Why should such an event be part of a science festival? We accord a special place to religion, in part thanks to groups such as the Templeton Foundation, which has spent millions annually raising the profile of "big questions," which tend to suggest that science and religous belief are somehow related and should be treated as equals.
The problem is they are not. Ultimately, science is at best only consistent with a God that does not directly intervene in the daily operations of the cosmos, certainly not the personal and ancient gods associated with the world's great religions. Even though, as physicist Steven Weinberg has emphasized, most people tend to adhere to only those bits and peices of scripture that appeal to them, by according undue respect to ancient religious beliefs in general, we nonetheless are suggesting that they are on a par with conclusions that have been drawn from centuries of rational empirical investigation.
Snow hoped for a wolrd that is very different from how we live today, where indifference to ,science, has through religious fundamentalism, has sometimes morphed into open hostility about concepts such as evolution and the big bang.
Snow did not rail against religion, but ignorance. As the moderator of my panel finally understood after an hour of discussion, the only vague notions of God that may be compatible with science ensure that God is irrelevant to both our understanding of nature and our actions based on it. Until we are willing to accept the world the way it is, without miracles that all empirical evidence argues against, without myths that distort our understanding of nature, we are unlikely to bridge the gap between science and culture and, more important, we are unlikely to be fully ready to address the urgent technical challenges facing humanity.As Krauss noted, Snow did not rail against religion, while Krauss does. Krauss might argue that he is not railing against religion per se--but against religious ignorance. However, since Krauss seems to see nothing in religion but ignorance, any such claim would be pure sophistry. Most of science has little or nothing to do with matters such as the big bang, evolution, or creationism. In most areas of science, fundamentalists and atheists should be able to work together without their religious beliefs or lack thereof being an issue. We should be able to face the urgent challengers facing humanity while retaining respect for a variety of religous traditions including traditional Judaism and Christianity. But Krauss and the Scientific American editors would appear to disagree.
C. P. Snow was concerned with a problem that may have only existed to a serious extent in Britain. The British elite encouraged their top young talent to basically twiddle their thumbs doing things like studying the classics--and snobbishly spurn the professions in science and technology that would be crucial if Britain were to retain a position of leadership in the world. Scientists have never been relegated to such second class status among the educated elite in America. What we have seen in America is a lot of average Americans who didn't want their children taught evolution in the public schools because evolution conflicted with these people's religious beliefs.
Many of the comments on this article are quite interesting. Comment 15 by gopher16 includes: "Ignorance of science is one thing, attacks on science and the teaching of science are another (which often stem from the initial ignorance or misinterpretation). The evangelical right finds it all too easy to be paranoid and believe they are under attack by the likes of Dawkins and even Krauss. Apathy towards science becomes antagonism, perpetuating the conflict. Many scientists, myself included believe that a person of faith (I know, another euphemism) is not necessarily incompatible with either being a scientist or accepting the results of good science to be valid. Of course, such a central position brings down the wrath from both extremes. For example, the Christian Right (like Krauss did from the other side) accuse of us cherry-picking what we want to believe and what we don't about religion. So be it. Faith is more than a literal adherence to any documents. Faith (not necessarily religion which becomes an institution) is a personal issue. Faith can and should be questioned, and like knowledge in general, should grow. Bottom line: for me, at least my personal faith does not adversely affect my thinking as a scientist. My total experience is instead amplified. That said, I actively resist any attempts to pervert the teaching of science in the public schools and promote the teaching of 'good' science both in and out of the classroom."
