Dr. Robert Bakker Answers Your Questions About Science and Religion 388
Yesterday we ran the first half of Dr. Robert Bakker's essay in response to your questions. Below you'll find the second part which focuses on the history of science and religion, and the patron saint of paleontology, St. Augustine of Hippo. A big thanks goes out to Dr. Bob for his lengthy reply.
Back to the very first page in the fabulous 1953 Life magazine.......Augustine in Life Magazine.
...........in the opening spread the text provided a lyrical introduction to marvels of life through Deep Time. Tucked away, in the last paragraphs, was a reference to the supposed “conflict” between paleontology and religion. Mr. Barnett noted that the greatest philosopher of Christianity, Saint Augustine, pondered the wording of Genesis and came away with the pious suggestion that Creation had unfolded in a time frame more subtle and more complex than a simple seven-day calendar. I filed away that sentence.....it was counter-intuitive. Here was Lincoln Barnett, a noted writer on science (he did a kids’ bio of Einstein) citing a Church Father and a saint. My own church had a youth ministry pastor who despised the fossil record. He said repeatedly that all fossils were from Noah’s Flood and that there were no intermediate fossils bridging the gap between Classes. But Barnett and Life now gave me reason to believe that paleontology and serious church history just might be ok with each other.
Too many journalists today make the mistake of saying that Charles Darwin confronted the young earth creations in 1859, with his On the Origin of Species. And too many well-meaning atheists preach that bible-believers always, ALWAYS have tried to suffocate science. Not true. St. Augustine was, in fact, science-literate by the standards of 400 a.d. and a fine amateur astronomer. He broke with the popular Manichaean Sect because of science, not theology. He challenged a Manichaean leader on the prediction of eclipses. The Manichaean got his celestial calculations totally wrong. So St. Augustine stopped supporting the sect.
Augustine exposed the folly of astrology when it was still accepted as science by most learned folks. He used an experimental method: he observed estates where two children were born on the same day, one to the land-owner, the other to a slave. The astrological predictions failed to predict the difference in life outcomes. Augustine was no Jerry Falwell. He admitted that many of his flock were not well read in science and he urged them not to indulge in what I call “pulpit-pounding nincompoopery”. In other words, when non-believers have more science knowledge than you, don’t embarrass yourself.
Patron Saint of Petrifactions.
Augustine is the Patron Saint of Paleontology -- the only Church Father who helped dig fossil bones, near the North African city of Utica. The giant ribs and molars bore an uncanny resemblance to those of humans, except five times the size. We now know Augustine’s behemoth was a mastodon, probably Gomphotherium. Mastodon molars, when worn, look far more like giant primate molars than they do elephant molars. Therefore, Augustine concluded that the skeleton was from a gargantuan human -- perfectly reasonable given the anatomical data at the time.
The Life magazine allusion to Augustine came from his thoughtful book Toward a Direct Reading of Genesis. Anyone fascinated by the history of creation literature should read it (available in English translation). Augustine grappled with the meaning of the seven days of Creation. From the style of language, he concluded that the days could not mean simple 24 hour periods, but rather units of revelation. Each literary “day” was a snapshot of the purpose of earth, stars, trees and critters. Even though he did not read Hebrew and had to work with a botchy Latin translation, Augustine got the meaning of Genesis better than many a Southern Baptist seminarian today. Augustine’s exegesis that would find favor fifteen hundred years later in Lutheran and Catholic universities.
Museums started as sectors of universities and the first universities were supported by the Church, in the 12th and 13th century. Anatomical science too began at about the same time, encouraged by translations of Aristotle’s zoological work. A loud atheist might argue that medieval science would have been better if all the scholars at Oxford or Padua had been unbelievers and scoffers, but this fantasy ignores the flow of history.
Pious Paleontologists and Progress.
Back to transitive games of paleontology.....strata were mapped in three-dimensions beginning in the late 1700‘s. Geologists, most attached to universities, built up collections of fossils. Even the most pious paleontologist recognized that species changed dramatically up through the layers of rock. The succession of fossil faunas did seem to be a transitive game, at least for the Top Predator and Top Herbivore. Critters got better and better in fundamental sectors. Better lungs, better hearts, better legs for running. My fourth-grade mind would have fit well among the early stratigraphers in the late 1700‘s. They did see a progression in the fossil record, from lowly fish, to lowly reptiles, to the highest Class, the mammals. Nature seemed to ascend the ladder of complexity and efficiency.*
Quite a few of the early fossilists perceived a natural force that was used by the Creator to fulfill the grand plan. Such a view was Newtonian -- Newton explained how natural forces controlled the movements of the planets. And those natural forces were fulfilling God’s plan. Already by 1830 there were enough fossil discoveries to prove that the Past was extremely long, and that the modern fauna and flora was only the most recent of many successive faunas. Natural processes somehow governed the gradual modernization of the land and sea until conditions were right for the insertion of humans.
