A Free-for-All on Science and Religion

[bocablkr]

By GEORGE JOHNSON
Published: November 21, 2006

Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, warned that “the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,” or when a Nobelist in chemistry, Sir Harold Kroto, called for the John Templeton Foundation to give its next $1.5 million prize for “progress in spiritual discoveries” to an atheist — Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist whose book “The God Delusion” is a national best-seller.

Or perhaps the turning point occurred at a more solemn moment, when Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, hushed the audience with heartbreaking photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects — testimony, he suggested, that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control.

Somewhere along the way, a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., which might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

The rest of the article can be found at - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/scienc...70&emc=eta1

[Phil153]

“The core of science is not a mathematical model; it is intellectual honesty”

This just became my favorite quote.

I agree that science and scientists need to be more active in spreading scientific knowledge, but I oppose the aggressive stance that people like Dawkins take. I think books like "The God Delusion" do more harm than good. The facts should be stated, questions answered, and their interpretation left to the individual. Science is just another tool with which to know the world, it doesn't give the scientist a monopoly on knowledge.

[moneyfaucet]

You should've posted this in my thread. Good article, but I don't really have time to reply to it right now. I'll get back to you later.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=2#Post8059476

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg


[/ QUOTE ]

I really like the following quote:


[ QUOTE ]

Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., called, half in jest, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson, whose powerful celebration of scientific discovery had the force and cadence of a good sermon, as its first minister.

She was not entirely kidding. “We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. Porco said. “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome — and even comforting — than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”


[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually thinking that Dawkins should be known as Father Dawkins (or maybe Pope Dickie I) before I looked at the article.

If the religion of science comes, can the Inquisition be far behind?

[David Sklansky]

I thought you said that science and religion are not incompatible. If they are, you again need to deal with the fact that the average scientist is significantly more intelligent than than the average religious person. (Often religious people sweep this fact under the rug. They concentrate on the philosophical differences and forget the monumental amount of knowledge and the great superior mathematical and logical abilities that seperate many scientists from most people.) The chasm is at least as wide as the gap between the religious person and the mildly retarded. And few people believe it is reasonable to think that a retarded person is more likely to be correct about factual stuff when they disagree with the non retarded.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

I thought you said that science and religion are not incompatible.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I phrased it that way - if I did, it was incomplete. A more complete statement, which I think all Reformed theologians would agree with, and most Christian theologians of any consequence, would be something like:

Genuine scientific facts do not contradict a correct interpretation of the Bible.

Augustine said something much like that in the 4th century A.D.

The post I made was concerning the religious nature (often hidden or disguised) of statements made by scientists, which isn't the same thing as a scientific statement.

I've addressed your fixation on intelligence before. If you wish to trust the human intellect over God's revelation, I'm sure you won't complain about the results.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg


[/ QUOTE ]

I really like the following quote:


[ QUOTE ]

Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., called, half in jest, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson, whose powerful celebration of scientific discovery had the force and cadence of a good sermon, as its first minister.

She was not entirely kidding. “We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. Porco said. “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome — and even comforting — than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.”


[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually thinking that Dawkins should be known as Father Dawkins (or maybe Pope Dickie I) before I looked at the article.

If the religion of science comes, can the Inquisition be far behind?

[/ QUOTE ]

The article is right, she was only half-kidding. She was kidding about indoctrination being a good idea and not kidding about nature and science being beautiful.

[madnak]

Human intelligence is all we have to work with. At least until God deigns to start posting here. You're not asking anyone to listen to God; you're asking us to listen to the theists who, being less intelligent than the atheists, are less credible.

[Skidoo]

[ QUOTE ]
"The core of science is not a mathematical model; it is intellectual honesty."

[/ QUOTE ]

Examining a Believer in Science

Q: Where is there any observation made by science refuting the existence of God?

A: There is no such observation, but my belief in God would require more than the absence of proof of nonexistence. I require affirmative evidence.

Q: And everything that counts as evidence must ultimately be reducible to the data of perception?

A: Absolutely, that is the basis of empirical science.

Q: Where is there any observation made by science establishing the intrinsic properties of an object independent of the conscious mind?

A: That's impossible.

Q: So then there is, in fact, no evidence of the properties of anything independent of their interpretation by subjective perceptions?

A: Correct.

Q: Can these perceptions themselves be subjected to scientific inquiry.

A: Only by relying on other subjective perceptions.

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
I've addressed your fixation on intelligence before. If you wish to trust the human intellect over God's revelation, I'm sure you won't complain about the results.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is circular logic.