PuffHo has a “Religion and Science” section, but virtually every post therein is accommodationist; there’s never anyone claimingthat science and religion are at odds or incompatible. (When he was alive, Victor Stenger used to write such posts.) Here’s a sampling of what’s on that page now (posts are fairly infrequent):
Yep, and here’s Professional Accommodationist Elaine Ecklund:
Now there’s a new accommodationist article, “12 famous scientists on the possibility of God” by Carol Kuruvilla, an associate editor of the PuffHo Religion section, which, curiously, appears in the “Religion” section but not in the “Religion and Science” section. She gives a list of 12 famous scientists, and, sure enough, most turn out to be atheists or agnostics. And Kuruvilla’s gloss on each scientist is honest about their beliefs. As we know, scientists are far more atheistic than nonscientists, both in America and the UK, so this isn’t a surprise. What is distressing, though, is the way Kuruvilla introduces her list of scientists, for she makes gaffe after gaffe in characterizing the “conflict”. Here’s her entire introduction (indented) with my gloss (flush left):
When President Barack Obama nominated the Christian geneticist Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health in 2009, some American scientists questioned whether someone who professed a strong belief in God was qualified to lead the largest biomedical research agency in the world.
The first link goes to the Pew Poll that shows the figure below, the tenfold higher proportion of atheists among scientists than among the general public. There is no link to any specific scientist who questioned Collins’s qualification to head the NIH, as the Pew page just notes that scientists objected to Collins’s nomination (“a number of scientists and pundits publicly questioned whether the nominee’s devout religious faith should disqualify him from the position”). While there may have been such scientists, neither I nor any other nonbelieving scientist I know objected to Collins’s nomination.
Kuruvilla continues:
This argument — that scientific inquiry is essentially incompatible with religious belief — has been gaining traction in some circles in recent years. In fact, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey, American scientists are about half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher, universal power. Still, the survey found that the percentage of scientists that believe in some form of a deity or power was higher than you may think — 51 percent.
Well, thanks, Ms. Kuruvilla, for the shout-out at the “gaining traction” link, but shouldn’t you also note that the number of scientists who reject the idea of a deity or higher power is at least 41%, ten times higher than for the public as a whole? Why do accommodationists always find solace in the number of scientists who are believers, rather than find distress in the huge proportion of scientists who are nonbelievers (Ecklund does this, too)? And why don’t they ever wonder why scientists are more atheistic than nonscientists? Whether it be due to nonbelievers being drawn to science or to science turning people into nonbelievers (I think both explanations hold, but the latter may be more powerful), this disparity shows some kind of incompatibility between science and religious belief.
Kuruvilla:
Scientists throughout history have relied on data and observations to make sense of the world. But there are still some really big questions about the universe that science can’t easily explain: Where did matter come from? What is consciousness? And what makes us human?
Here we get the Templetonian “Big Questions” argument, a gussied-up form of the “God of the gaps argument”. To wit: science hasn’t explained some phenomena, therefore the explanation must be God. There’s no need to discuss that rotten old chestnut.
As for “what makes us human?”, that question needs to be framed far more carefully before it can even begin to be answered, and science already has answers for some ways to construe it (e.g., natural selection, bigger brains, and so on).
Kuruvilla:
In the past, this quest for understanding has given scientists both past and present plenty of opportunities for experiencing wonder and awe. That’s because at their core, both science and religion require some kind of leap of faith — whether it’s belief in multiverses or belief in a personal God.
Here Kuruvilla shows her complete misunderstanding of the notion of religious versus scientific “faith”. It is not “faith” to “believe in multiverses”, and no physicist would accept the multiverse hypothesis with the same tenacity that, say, John Haught accepts the hypothesis of a divine being or a resurrected Jesus. What Kuruvilla calls a “leap of faith” in science is really either a “hypothesis supported by evidence” or “confidence based on experience.” Religious faith is neither of those. I wrote an article in Slate expressly to show the difference between how the term “faith” is used in science and religion, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in this perennial and seemingly deliberate conflation by accommodationists.