My all-time favorite pious paleontologist is the Reverend Edward Hitchcock, the first state geologist of Massachusetts, serving in the 1830’s and 40’s, and a combination biblical scholar, preacher and field geologist. He wrote a wonderful tract The Religion of Geology which explained the evidence for an old earth and a multi-layered creation. It was Hitchcock who unlocked the family tree of dinosaurs. The word “dinosaur” was coined in 1842 for a half dozen species known from bones.The skeletons were confusing. The early reconstructions showed flat-footed monsters with gargantuan forelimbs and five fat toes on all four paws. Hitchcock had no good skeletons but he did have Jurassic tracks, thousands of them, from a class of creatures that clearly dominated the large-bodied land vertebrate role. Hitchcock was flummoxed by the discrepancy between his track-makers and the textbook diagrams of “dinosaurs”. Hitchcock’s animals were neither flat-footed nor five-toed. Instead, they walked and ran on three big hind toes, exactly as did birds. His conclusion: “The Jurassic Period was ruled by gigantic ground birds, some as big as elephants.” Pretty good description of how we envision dinosaurs today.
Dinos-as-birds fills holes in transitive evolution theory. Birds are one of the two highest classes, the big-hearted warm-bloods. If Hitchcock was right, then we have an explanation about how dinosaurs and their close kin displaced the big, advanced mammal-like reptiles who preceded dinos as dominant big land animals in the Triassic. Dinosaurs “won” because they were more progressive.
And so....here we are, in the twenty-first century. Discoveries of Chinese dinosaurs covered with feathers vindicates the Reverend Hitchcock. Careful bed-by-bed excavation of Cambrian and pre-Cambrian rocks reveal the startling origin of many-celled creatures and the evolutionary explosion of body plans. Whom do we thank for over two thousand years of scientific advancement? Aristotle and his translators. University founders. Museum builders. Field surveyors employed by governments. Did religious folks help? Of course. Would progress in science have been faster if all the contributors were anti-religion? Would Isaac Newton have been a better physicist if he had been Richard Dawkins? Would Galileo have had more success with his telescope if he had been Christopher Hitchens? Would Christianity have been more pro-science if Augustine had the mindset of Daniel Dennett?
Silly questions. The culture of science developed in the real historical context of society. Give credit where credit is due.
* In college, of course, my prof’s pooh-poohed the idea that Darwinian processes generated a linear trajectory. In fact, Charles Darwin wrote a note to himself to avoid the terms “higher and lower”. Natural selection didn’t drive most populations to be “high class”. Selection merely favored the genes that gave greater net reproductive success in the immediate habitat. For most species, that sort of selection favored changes in antlers or horns, mating dances or courtship calls, parental care -- features that gave a temporary advantage in obtaining desirable mates and producing kids with higher reproductive success themselves. It was, in fact, rare to have selection favoring bigger hearts, lungs and brains except in a very few evolving lines. Those lines were the biggest land predators and herbivores.
Anyone else? (Score:3, Funny)
Feel like Charlie Brown sitting in the classroom, with the teacher chatting away unintelligibly?
Re:Anyone else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you need to up your anti-ADHD meds. To those of us with attention spans greater than a squirrel and reading comprehension skills beyond the fourth grade level, Dr. Bakker's prose is quite comprehensible (whether we agree or not).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, then made it far enough past fifth grade to know that "proper sentences" --- though certainly having their place --- are not the end-all be-all of written communication.
Re:grammar nazi (Score:5, Informative)
You are incorrect. Parentheses are just fine in a proper sentence. Some more guides for proper use:
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Uses-of-Parentheses.topicArticleId-251364,articleId-251341.html
An important requisite of being a grammar Nazi is knowing grammar.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Did you make it to fifth grade where they teach you not to use parentheses in a proper sentence?
Apparently you didn't. From a grammar nazi site: [commnet.edu]
Re:grammar nazi (Score:5, Funny)
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For example.
Re: (Score:3)
Oddly enough, MY question was answered, without ever being selected for answer, in such a way that I'm going to be posting this link to several Catholic and atheist blogs later.
Re:Anyone else? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that's how question-and-answer works in elementary school level discourse. However, you seem to be unaware that larger, deeper scientific/philosophical discourse is often carried out in much longer and more sophisticated literary forms than question-and-answer soundbite quips. People write whole books (or lifetime long series of books) to describe their positions, and answer many questions (I saw far more than one addressed; look harder) within an integrated narrative. Dr. Bakker apparently over-estimated the literacy of the Slashdot population, by not dumbing down his presentation to look like a TV interview.
