Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
Sometimes, when you try to spread oil on troubled waters, you only get attacked for creating an oil slick. That happened to Stephen Jay Gould when he attempted to define the spheres of science and religion in "Nonoverlapping magisteria - evolution versus creationism" (Natural History, March, 1997)
The text of Humani Generis [a Papal encyclical dealing among other things with evolution] focuses on the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church—a word derived not from any concept of majesty or awe but from the different notion of teaching, for magister is Latin for "teacher." We may, I think, adopt this word and concept to express the central point of this essay and the principled resolution of supposed "conflict" or "warfare" between science and religion. No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or "nonoverlapping magisteria").
The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch cliches, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.
This resolution might remain all neat and clean if the nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) of science and religion were separated by an extensive no man's land. But, in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer—and the sorting of legitimate domains can become quite complex and difficult. To cite just two broad questions involving both evolutionary facts and moral arguments: Since evolution made us the only earthly creatures with advanced consciousness, what responsibilities are so entailed for our relations with other species? What do our genealogical ties with other organisms imply about the meaning of human life?
The last paragraph cuts to the meat of the problem. If science and religion never impinged, there would be no conflict. But as Gould notes, they share a common border, in fact a complex, intricately interlocking border. If they interact that intricately, it is absolutely impossible for the two domains not to overlap at times, and extremely improbable that they would not conflict in some of the overlaps.
Pretending that the conflicts will go away if science sticks to material facts and religion sticks to moral teaching looks superficially attractive but fails the instant we start subjecting the division to close examination. For example, if God communicates moral teachings to people, why can't he communicate factual information as well, say about the formation of the earth? If we have reason to take the moral communications seriously, why not the factual communications? This, in fact, is the whole point of the evolution-creationism conflict. On the other hand, if research shows that a morally proscribed act leads to no observable harm, and possibly even to benefits, that will certainly undermine the credibility of the moral proscription.
We haven't even touched on the question of which religion is in conflict with science. Liberal Protestantism? Catholicism? Fundamentalism? Islam? Buddhism?
Religions - all religions, do make factual claims about material reality. Failure to appreciate this point is the single greatest misconception about religion. If miracles occur, then there are occasional suspensions of the laws of physics. If reincarnation occurs and people retain memories of past lives, then information travels across time and space with no known transmission mechanism. If an alleged communication from God makes a factual claim that conflicts with science, then either God is wrong, the communication is not authentic, or science is wrong. So attempting to separate science and religion along the lines of material fact and moral teaching simply falls apart.
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What exactly are the magisteria of science and religion? Careful examination of the issue of magisteria suggests that the real division is one of phenomena and methods of investigation.
What exactly science is has been the subject of endless debate. Attempts to define the scientific method, or to devise structural and methodological definitions of science invariably run into a host of exceptions and counter-examples.
But all that is a little bit circular: "the scientific method is what science can do." Why not "the biology of unicorns," "the geology of Narnia," "the chemistry of turning lead into gold," "the physics of teleportation?" All of the attempts to define the scientific method converge around one central theme of independent confirmation. Unicorns exist, Narnia exists, lead transforms to gold, and teleportation happens when, and only when, you can show it to someone who isn't already convinced of the reality of these phenomena. We can generalize the meaning of science to include domains that also make use of empirical evidence, methodical analysis, and testing, such as history, anthropology and sociology.
These rules work because we live in a universe of patterns that hold rigorously. Anyone who doubts a claim can always repeat the observation.
Science has no authority or power to assert that these sorts of phenomena are the only ones that exist. For instance, if a study finds that pornography has no demonstrable effect on crime or other social indicators, that may prove that pornography has no scientifically measurable negative effects. It does not prove that pornography is absolutely harmless; that it doesn't do spiritual damage not measurable in scientific terms, for example.
The phenomena claimed to exist by many religions fall outside the domain of science in several ways:
However, if you believe that phenomena outside the magisterium of science exist, you have no right to appeal to science to support your beliefs. Also, you have no right to criticize science because it will not admit your beliefs as science, any more than you have a right to criticize a wrench because it won't cut a board. Paranormalists who assert that paranormal phenomena are experimentally demonstrable even though the experiments aren't reproducible are a prime example. They want the cachet of science without playing by its rules.
When the two domains overlap, their powers over each other are limited by the nature of the phenomena they deal with. Science can say what the empirical facts are, but nothing about the moral or spiritual dimensions. Religion can speak to moral and spiritual truths but has no authority whatsoever to dictate empirical reality.
Each domain can inform the other. For example, science can show that some morally desirable actions may have inescapably harmful side effects. For example, exterminating a disease organism may also endanger humans, lead to the destruction of desirable organisms, or lead to social or economic disruption. It may turn out that a seemingly beneficial change may actually cause a great deal of unanticipated harm.
However, science has no power to dictate the moral decisions. It has no power to assert that exterminating the disease organism is the morally preferable action, nor does it have any authority to say which of the negative side effects is least morally objectionable. In fact, it has no power to say that any of the side effects is morally objectionable. Nor does science have any authority to say that it is immoral to exterminate the disease organism because the side effects are so serious. To the extent a scientist can say anything useful on moral issues, it's because his moral judgment has been trained.
Similarly, religion has no power to deny or assert scientific facts to make its own decisions easier. Just because the scientific data present religion with conflicting demands (eradicating disease versus harmful side effects), religion has no authority to deny any of the side effects or tinker with evidence to make the case for one action or the other stronger. And religion has absolutely no authority to deny scientific findings, like evolution, for the sake of preserving their own doctrine.
The abortion controversy provides some useful examples. The fact that a fetus has fingerprints and can smile early in its development does not prove that the fetus is entitled to the status of a human being. After all, very similar statements can be made about other primate fetuses, but that doesn't necessarily make a chimpanzee a human being. On the other hand, the fact that a fetus may lack a sufficiently integrated nervous system to experience pain does not prove that abortion is morally acceptable. The moral decision whether or not a fetus is entitled to the rights of a human being is not necessarily tied to whether or not the fetus has some of the physical attributes of a human being.
Since many of the clashes between science and religion revolve around human behavior, social conventions, and interpretations of social observations, there are empirical reasons why science is limited in what it can say:
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