Kuruvilla then lists her 12 scientists; I’ve characterized how she describes them:
- Galileo: religious but claiming that God gave us the ability to understand the natural world
- Sir Francis Bacon: scientifically minded but religious.
- Charles Darwin: an agnostic at best
- Maria Mitchell (America’s first woman astronomer): a “religious seeker” (probably would be described today as a “none”)
- Marie Curie: atheist or agnostic (no difference, really!)
- Albert Einstein: not characterized as religious, but said to “separate himself from the ‘fanatical atheists'”
- Rosalind Franklin: atheist
- Carl Sagan: an atheist, but Kuruvilla emphasizes his “spirituality”, which of course, as we know, was simply awe at the universe. Frankly, I’m sick of people coopting this form of spirituality as evidence for someone’s “religious nature.”
- Stephen Hawking: atheist
- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2009): apparently a nonbeliever, but it’s not clear
- Neil deGrasse Tyson: Kuruvilla says that he’s more of an agnostic than an atheist, but we know better, don’t we?
- Francis Collins. Kuruvilla chose to end with him, perhaps because he’s an evangelical Christian who finds evolution absolutely compatible with his faith.
So, people should read about the scientists and ignore Kuruvilla’s introduction. And then they should look at the Pew data and ask themselves, “Why are scientists so atheistic compared to nonscientists?” I’m not sure that I’ve heard many believers explicitly discuss this interesting statistic. (Remember, too, that the more accomplished the scientist, the less likely they are to be religious, and that holds in both the U.S. and UK. Further, the older the scientist in America, the more likely he/she is to be atheistic, exactly the opposite trend for nonscientist Americans.)
Over the years I’ve tried to counter this among my religious acquaintances by arguing that religion actually impairs ones spiritual sense. Its hard to be truly spiritual when ones sense of awe and the transcendent is constrained by simplistic bronze age mythologies.
Agreed. The disparity between Sagan’s “long Cosmic perspective” and the parochial vision of life contained in our holy books could not be more significant.
This was brought much more overtly by Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan.
Agree — and I also think that eastern-flavored transcendent spiritualities also impair a deeper “spiritual sense,” if what we’re talking about is an awe over the wonders of the universe. Apparently reality is supposed to be disappointing if it doesn’t care about us.
But I don’t — or can’t — use the term “spiritual sense” when speaking to the Spiritual, who use the term to indicate some version of the supernatural. It’s just too confusing.
A sense of the spiritual without spirits, of the mystical without mysticism, of the numinous without numina.
…the transcendental without the transcendent, the ethereal without the ether, the intangible without the intange, the divine without the div, the…uh…er…
… the incorporeal without corpses, the evanescent without Evian™, the intangible without Tang™ …
I couldn’t even finish the article! Learned men should not, and mostly do not, believe in superstitious nonsense. All one has to do is read the first page of the Bible to see how wrong this alleged god is about everything. Francis Collins displays his confusion in belief in the movie Religulous when Bill Maher sits down with him one-on-one. He has no idea what he’s talking about!
“Learned men should not, and mostly do not, believe in superstitious nonsense…”
With so many better alternatives around, was it necessary to use such exclusionary language?
(Yes, as a matter of fact I do know that there’s a long tradition in English of using “man” to (supposedly) refer to all humans.)
Its always weird to see Sagan characterized as somewhat accommodationist or friendly to religion. I think they must be mistaking his delivery (very friendly towards all) for his content (Demon-Haunted World).
IMO we can talk about the science and religion accommodation along three dimensions, and the accommodationists win 1 of 3.
Pragmatic: a person can be a functional believer and functional scientist at the same time. There are exceptions, of course, but statistically, this is true.
Methodological: a person can accept science as method and revelation as method as equally valid for answering the same sorts of questions. No, not really true. No accommodationist thinks I can pray for revelation on the nature of dark matter and then publish the results of my praying as a credible finding. The religious ‘method of knowing’ is simply not considered valid for questions like that, by practically anyone.