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If you're so proudly anti-intellectual that a page long essay is too "ivy league and butlers" for you, why did you even bother with an interview discussing the intersection of paleontology, science, philosophy, and religion? Go back to your football and chips (not that there's anything wrong with those --- the PhDs and pastors I know love them too), and leave scientific/philosophical discussions to folks who don't regard intellectual laziness as a virtue (Harvard degree and butler not required, just a bit o
Re:Anyone else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. What's the matter, is he stepping on your preconceived notions, or is he just using big words?
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Nope. What's the matter, is he stepping on your preconceived notions, or is he just using big words?
He was probably expecting questions and then answers in the commonly used format of such ./ articles and as stated in the summary title, but instead seemed to get some non-sequitor rambling.
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So, you characterize mcgrew as "religious right" based on a post where he claims "the US is in no way a Christain nation" and that what gays do "is none of my business"? I'd love to live in your country --- our religious right is far worse here, and makes mcgrew look like a godless commie.
Kudos on admitting you studied other things! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. I understood every word. Bakker has actually taken more than a few moments to study both religion and history, and speaks quite intelligibly in that context. I can understand if you aren't well read in both subjects (and paleontology!) it might have been pretty baffling, though.
I think you are to be commended for recognizing and admitting your lack of knowledge - it's rare to find such self-knowledge these days! Particularly in the area of religion - it seems like the loudest people talking about it have the least understanding, because they've never studied it, and they are proud of that. People don't usually think they are qualified to fill teeth or set crowns because they've never studied dentistry, but many feel totally qualified to lambast religious folks based on their deep ignorance of theology and religious philosophy. It's Dunning-Kruger effect to the max....
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The response was fine. But maybe he could have simplified it a bit, maybe with sockpuppets
Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
Did religious folks help? Of course.
Yes, but not as much as they hurt. I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old [gallup.com].
Would progress in science have been faster if all the contributors were anti-religion?
Quite likely. After all, it was the refusal of allowing religious texts to explain the unknown that allowed people to move forward in discovering and stealing that "forbidden knowledge of good and evil [wikipedia.org]" from religious texts and doctrines.
Would Isaac Newton have been a better physicist if he had been Richard Dawkins?
Who knows? I can say for certain they were two men who dared to question as much as they possibly could -- something that is often frowned upon and punished internally when you question religions. Let's turn that question around: Would we have physics today if Isaac Newton had been Cotton Mather?
Would Galileo have had more success with his telescope if he had been Christopher Hitchens?
Why do you pick Christopher Hitchens and not Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think we can all agree there are very intelligent men today that have been freed from having to answer to some lethargic and backwards power structure such as The Pope or fear a lynching for contradicting a 2,000 year old text. And I think we can safely say that if the church wasn't allowed to shove its nose into and intimidate people with telescopes back during Galileo's time, we would be far better off today.
Would Christianity have been more pro-science if Augustine had the mindset of Daniel Dennett?
Here's a better question: Would Augustine have been a saint or would he have been excommunicated/burned at the stake if he had the mindset of Daniel Dennett?
Silly questions. The culture of science developed in the real historical context of society. Give credit where credit is due.
Yeah. Yeah, that's really depressing to know that someone can have a doctorate from Yale and Harvard and cling to this idea that science owes its existence to religion. It's even more disgusting that you restrict your examples specifically to Christianity and not Hindi or Muslim contributions.
... that didn't mean that their ideologies at the time were right. Likewise, because a Reverend could use evidence to come to the correct conclusion that dinosaurs were more like birds doesn't present one shred of evidence to me that Christianity is right, let alone reconcilable with science.
You save yourself a lot of time and it allows you cast off the burdensome chore of having to parse The Bible and reason out why one part is metaphorical while another part needs to be literally followed. And then at the end of the day someone else is still calling you a sinner and your science is hobbled by what is and isn't taboo to explore.
A lot of scientists working on the V-1 and V-2 campaigns [wikipedia.org] would later expand human capabilities into space
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that the real problem is that religion is 100% a social institution.
Whereas science is not (100%). Even an unpopular person with an unpopular theory can (possibly) demonstrate that his theory give correct predictions.
When you have a power structure that is based upon tradition and social/political standing rather than science then you have all kinds of problems with that and science.
Sure, there can be people in that hierarchy who understand science and support scientific studies. But they are the exception. And the institution does not support them in any way.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, no.
First, there is overlap between religion, morality, and philosophy. “Why am I here?” and “what should I do?” are valid questions.
Second, religion has organic and evolutionary backgrounds. There are parts of the brain hardwired for “religious” experiences. Furthermore, religion teaches about altruism and justice. This extends trust and fairness across distance and time. i.e. “If I do something good today for a stranger something good will happen in the futur
Religion cannot be escaped. (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't matter how illogical, factually inaccurate, or plain wrong religious beliefs are, they are here to stay. Religious people are here to stay as well, and they will vote and apply political pressure in response to their religious beliefs.
Feel free to proselytize atheism for the greater good, but you cannot expect that such efforts will make the problem of religiously-motivated action go away.
