of statements allowed, this seems more like quote-mining to minimize the perception of conflict than an honest study.
Ryan Fenton
The example that I always like to use is the Big Bang, which was first formulated by Monsignor Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest. At the time that it was proposed, it received significant disdain from the astronomical community, since most astronomers at that time believed that the Universe was eternal and static (the so-called "steady state") -- they felt that a beginning of space and time at some point in the finite past crossed over into the realm of religion and philosophy. On the other hand, the religious community (by and large) welcomed the Big Bang with open arms, since it was in accordance with the creation accounts of their particular belief systems.
But in the 80 years or so since the advent of the Big Bang theory, a funny (and depending on your point of view, sad) thing has happened: The two camps have almost completely switched sides. As the evidence came in, most astronomers and cosmologists came to accept the Big Bang. They saw the confirmation of Hubble's observations regarding the redshift of distant galaxies, the discovery of the CMBR, the evidence that the distribution of baryonic matter in the Universe is consistent with what is predicted by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, etc.
Unfortunately, for those segments of the religious community that have been hijacked by the rise of fundamentalism / fanaticism in the last 50 years or so, the Big Bang was no longer "good enough". The idea that the Universe came about in a dramatic cataclysm ("in the beginning...") became unacceptable since the timescale called for billions of years, rather than the six thousand or so that are dictated by a rigid literalist interpretation of the appropriate holy writ. It's not good enough that the prevailing scientific theory on the origin of the Universe calls for a beginning -- it's not fundamentalist enough.
The idea that science and religion are incompatible is poisonous and civilization-threatening. Getting back to the example, the idea that religious folks, of all people, should be opposed to the Big Bang theory is completely baffling. If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never understand it. There's no shortage of beauty in modern science or ancient teachings; the conflicts (such as they are) are largely manufactured. And as you mention, the rising fundamentalist movement is a major player in this enterprise.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
>>It is the RELIGIOUS people who have a problem with science. Because it contradicts their religion.
As I said in another post, the two groups that feel science and religion are in conflict are fundies (which you'll see all over the place on sites like The Blaze) and logical positivists (found on sites like Slashdot). Most educated people do not.
>>Their statements of fact contradict yours.
It's not my problem if they're wrong. =)
Well, I've made it something of a personal mission to correct the fundies' misapprehensions about science, and positivists misapprehensions about religion, but that's just a hobby.
The article didn't say "scientists and religious people can mix" it said "Science and religion can and do mix, mostly". I find the whole idea of answering if that's true via a survey as showing the exact wooly thinking which shows the difficulty of mixing science with religion. This is a
Science and religion can mix if, for example:
Fortunately it seems that for most religious scientists in most circumstances those things are true. Unfortunately there are some specific areas of cosmology and evolution where it seems many religious people are unable to follow scientific methods.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Exactly. They're "wrong" because YOU already "know" what is "right".
And if they don't agree with you ...
And yet around 50% of the US population thinks that "intelligent design" should be taught in schools along with evolution.
It's not the "fundies" who are the problem.
It's anyone who believes that his personal religion is "right" and that others are "wrong".
"How better to better understand the Creator than through the creation?" - Albert Einstein
The game.