Just because you think people are out to get you doesn't mean you're paranoid. People may really be out to get you. The evangelical right is not being paranoid when they believe they are under attack from the likes of Dawkins and Krauss--because people like Dawkins and Krauss really are attacking them. Gopher doesn't make the outright claim that Dawkins and Krauss aren't attacking the evangelicals. Very few people would believe such a claim. Instead gopher sneaks in such an assumption as part of his attack on evangelical paranoia--and most people who are not evangelicals will let him get away with it. Then there is the idea that apathy towards science becomes antagonism. The views of the religious Right are not apathy towards science turned into antagonism. That is simply a fabricated excuse Krauss made up to justify bringing religion into a discussion of C. P. Snow's Two Cultures. The religious Right has neither apathy nor antagonism toward science--except in areas where they see a conflict. In areas where they see a conflict, it was always antagonism towards the views they find objectionable, not apathy turned to antagonsim. This is not the kind of thing that C.P. Snow was talking about.
What does it really mean to pervert the teaching of science in the public schools? And what does it mean to promote the teaching of "good" science? These are important questions which we should address. Is a balanced treatment of different ideas about evolution perverting the teaching of science in the public schools--or is allowing only one view to be expressed the perversion? Is telling people what to believe a way to promote the teaching of "good" science in and out of the classroom, or does the teaching of "good" science in and out of the classroom involve presenting different views and allowing students to make decisions for themselves?
It seems fairly obvious that teaching a balanced view would be better than teaching evolution as the only way if we are not, in fact, the product of evolution. But even if we are the product of evolution, it is far from obvious that teaching evolution as the only way is better than teaching different views and encouraging students to evaluate the evidence for themselves. Which is more important: teaching one particular conclusion that scientists have made, or teaching the scientific way of thinking? Prohibiting any questioning of evolution when evolution is taught in the public schools seems like a terrible message to send future scientists with regard to open mindedness in science.
In comments 6 and 7, katherinebiel stated "Science is accomplished by breaking a problem down into measurable variables. Whether or not a person believes in God is not a part of this "art' ". But she did state that a belief in God slpos over the parameters of the study, and claimed that God would have to go into the random error category of the study. She also claimed that "putting an all powerful natural world breaking deity into an experiment......It would make the results of experiments uninterpretable if we always concluded that an experiment worked, or didn't work because God intervened."
In a drug study, any miraculous healings by God would be treated as random error--and there would typically be a lot of stuff that would fall into that same random error category in such a study. In most scientific work by people who believe in God, acts of God would not be among the parameters of the study. But if you were to look for a connection between a belief in divine healing and what happens to people who are sick, then certainly a belief in divine healing would be one of the parameters of the study. Even if the results for a given individual are unpredicatable, we might find a statistical pattern, which is all we are able to find in many areas of scientific research. We might also look for evidence of healings that could not be explained in any other way that we know.
But there are other ways in which a belief in God may influence scientists. A belief in God may lead a biologist to believe that an organ with no known function must actually have a function--but we just don't know what that function is. This may push such a scientist to keep looking for such a function when another scientist might give it up as a lost cause. Typically we might expect a belief in God to lead scientist to believe in an ordered universe, and encourage them to keep looking for evidence of such order.It is very hard to see that such views would be deterimental to science. By contrast, there can be a problem with scientists who believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you believe that things are in a state of flux. If things do not seem to make sense, you may believe that things might only make sense in terms of what will exist in the future or what did exist in the past. This may make you too willing to give up when it comes to looking for answers in the present.
There is more to Katherine's comments. "I'm sad that although so many people seem to hate science, they use the discoveries of science in their lives every second of every day, and to further their belief systems." Katherine did not say she was sad that people who use science seem to hate science--she said she was sad that people who seemed to hate science made use of science. There seems to be a sentiment on the part of evolution supporters that people who do not accept evolution, are rejecting not just evolution, but all of science--and that such people should be denied any of the benefits of modern science. Earlier we saw gopher16 complain that extremists on the right and left accuse people like him of cherry-picking what they want to believe or not belive about religion. But supporters of evolution do something very similar. I do not believe science should be viewed as something that is all or nothing. Wanting to deny people who reject evolution the benefits of totally unrelated areas of science cannot be justified, but it seems to be a fairly common sentiment amopng the supporters of evolution.
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