So, given that we must deal with religious people, anything we can do to mitigate their harm is a win. If e
Re:Not a given. Not yet, anyway. (Score:4, Insightful)
OH, I see, you don't understand the difference between rational and irrational religion, and so generalize the two into an incorrect and superstitious stereotype.
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. Yeah, that's really depressing to know that someone can have a doctorate from Yale and Harvard and cling to this idea that science owes its existence to religion. It's even more disgusting that you restrict your examples specifically to Christianity and not Hindi or Muslim contributions.
Actually, it does. You see, the first religions were attempts at explaining phenomena in nature, such as lightning. The very earliest religions *were* attempts at science (granted, not very good ones by today's standards, but nevertheless they followed the idea of observing natural phenomenon and attempted to produce explanations for them). "Gods do it" was one of the earliest proposed explanations for magnetics (not a popular one even then, and it may not satisfy the modern idea of a proper explanation, but it's still an explanation of a sort for natural phenomenon, i.e. a prototypical science).
Yes, but not as much as they hurt. I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old [gallup.com].
And I encounter atheists who think medieval people though the Earth was flat, or that Copernicus was rejected by Christians, or that Galileo's heliocentrism was correct (hint: it wasn't, the reasons for him thinking the Earth moved were demonstrably false. So he came to the right conclusion, but for completely wrong reasons). Being wrong is a pretty universal trait among humans. And lets not get into questions about global warming or vaccination, which is are counter-factual movements that cross all boundaries of religion and ideology, seemingly.
Here's a better question: Would Augustine have been a saint or would he have been excommunicated/burned at the stake if he had the mindset of Daniel Dennett?
No? Nice fallacious loaded question, though. But seriously, no, he wouldn't have. I know, I've read him, and I've studied the period of history during which he lived (burning at the stake was... a bit less popular at that time, shall we say).
And then at the end of the day someone else is still calling you a sinner and your science is hobbled by what is and isn't taboo to explore.
Not really, no, because the answer is and always has been "nothing, except that which is ruled out by ethics" (you know, like experiments on unconsenting humans).
The fact is most people who badmouth religion and it's connection to science know very little about religion itself. On the flip side, the religious people who bash science know very little about science. Ignorance generates fear: it always has.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it does. You see, the first religions were attempts at explaining phenomena in nature, such as lightning. The very earliest religions *were* attempts at science (granted, not very good ones by today's standards, but nevertheless they followed the idea of observing natural phenomenon and attempted to produce explanations for them). "Gods do it" was one of the earliest proposed explanations for magnetics (not a popular one even then, and it may not satisfy the modern idea of a proper explanation, but it's still an explanation of a sort for natural phenomenon, i.e. a prototypical science).
You don't know what "science" is, do you? "Gods do it" is not science. It might be a hypothesis but moving directly from that to axiom or proven fact is about as far from science as one can get. Google "scientific method."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you have a bit more googling left to do yourself on "scientific method," especially the changes in philosophical underpinnings occurring over the past century or so (shifting away from an absolutist view of "axioms and proven facts" to "best explanations for known observations, allowing room for modification as better data is available"). Using "gods" to denote "causes effecting the world whose basis is beyond the scope of present understanding" is in itself no less scientific than giving those caus
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, "gods" isn't an "explanation," only a naming for the boundary of knowledge. It's not about explaining an "unknown with another unknown," but rather explaining a known that lies at the boundary of understanding (e.g. observed movements of the sun across the sky) with an unknown ("a god pulls the sun across the sky"). With more scientific work, the boundary is refined and pushed back ("the earth follows a gravitational geodesic through the spacetime warped by the sun's mass") --- but there is still some
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to be suggesting that science is really religion, or at the least that religion is a form of science. We do not know why gravity exists, but we "believe" in it anyway, and therefore scientists have faith in things they cannot fully explain, which makes science no different than religion.
No. We observe, and we model. Creating a model necessarily involves defining terms and relationships, which may be wrong or incomplete. We come up with many models. And we test the models to determine which ones best fit what we observe. Being less than 100% correct does not mean we're a bunch of cultists. We do not resort to filling in gaps with gods, we simply recognize that we just don't know yet. We observe that there seems to be an attractive force between masses, we have named this force "gravity", and most crucially, we have left the door open for other and further interpretations. That's the popular view of gravity, as a fundamental, axiomatic force, but another way of looking at it is that it's a warping of the space time continuum. Two masses are not mysteriously attracted to each other, instead they cause a warping of space, and it is this warping, that is, space itself, that causes the two masses to move toward each other.