Conclusion: you can accept scientific and religious conclusions as equally valid, equally credible. Again, not really true. Nobody is likely to accept ‘humans can walk on water if they just pray hard enough’ as being (provisionally) correct in the way ‘E=mc^2’ is accepted as provisionally correct. Like method, the religious ‘results of knowing’ are not considered as valid as scientific ones when it comes to empiricism. They are at best considered acceptable for a few unique carved-out examples – Jesus in Galilee 2000 years ago during one storm could walk on water, but nobody else can.
Sometimes I think that if you smile and nod and speak in a happy, soothing, supportive voice the supernaturally-inclined will see you as supporting them no matter what you say.
I’ve made the experiment once or twice. One of them nodded happily to the bitter end and walked away with a light step. The other one started out nodding and then furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
Maybe I should have been less clear. But then I would have been Spiritual.
Being Spiritual means being less clear? I think you are on to something with that. It seems very accurate to me.
Spirits usually make me less clear.
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Which just goes to show how awful they are at thinking. Most could probably get better with help or even just a little effort, but I’ve seen the same thing you describe. No critical faculty.
Galileo was not very religious in any conventional sense. (Deist is probably accurate.) He wrote a naturalistic interpretation of the New Testament, now lost. (!!!) (See _Galileo: Watcher of the Skies_)
“….the more accomplished the scientist, the more likely they are to be religious….”
Is this a typo?
Yep, I’ll fix it. Thanks.
There’s the added wrinkle that some forms of accomodationism are off limits to a strict evangelical.
Pascal is supposed to have had a mystical experience which he called his “night of fire” after which he wrote on a scrap of paper (which he then sewed into the lining of his coat) “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the God of the philosophers and scientists” (there was a lot of accomodationism going on in his day as well).
Likewise, accommodation from the author of the DaVinci Code as listed above won’t sit well with strict fundamentalists.
If by “spirituality” Arianna Huffington means what Dan Goleman means by emotional intelligence (and the systematic cultivation thereof), then she is correct!
A lot of the smarter theologians recognize that there are multiple meanings of “faith” IN religious discourse! It can be argued that the Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic notion of faith differ from each other in significant ways, and that faith is far less significant a virtue in Judaism than in Christianity.
JAC has done well to spell out exactly what he means by “science broadly construed”. If we want to talk about “religion broadly construed”, then we should (as Albert Einstein did well) be precise about what we mean.
Re my paragraph 2 above, I personally say “God of Abraham, get off my lawn and hit the road. God of the philosophers and scientists, we can talk that over at Starbucks.”
“Remember, too, that the more accomplished the scientist, the more likely they are to be religious…” I don’t think you meant that as stated.
To Jerry:
Yes I think you mean “unlikely”
I didn’t know that older scientists were less religious. In fairness I don’t know too many scientists who are religious. The few I do know who attend services tend towards more benign forms of the condition, and I suspect go along with it more for domestic peace than out of any evident commitment.
I’m assuming that the suggestion is that the longer one practices critical thought the less likely one becomes to accept other processes uncritically. Presumably the younger generation will come in with a lower baseline level of religiosity, that will further decrease as they age.
Or the less comfortable one becomes with the mendacity. When I was young and pretending to be religious, it didn’t seem like I was doing any harm. As I got older, I became more aware that I was effectively participating in indoctrination.
I had the benefit of CofE primary schools. Never had to go through a stage of pretending to be religious. 🙂
Kuruvilla: What is consciousness?
I’m sure that to most people what goes on in a robot’s brain/CPU is equally mysterious. What is computer memory? How does a robot see and interpret things, or know where to go, or make decisions…
Seemed to be difficult to get accurate information or polling on how many are Atheists verses not but I would like to see them do better. When they speak of unaffiliated it sounds like people sitting on the fence or those afraid to say the word Atheist.
How many Atheists were previously religious verses those who are life long Atheists would be interesting to know? I am in the later group and think that science only reinforces what we already suspect, regarding religion. Everyday it confirms incompatibility.
70 percent of evangelicals believe science and religion are not in conflict? That’s great!
Let’s test that a bit. Did anyone ask any of these evangelicals what their conception of science is? Or what they mean by compatible? Have they been asked how they reach a verdict of compatible if the findings of science are contrary to every one of the most defining claims of their religion?
