In a country plagued by ignorance and superstition
I like what Jack Szostak, Nobel laureate, wrote to the NAS about its hosting of the Templeton prize party.
It is inappropriate and counter-productive for the NAS, a scientific organization, to interact in this way with an overtly religious group such as the Templeton Foundation.
We are not a faith-based organization – we ask questions and seek the answers in evidence. In a country plagued by ignorance and superstition, the NAS ought to be a beacon of coherent rational thinking and skeptical inquiry. If science is, as George Ellery Hale stated, our guide to truth, then religion is clearly incompatible with science, as should be apparent from considerations of faith versus inquiry.
But since it’s one of their own who won, they probably won’t be much moved. That’s unfortunate.
You know, it occurs to me that the “compatibility” between Science and Religion which the Templeton Foundation promotes is very much like Dr. Harriet Hall’s description of “Tooth Fairy Science.”
http://www.skepdic.com/toothfairyscience.html
They want to do all sorts of research and study on the different ways science can contribute to “affirming life’s spiritual dimension,” in order to explore the many ways God is manifested in the world — but they avoid the most basic starting point: does God exist? If they’re serious about reconciling science and religion, then approach that question with scientific method, taking careful consideration of the null hypothesis, and formulate tests.
But no. They want the benefits of claiming a reconciliation, without any of the work. Science can have a fruitful dialogue with the tooth fairy, by studying what the tooth fairy does. Count the teeth, and add up the change. Bring in the virtue of brushing and dental hygiene, and talk about the kiddies in their pj’s. Explain how we wouldn’t expect to be able to catch the tooth fairy at her work, so this is not a problem. At all.
With God, you look at the benefits of belief, the value of forgiveness, and collect speculations, anecdotes, and descriptions that help refine our understanding — of something that may not even be real.
Looking at the history of pseudoscience, scientists ought to realize how easy it is to do this, if you’re not careful. And they ought to be careful, of endorsing or seeming to endorse, this sort of fairy tale connection with science.
Funny, I was just posting something from skepdic myself.
Another oddity I was wondering about earlier is this business of Ayala saying (like so many others) that science and religion ‘address’ different questions. But Templeton wants to bring the two together, not separate them. I wonder if they get at all twitchy at the strict separation approach. (Perhaps the answer is that no of course they don’t because they take the separation to run in only one direction. Still…it’s a problem for the togetherness thing.)
I agree, Templeton needs to make up its mind. Is religion in a special domain, and science could never discover anything that either supports or undermines it? Or are the two converging, so that the findings of modern science are slowly revealing hints that the truths of religion, may be true, after all?
They seem to want it both ways. Or either way. Or first one way, then the other. Anything or anyone that says that faith is good, and special, and science can’t criticize religion, and they’ll toss some money that way.
I noticed that, when I read Ayala’s quotes on the relationship between science and religion, they made more sense if, instead of religion, I substituted the word “ethics.”
Wonder what they’ll do when someone claims that their faith tells them that there was a monster in their bedroom last night?
< snark >
Not bedroom, bathroom! All the difference in the world.
Science and ethics can overlap though, unlike science and religion. Well maybe not completely unlike s and r – science can explore aspects of religion and I suppose religion broadly understood could contribute rituals or something. But anyway science and ethics can overlap quite usefully, whereas religion and science, not so much.
What then, would fit in with the Non-Overlapping Magisteria, those completely different domains? Science and Aesthetics? Science and Love? Science and Role-Playing Hobbies? Science and Emotionally-Charged Personal Preferences?
Science could never affirm, nor contradict, the deliciousness of caramel mocha lattes, nor the necessity of the whipped cream on top.
Or… what?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/reviews/2340/darwins-gift-science-and-religion
As you’ll see from my brief review here, Ayala does argue for NOMA. But he also argues that science can solve the problem of evil, or at least part of it (he uses an evolutionary theodicy). I’m not sure how both claims can be true, but perhaps they could be. In any event, Ayala does mix religion and science.
The non overlapping magisteria hypothesis allows us to address the eternal question.
Who would win in a fight between Jesus and Gandalf?
Well if Ayala does we can, so ha.
And a few more thoughts from moi:
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/03/speaking-of-templeton.html