The gods explanation is not at all scientific, as it invokes supernatural agencies which are not testable and not falsifiable. Religion was not early attempts at explaining for the sake of explanation. Cultists tried to explain everything whether they knew anything or not, in order to make themselves authority figures. Explanation was only a means to power and control, not a desirable thing in itself. So of course once something has been "explained", the last thing they want is to have to spend time revisiting the matter. The Catholic Church in particular once supported a great deal of scientific inquiry, funding many observatories, but it wasn't out of a spirit of inquiry, it was bravado. It was also an attempt to stay ahead of the game, by discovering things first so they could be ready with an explanation when a new discovery became popular knowledge. They were so sure, had to be sure lest the masses doubt them, that this was safe because the only possible result of all this exploration would be a confirmation of the correctness of their religion. When things didn't work out that way, some of them got ugly. Galileo was forced to recant, with the understanding that if he ever dared utter heresy again, he would be burned at the stake. It wasn't just the priests, the entire membership engaged in this "holier than thou", sanctimonious putting down of rival explanations, going further with this than even many of the priests wished. Some priests are of course nothing more than exploitative, greedy, power hungry tyrants who are ready to take up any shtick that will serve this end, and they see religion merely as the most convenient vehicle, and do not care what's right. Some mean well, and sincerely try to use their authority for the greater good, but constantly run into difficulties caused by the authoritarian style of the entire organization, such as the flock's tendency to dependency. And of course, the flock's vicious repudiation of any threat to the rationale for their beliefs and self justifications. Many priests are quietly embarrassed by the excesses of the flock, particularly when those Bible thumpers get out there and make a lot of contrary noise about things we already know, but what can they do? The Papacy can declare that evolution is not contrary to their teachings all they like, but the flock can and often does ignore them.
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Viable disproof? Disproof isn't the point. (Score:2)
Yes. Absolutely true. Also true of magic unicorns and ghosts and intelligent, orbiting teapots. Does that make you feel that magic unicorns and ghosts and intelligent, orbiting teapots are therefore more likely?
The idea that some idea can't be disproved in no way serves to validate that idea. There's an unlimited number of such ideas. None of them, not one, has any value whatsoever to anyone until or unless it moves in
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
So it was because the Pope demonstrated that Galileo's calculations were incorrect that he was found guilty of heresy and died under house arrest?
I don't think so. I think it was more that Galileo's work wasn't sufficiently pro-Pope and pro-Catholicism. And THAT is the problem with religion being involved in science.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Catholicism has killed people.
Yes, Islam has killed people.
Yes, the conflict between Catholicism and Islam probably set science back several hundred years.
Yes, government has killed people..
Maybe we should outlaw all them?
Re: (Score:2)
Hear, hear. The GP seems to be compelled to expend quite a bit of energy trying to prove that in no way can religion ever be anything but bad. Perhaps someday science will lead us to profound answers that point to a true religion. But some will keep kicking and screaming.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If it requires belief without evidence, it can never be anything but bad. If science leads us to a "true religion" then it would be well supported by evidence, and therefore not a religion at all.
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Belief without evidence could also be called a hypothesis. God may well be discoverable, but perhaps he chooses not to be discovered by puny organisms such as ourselves.
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Hypotheses are discarded when testing fails to provide supporting evidence. Let me know when that happens with religious belief.
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I don't think I'd need to let you know. It would likely be headline news. Just like it would be if someone can prove that a new parallel universe is created every time a random event is observed. I'm not holding my breath for that one either.
We just keep moving the goal posts. The big bang created many gods, but what created the big bang? God? And what created God? A big bang? Or maybe the big bang created aliens who created us. And those aliens might worship the God that created the big bang.
Given t
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One could also say: Belief without evidence could also be called a psychosis. A worthy hypothesis will offer paths to testing, AKA to falsification or verification; because evidence can always be found for imaginings that are connected to reality. That's why science produces progress and technology (and it's also why religion just produces a herd mentality and nice architecture, architecture, mind you, that is backed by technology. Not "god."
Psychosi
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think I'd call Albert Einstein psychotic for believing in God. I guess that's the whole point here. Baker is simply suggesting that we not rush to this extreme when encountering someone who expresses some religious beliefs.
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Well, that's good, as he stated unequivocally that he didn't believe in god.
There are numerous apologist quotes where he works quite hard not to
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I don't have a Lord or Saviour (not yet, at least), so hugging is not in the cards. I'm also not going to spend a lot of time wistfully imagining infinite dimensions. Whatever we may discover in the future will be of great interest to me - whether it agrees with theists or atheists.
"God did it" is not science and never was (Score:3)
The very earliest religions *were* attempts at science (granted, not very good ones by today's standards, but nevertheless they followed the idea of observing natural phenomenon and attempted to produce explanations for them).
This is incorrect. Just because it is an attempt at an explanation does not make it science. The scientific method [wikipedia.org] requires empirical and measurable evidence to support a theory. Any invocation of a supernatural being immediately violates both of these requirements and therefore is not science.
The fact is most people who badmouth religion and it's connection to science know very little about religion itself.