It seems to me the answer is that whenever science conflicts with their religion they simply decide that the science is wrong in those cases. No conflict at all. Just like the old joke, “I don’t have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I fall down, no problem!”
I think you just explained why many of these polls mean almost nothing. Unless the topic is as simple as a true or false answer, asking people for a yes or no on compatibility is kind of a joke. First question would have to ask if they really understand what science is. If they appear to generally understand then maybe they are ready for the question.
Seriously, were they drunk when polled? 30% said there is a conflict? They are not Evangelical Christians, by definition, if they find disharmony between their faith and science.
It would probably depend on how they interpreted the question. What does “conflict with science” mean to them? It might mean “conflict with the findings of modern scientists who aren’t doing good science at all!”
Or it might mean “conflict with an honest and rigorous method of inquiry.”
Or it might mean both or either, depending on what they need at the time. All of which goes to show that darrelle is correct re the ambiguity of the question.
Maybe they just don’t know because it’s not in the bible.
Precisely. If scientists ever produce findings they don’t want to accept, those scientists are merely trying to advance an agenda. Nothing to do with legitimate science. Nuh uh.
I’ve heard that we didn’t understand how the sun worked until the 1930’s. No doubt people prior to that time were fond of citing the sun as one of those mysteries that scientists were never going to solve — ergo Jesus.
“XYZ number of ABC group say there is no conflict between religion and science”
So?
I fail to understand what they think the point of this statistic is. Do they think that the conflict between science and religion is a high school election? Is the logic that, because a certain number of people believe something, that something must be true?
When are people going to stop reasoning so terribly like this?
Almost 1 in 2 Americans believe that human beings have existed in our current form for all of history. I guess that means it’s true!
Maker’s breath…
In your last paragraph you say: “Remember, too, that the more accomplished the scientist, the more likely they are to be religious, …”
You mean *less* likely don’t you?
Happy, smiley Ecklund. I think a parasite could invade her retina and she might still think it was the work of a noble divinity. This is not happiness, but grand delusion.
Never liked the title song, but one of my favorite album B sides, what with Castle Walls, Man In The Wilderness and Miss America.
I wish people would stop saying Carl Sagan (Or Eintstein for that matter) was religious in any traditional sense of that word.
Carl Kruse
She tries to couch awe over purely naturalistic matters as a kind of religious spirituality in the case of Carl Sagan! Talk about cultural appropriation! That would make pretty much every atheist who appreciates the light scattering & refractive qualities of sunset into a spiritual person.
I am deeply offended.
The problem with surveys that produce charts like Religious Belief Among the General Public and Scientists is that the Christian (or Judaeo-Christian) concept of a deity is the norm in the west in general and in the US in particular. Many Americans do not agree with the notion that “Allah” is the same as the biblical god, and surveys are biased in the same way.
When people are surveyed about their beliefs, the question is almost always phrased, “Do you believe in God” rather than “Do you believe in a deity (or deities)?” or “Do you believe in a transcendent or supernatural power?” or even “Do you believe in a god?”. The only answer (even were I a believer) I could give to the question “Do you believe in God” is “No”, because I am not being allowed to specify which deity or which version of a deity I might believe in.
I never have been surveyed about religion (unless you count nonrandom online “quiz” surveys), but since I am a troublemaker and polls often bring out my puckish side, if I were asked, “Do you believe in God?” I’d be most likely to say, “Which one?” In fact that’s what I often say to anyone who says, “God bless you” when I sneeze in a public place. The usual response is a blank stare and “Which what?”, although one time I did that, a young woman who was nearby said, “Why all of them, of course. Blessed be.” (I assume she was a Neopagan).
Jerry,
this statement:
seems to conflict with what you previously wrote here: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/collins-may-be-nih-director/
Most notably:
Can you clarify how you think HuffPo and Pew miscaracterized your views?
In re-reading the quoted paragraph, I can’t see that a) Jerry’s personal views were mischaracterised, and b) that Jerry suggested that they were. Checking the 2009 WEIT post you linked to, Jerry went on to call for Collins’ resignation from BioLogos if he’s appointed as head of the NIH.
I think it comes down to the difference between “questioned”, and “objected to”.