Science vs. Religion

Last modified: 2008-08-12 13:05:06 UTC

It seems that the issue of science versus religion just refuses to go away. The recent court battle over whether or not intelligent design should be taught in US public schools¹ is evidence that 500 years of debate is not enough.

I'm still trying to find the fundamental conflict between science and religion. These ideologies barely overlap, as they seek answers to fundamentally different questions. Here's how easy it would be to resolve the dichotomy between modern science and ancient Christianity:

Fact of the matter is that science seeks to know what happened, and how. On the cosmological scale, it does not ask who did it, or why, nor could science ever reasonably ask such questions, much less provide reasonable answers. Religion answers these questions, but is not nearly so concerned with the fine-grain detail of what happened nor exactly how it happened, nor would it bear any religious significance if it did. That's where science picks up where religion leaves off.

The only way that there can actually be a conflict between these two ideologies is if the Christians are emphatic about only considering the most literal interpretation of the Bible. And while Fundamentalists are certainly entitled to their beliefs, it's interesting to note the opinion of Biblical scholars on the subject. When Fundamentalists are taking the Bible literally, which language are they reading? If they're not reading the original Greek and Hebrew texts, then what are they taking literally? A translation? Biblical scholars read the original texts, where sometimes there are multiple versions, sometimes in different languages, and they attempt to extract the meaning. Then they try to figure out how to express the same meaning in a different language, spoken by different people in a different culture. If they do their jobs right, none of the meaning will get lost in translation, despite the fact that idioms in ancient Greek and Hebrew often have no meaningful literal translation into modern English. If a faith hinges on the literal acceptance of a translated text, it promotes the translators to prophets. Do the Fundamentalists even know the names of the translators? Do the translators want to be considered prophets? In reality, Biblical scholars BEG people to look past the words, and to get to the meaning. That's what they do. And if you take Genesis figuratively instead of literally, a few passages have to be interpreted differently, and then there's no conflict between science and religion.

Fundamentalists are entitled to their opinions, but then so am I. So there. I'm from Maryland, and we invented religious tolerance in the New World.² (At the time, people living in the Massachusetts colony were free to practice religion however they wanted, but only if they were Puritans.) And I'm getting tired of defending the initiatives and methodologies of science against attacks from people who share in the wealth of modern society, but who attempt to undermine the validity of the science that created that wealth. And it's not that all other factors being the same I'd be concerned with what Fundamentalists believe — that's their business. It's that they're concerned with what I believe. With regards to the legal issue, it must be remembered that US law allows parents to send their children to parochial schools, where they will get a religious education instead of a secular one. The fight over what is taught in the public schools is not a fight over what their children will be taught. It's a fight over what everybody else's children will be taught. They should be reminded of the fact that if it were not for religious tolerance in the US, Fundamentalism would not be allowed, in the schools or anywhere else. They should also be reminded that if the courts had decided to allow the teaching of intelligent design in the public schools, considering its obvious religious content, the courts would subsequently have been forced to allow the teaching of the fundamental tenets of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and any other religion with enough money to hire a lawyer. So instead of Fundamentalism being presented as The Alternative to secular science, it would be presented as one of the less popular items in a long list of alternatives.

And of course the Fundamentalists intend to win this battle by flooding the media with their point of view, wherein the silence of people like me will be their ally.

I'll tolerate your beliefs, if you tolerate mine. If you try to force your views on me, I'll challenge you and your beliefs. This is my right. ;)

Those who have denounced science on religious grounds have often called attention to the fact that science only has theories, and that in the most critical sense, science will never be able to "prove" anything. Well, science could respond by saying that religion only has beliefs, and that beliefs don't "prove" anything either, but that would be a cheap shot in response to a cheap shot. Underneath all of that, there is a real issue that can be addressed, and it's that science and religion seem to offer competing descriptions of the nature of reality. And both sides of this debate have the right to question the nature of each other's frameworks, in the interest of properly evaluating them.

The leading theory in each scientific discipline is simply the most accurate, most comprehensive description of the observable phenomena that has been developed so far, that is based entirely on observable phenomena, and the predictions of which are testable, where the results of the tests are observable.

For example, if one posits that volcanoes are caused by the wrath of God, then in order to prove this scientifically, one would have to quantify the wrath of God independently of the eruption of volcanoes, and then demonstrate that the wrath of God predictably creates volcanoes. Similarly, if one were to say that subterranean magma chambers create volcanoes, one would have to predict volcanic eruptions based on measurements of the movements of magma within these chambers. Whichever method more reliably predicts volcanic eruptions will be considered the more scientific theory.

Either way, if such proof cannot be established, then it's not a theory — it's just an hypothesis.

Hypotheses are ideas that have been proposed, that could eventually become theories, but that currently lack proof. There are many hypotheses in science, a large number of which are "working" hypotheses, which are ideas that have not been proved, but which seem to offer some sort of explanatory and/or predictive capability, and in the absence of proof, are used as the foundation for continued research. Good science maintains firm distinctions between hypotheses and theories. Attempting to pass off an unproven hypothesis as a proven theory is considered bad science.

The reason why rigorous science considers theories to be the most substantial stuff that it is capable of producing, and not facts, is that there is, and always should be, a difference between a theory and a fact. A fact is a directly observable phenomenon, such as the sunlight coming in through the window, or water flowing downhill. A theory is the explanation of one or more facts. For example, the sunlight coming through the window is the product of the Sun, around which the Earth revolves, which explains why the Sun moves in the sky relative to the Earth.

The reason for maintaining the distinction between theories and facts is simple. In good science, theories can be disputed, but facts cannot. While an existing theory might explain all of the known facts pertaining to a certain kind of thing, it's always possible that someday a new fact might become known, which the existing theory cannot explain. In this event, the existing theory is considered wrong, and work begins on a new theory that can explain the newly enlarged set of known facts. This progress of scientific theories is made easier by maintaining a firm distinction between theory and fact. In bad science, where theories (or even hypotheses) are taken as indisputable facts, when new information becomes available that contradicts the existing explanations, that information is typically suppressed. This means that the facts have become disputable, while the "theories" are not, and that's backwards from how it should be. Suppression of facts is something that good science never does. And for scientists to never consider their best work to be above dispute is evidence of the humility of the scientists. It does not mean that there is a lack of proof for the theories in question. For example, the Heliocentric Theory of the solar system is just a theory, not a fact. But with this theory, we can explain the motion of all of the planets and moons in simple terms. Furthermore, we can send astronauts to our Moon, which would not be possible without the ability to know exactly where it's going to be at any given point in time. Nevertheless, the Heliocentric Theory of the solar system is a theory, not a fact. The position of a planet or a moon in the night sky is a fact. Any explanation of why that body is there and not somewhere else is just a theory, not a fact.

If the world was created by God, then God created the world in such a way that its behavior lends itself to prediction with scientific methodology. Since it's not common for the faithful to say that God did anything by accident, then if God created the world this way, God did it on purpose. Why? I'll let the theologians wrestle with that one. But that's the question they should be asking, not how a formal scientific description of the world that God created must be rejected because belief in God precludes a detailed study of God's works.