It is actually quite easy to find people who are rather knowledgeable about both. And frankly one does not have to dig very deep into religion to find the deep logical problems with the stories its practitioners r
Re: (Score:2)
So something is only science if it follows the scientific method? We can ignore that science did not always means scientific method or that the scientific method didn't even come about until some time in the 17th century.
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Baloney. You cannot apply the scientific method to something historical-- it is neither "repeatable" or "testable"; you have the evidence that you have and must draw conclusions from it based on other pools of knowledge. You cannot run a test to try to falsify your conclusion that Julius Caesar was in a particular place at a particular time; you can simply hope for more evidence to be found which supports or does not support that conclusion.
There are many things we consider science that involve gathering
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
From your lack of knowledge about the history of science and bigotry and ignorance about religion... I'd say you're incapable of recognizing people who are experts in either.
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:5, Interesting)
The very earliest religions *were* attempts at science (granted, not very good ones by today's standards, but nevertheless they followed the idea of observing natural phenomenon and attempted to produce explanations for them).
Without testing those explanations, it's not science.
And I encounter atheists who think medieval people though the Earth was flat, or that Copernicus was rejected by Christians, or that Galileo's heliocentrism was correct (hint: it wasn't, the reasons for him thinking the Earth moved were demonstrably false. So he came to the right conclusion, but for completely wrong reasons). Being wrong is a pretty universal trait among humans.
Being wrong is a universal trait. Accepting that you may be wrong, and adjusting your conceptions accordingly is not. An atheist who thinks that Shakespeare thought the Earth was flat simply hasn't heard of Eratosthenes. Once he learns about him, he will change his mind.
A theist who thinks that the fossil record is a conspiracy is a whole other phenomenon entirely. Not even close to comparable.
The fact is most people who badmouth religion and it's connection to science know very little about religion itself.
Research shows that atheists on average know more facts about religion than the religious do.
Re: (Score:2)
Without testing those explanations, it's not science.
Then science did not exist until the 17th century.
Ignorance != Ignoring (Score:2)
Yes, but not as much as they hurt. I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old [gallup.com].
And I encounter atheists who think medieval people though the Earth was flat, or that Copernicus was rejected by Christians, or that Galileo's heliocentrism was correct (hint: it wasn't, the reasons for him thinking the Earth moved were demonstrably false. So he came to the right conclusion, but for completely wrong reasons). Being wrong is a pretty universal trait among humans.
You are conflating IGNORANCE of historical facts with IGNORING of scientifically proven facts in favor of conspiracy theories and fairytales.
Not the same kind of wrong.
One is simply a lack of knowledge, the other is promotion and nurturing of delusions and untruths.
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How do you reconcile science (the "how") with theology (the "who")?
Answer, you don't. They are orthogonal.
Sure, religions in practice,are not only theology but also culture, so things clashe with what science teaches. But it's like discussing details. If [at least one] creator exists, the rules that caused creation are totally arbitrary, as chosen by him. If there is no creator, the rules that caused creation are totally arbitrary too, as chosen by nobody. Science studies the rules. Quite a good idea, but i
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LOL you just replayed the galileo story with reversed roles.
There is no reason to ignore what doesn't fit a system, it's a choice. The guy running the simulation in my post could try flipping bits in the simulation to get himself noticed, or send the creatures a clear message. The creatures have no theoretical or practical mean to know if the message comes from above or from some other creature who hacked the simulation itself. So it becomes a matter of... belief.
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There is absolutely a reason to ignore that which cannot be known. The truth value of an unknowable statement cannot possibly have any actual consequences in this universe, otherwise we'd be able to observe those consequences and infer the truth value that we already postulated as unknowable. Since such a statement cannot have any consequences, it can be safely ignored.
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Just about everything qualified as "cannot be known" at some point.
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I agree. What is actually knowable and what is actually unknowable doesn't change my analysis. If it's knowable, it will be discovered by the scientific method. If it's not, it's irrelevant. Faith/belief/wishful thinking doesn't enter the picture at all.
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There is no such thing as unknowable, it just can't be known now. We can't know what the universe was before the big bang, but that doesn't stop some pretty smart people from thinking about it.
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> But then by definition, no one religious knows what they are talking about. And therefore they should be ignored.
As a Mystic/Gnostic that is a fallacy.
The _only_ TRUE knowledge is the one you have _experienced_. Everything else is subjective.
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Who built the tap?
Who put the water in the tap?
Who decided the laws for _how_ hydrogen and oxygen would combine?
Who created the water?
Bzzt. Thanks for playing.
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Yes, but not as much as they hurt. I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old.
So what? They're not blocking the science. You aren't less rational or scientific in your thinking just because someone out there believes crazy things.
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So what? They're not blocking the science. You aren't less rational or scientific in your thinking just because someone out there believes crazy things.
So what?
The fact is that these crazy people are still a big enough percentage of the US population that they feel they can wield their crazy as a club to beat people over the head with oppressive, idiotic legislation.
