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SciFri |
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Last week's topic: science and religion. We asked about the overlap between science and religion. Here's what some of you had to say... Science deals with expanding the boundaries of what we do know; religion at it's core deals with greater unknowns. In the end, i think there will be a complete integration of the two, as can be seen right now by millenia-old eastern metaphysical concepts finding clear parallels with modern quantum physics. It's a bit mond-boggling, wondering how someone a few thousand years ago could have concepts related to Unified Field Theory, etc. What was once unproven and relegated to the realm of the mystical, is now becoming accepted scientific fact. So it will be with many other things now in the arena of unknown and unprovable. -rob atomic Richard Darby i see science and religion (which i equate with superstition) as mutually exclusive. However, spiritual feelings are a different thing altogether and seem a field rich in possible scientific investigation.
Michael McGinnis We all live within the contexts of our assumptions. We can't really know what we don't know or all of the things that we assume. However, to practice a religeon, to adopt a faith, one must accept belief in a fixed world view... willingly give up objectivity. The very fact that people who are equally well informed, equally well intentioned, equally intelligent, hold mutually exclusive beliefs with equal degrees of faith, demonstrates that religeous belief is suspect, from a purely objective context. It's possible for anyone to apply scientific method. I suppose that it's possible to develop science while keeping one's personal biases separate, but I doubt that humans can do it. Einstein was one of the greatest and most productive scientists that humanity has produced, and even he was known to use his interpretation of God's aesthetics to argue physical law, "God does not play dice with the universe." Of course, he was wrong. I think we'd do well to remember that the people who wrote the bible thought the earth was flat. Both Science and religion are engaged in the search for "truth", obviously using different methods and standards. Science as we know it is a much younger string of searches. Religion as a more ancient pursuit did not limit itself to the search for meaning and value, i.e. "why" but also attempted to answer questions of "how". How questions are more appropriately addressed using the scientific method and answers to how, using the scientific method, are far more useful. Science in using a more rigorous standard for proof has provided us with far more useful and sustainable answers to the questions of how the universe has been and is constructed and how things fit together. As it has provided us with more plausible and useful explanations religion has been discredited because its answers to the same questions haven't held up under rigorous examination and have proved less useful in advancing technological progress. Where religion over reached in trying to account for how instead of restricting itself to answering why is left itself open to erosion by science. This is unfortunate as science is equally ill equipped to answer questions of meaning and purpose. There is room in our world for both routes of inquiry. But they both should confine themselves to the realms where they can properly inform our understanding of the universe. Richard M. Friedman Dan Gottlieb They're not seperated at all. if you believe in a universal, mysterious order it is totally compatable with the journey toward understanding. that imperical order is, in fact, the holy grail. if there is a g-d(s), it is manifested through mathematics and chaos. one can be a (as in my case) secular Jew-believing in basic humanly teachings (taken as metaphor). Religion and science are separate and should stay separate. It really doesn't make sense to compare science and religion. It's an "apples and oranges" thing. Science is based on discovery and peer reviews of those discoveries. Anything new theory or discovery in science is automatically treated skeptically by the science community until it is verified. Religion does not allow for a "correcting mechanism" unless under extreme force. Religions such as Christianity and Judaism are based mostly on our emotions: i.e. love, hate, greed, etc. and how we deal with them. With religion you are at the mercy of what you are being told. Also, religions place humans as special in the universe. Although we are special to ourselves, over time we continually find that there is nothing special about our location or even our place within the animal kingdom. Eric Reynolds I have found there is no true correlation between scientific and religion viewpoints. -- but a lot of people with particular viewpoints who readily attempt to assert their viewpoint by quoting the scientists who agree with them. Einstein and Hawking are abused to a great extent in this manner. But science pursues the nature of topics that everyone can agree upon. Clearly scientific-religious viewpoints span the range from fundamentalists to atheists. Tzara jeremiah As someone who respects both science and religion, I was shocked to hear an attack on both at once. When Robert Wilson built FermiLab at the same hight as a famous cathedral, he did this because he felt man should strive to understand the world around us. The fact is that his work has led to advances that will also benifit the quality of life. The striving for understanding does not conflict with the need to provide for our people anymore than the mystisism of a religious person should conflict with their good works.
In the absence of absolutes all structures (that includes science and religion) rest upon hypotheses. And that about ends the similarity. The "verification" methods used in science are totally disjunct, and indeed antagonistic,from those used in religion. Any fundamental compromise that unifies these two endeavors would be fatal to both. Jerome H. Manheim I was listening to your episode of Science Friday today and hear a featured guest, David Noble, make an assertion that astounded me. He stated that Seventh Day Adventists regard Sir Isaac Newton as a prophet. I am a third generation SDA, on both sides of my family, and have never heard that particular assertion until today. I have no idea where Mr. Noble got his information but it is groundless and false to the best of my knowledge. Kevin Kamberg Gina Winthr A major difference between science and religion is that science can only succeed in telling us when a proposed mechanism or theory can not work, thereby opening other models for exploration through the process of elimination. This method of thinking is crucial to science, and is the basis for all advances in technology today. Religion is of a profoundly different thought. People who believe in a higher power that concerns itself with human activity on this planet are akin to those who believe in alien abduction, loch ness and so forth because these beliefs all share among themselves the absence of any physical evidence and the reliance on faith. In addition, religion does not seek out the meaning of "divinity" with respect to naturally occurring laws or any other fantastic phenomena that is supposed to have occurred in biblical times. Religion also fails to attempt to explain the mechanisms of an afterlife, or the relevance of worshipping something to get to an afterlife. Therefore, any scientist validating his/her research would not follow the religious school of thought if he/she wanted to get published in a respected journal of science simply because "wanting" something to work real bad doesn't mean you are going to get it to work. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO WROTE IN! | |
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