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So what? They're not blocking the science. You aren't less rational or scientific in your thinking just because someone out there believes crazy things.
These people are a large enough voting block to influence public education and government research. So, yes, they very much do block science. Their influence is growing smaller, but it is still a force to be dealt with in the US.
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Is there "research" that you feel should off limits, or are you going all in with Dr. Mengele?
If you do think some research is off limits, why? Because any reason you offer has its foundations in ethics/philosophy, which is inextricably entwined with religion.
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Is there "research" that you feel should off limits, or are you going all in with Dr. Mengele?
When the situation comes up of some researcher asking to experiment on humans ala Mengele, we'll worry about it. Until then, you are just taking an absurdist position which doesn't exist in the real world.
If you do think some research is off limits, why? Because any reason you offer has its foundations in ethics/philosophy, which is inextricably entwined with religion.
That is incorrect. The ethics of secular humanism, for example, require no reference to religion or religious beliefs. Ethics are ultimately based on human behavior and the ways that we interact with each other. It is a common claim that religions have some monopoly on ethics, but that is just not true. An
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Did religious folks help? Of course.
Yes, but not as much as they hurt. I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old [gallup.com].
Would progress in science have been faster if all the contributors were anti-religion?
Quite likely.
Ok - what non-religious country in the past one thousand years do you feel pushed/allowed science to advance better than the Christian countries? You encounter some Christians that don't believe in evolution and decide that this is a common theme. This is as fair as taking 2000 years of history and only citing examples where the churches hindered science. This shows how close minded you are.
If I pointed to non-Christian or godless countries and pointed out their human rights records, would that prove any
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Ok - what non-religious country in the past one thousand years do you feel pushed/allowed science to advance better than the Christian countries?
The United States of America.
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About what? The US is officially secular, and has dominated science for at least a century.
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Ok - what non-religious country in the past one thousand years do you feel pushed/allowed science to advance better than the Christian countries?
What non-religious country has existed in the past one thousand years? Even the officially atheistic countries were only atheistic by government fiat. Only recently have we seen the rise of a dominant organic atheism anywhere in the world. And those states are indeed doing well in advancing science and education. Here in the US, where our level of religiosity is more in line with Islamic countries, we have a serious problem with people attempting to subvert public education, public funding and public resear
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They made humanity's first ventures into space. They also came up with Lysenkoism [wikipedia.org], which is great progress if producing mass famine was your goal. It's a mixed bag, just like the religious societies that previously generated both great advances and cruel ideologically-blinded idiocy.
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and how many times in history has the scientific establishment stopped progress by denying some crazy theory that proved to be true later on?
Mendel was a monk and his theories on genetics were dismissed by scientists for decades. after his death others ran the same experiments and after reading mendel's work found that he found more than they did many years before
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In early 20th century Europe, science was divided into two dominant camps English and German. Scientists generally would be presenting findings to members of one camp or another. There was a little event in the first half of the 20th century where we saw scientists being rejected by the German camp due to antisemitism. Individuals like Einstein were an exception to this.
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And also he falsified his results - they do not follow the law of big numbers. However, they didn't have the mathematical sophistication at the time to detect "mistakes" like that.
science versus religion (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the Dr made some very convincing arguments. But from your counter-arguments I suspect there's no way of convincing you religion is not at odds with science. The Dr. correctly recalls that the church had many scientists in its ranks. Priests, monks, bothers, etc. Those where very intelligent people who contributed to science.
It's not about the few examples he brought up. But the idea that many in the churches ranks saw no conflict between science and religion.
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I feel like this avoids the large problems with religion and science. Such as if God created the world, why does the world suck so much? To Quote C3PO "We seem to be made to suffer."
Darwinian evolution is like a dog show being a free for all dog fight in which only one dog escapes alive. We call that immoral but when God does it, it shows the greatness of his creation? And even then over billions of years God's evolution is on a pretty crappy track. We rely on carbohydrates instead of nuclear energy
Real history - illuminating, not depressing (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actually, I like this little gem of a logical fallacy in atheists.
Something isn't science if it doesn't follow the scientific method.
The Catholic Church's prosecution of Copernicus is a prime example of how religion is anti-science.
Copernicus died in 1543. The scientific method was truly laid out by Descartes in 1637.
So by their own statements, the church's prosecution of Copernicus could not possibly anti-science since science didn't exist in Copernicus's lifetime since the scientific method had yet to be
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Actually, I like this little gem of a logical fallacy in atheists.
The problem with your logic is that the scientific method doesn't stop being the scientific method just because it hadn't been written down.
Descartes may have laid down the term "scientific method" but realistically it was just naming something scientists have been doing since the dawn of time. Going all the way back to Plato (deductive reasoning) and Aristotle (Empiricism), the ideas of experimentation and quantification were first documented to be used by Alhazen in his works (book of optics) in the 11
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Great comment, thank you. As someone who is fairly religious, I'd like to highlight/expound on a couple of points:
a) There are a lot of us out here who "like" both science and religion - we don't see any conflict between the two. There are others who simply don't participate in religion - they don't believe in it, they don't want it, whatever. That's cool too. Finally, there are two small but vocal groups: science-leaning people that feel threatened by religion, and religious-leaning people that feel threat
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I propose that we're *just* good enough.
Mostly because we're networked into massively-redundant clusters. Loss of one node is worked around very quickly.
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> Such as if God created the world, why does the world suck so much? /sarcasm Right, because "obviously" God is responsible when someone exercises their free-will to be an asshole. Tell me, how do you give a person free-will if they aren't allowed to make their own choices??
Do you micro-manage your children's Behavior ALL their life? Or do you _allow_ them to make mistakes so that they may learn? Hint: When do they learn the most? When they are successful? Or when they fail?
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I know I'll be modded down by the religious right
"Religious right" is an oxymoron. Everything the conservatives are for, such as money and power, Jesus was against. Everything they oppose, such as taxes and universal health care, Jesus was for or ambivalent about.
I still encounter Christians today who are certain that dinosaur bones were put in place by lawyers and the devil or that the world is only thousands of years old.
Yes, and he mentioned it in the article. "Augustine was no Jerry Falwell. He admitte
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the old testament is not merely a preface. "All these things were written down, to be ensamples for you to follow."
Or again, the scribes and pharisees at the temple were impressed with Jesus' understanding of scripture, even as a boy.
Understand, then, that all of the New Testament is encapsulated as a seed in the old testament. Do you want to see the story of a soul's salvation, within the Christian Church? Read the Apocalypse of Isaiah (Is 23-27), as a parable, with the human heart being the earth, and remembering -- when you come to "Moab" as a name, that "Moab" -- from Genesis -- means "the Son of the Father". The story will go from the dryness that everyone is condemned to, to their finding help from God in their dryness, to entering the Church, receiving communion and the forgiveness/life that comes with it, to reading the Word of God to learn wisdom, to the birth of the Holy Spirit in their heart, to their being the defended garden of God, to their deliverance at the Great Trump.
Or again, the entire passion is encapsulated in the celebration of the Passover. That third cup of passover, drunk right before they sing the psalm, the "Great Hallel", was the "Cup of Blessing" -- which we in turn call the communion cup. The fourth cup -- the one Christ asked to be taken away -- he drank on the cross: it is the "Cup of Salvation", as in "How can I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? The Cup of Salvation I will take up, and I will call upon the Lord." Thus, at 33 Christ celebrated the passover, fulfilling all the roles: He was the chief celebrant, the priest, the sacrificial lamb, and so on. But it is already in seed form, in the Old Testament.
No, the Old Testament was not just a preface: it was the fullness of God's Word, given to those of that time, so that they could have a share in the expectant waiting for the Lord, just as I have a share in it today.
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No, and we wouldn't have physics if he were Redd Foxx, either.
We would, but it would be much funnier.
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you actually read the article or did you just skim it for quotes to knee jerk react to?
It seems you think it was reading religious texts and allowing God to work through them? Not actually excavations, logical thinking and their daring to challenge the status quo?
Who are you even talking about? Where in the article did it state or even imply that their scientific explorations were due to them being religious? The entire point of his article is that it is possible for a religious person to also be scientific in some regards. Not that religion causes people to be scientific.
Yeah, that's really depressing to know that someone can have a doctorate from Yale and Harvard and cling to this idea that science owes its existence to religion
He didn't say give credit of the existence of science to religion. He was obviously talking about giving credit to religious people for the scientific contributions they made. Seriously, stop reading into things and assuming so much. You don't have to agree with what he said but if you are going to disagree at least disagree with what he said.
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I guess I read this essay differently. I don't think he was trying to argue that nobody in history has used religion to the detriment of science (if he was, then I agree that he made a poor case). To me it read more like an observation that the apparent "conflict" between religion in science is not all-encompassing historically nor is it necessarily inherent.
On /. there are tons of comments along the lines of, "here's an example of a religious nutjob; therefore all religious people are anti-science nutjobs,
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I actually find Dr. Bakker's take much more scientific than yours. He looks at the data from the past ~2000 years and uses it to answer the question of "is there a conflict between religion and science?" and comes to the conclusion that while there has been some tension, it's not necessarily between those two. As evidence, he gives some examples with which he is familiar, and comes to a reasonable conclusion.
You, on the other hand, take his argument and make up unfalsifiable claims that we would be "far b
Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score:4, Insightful)
This strawman, among the many you present, compels me to reply. Your blinders seem to prevent you from realizing that nobody is trying to persuade you that their philosophies and beliefs were or are 'right'.
I'm not from the religious right - but if *I* had mod points today... I'd mod you down. Why? Because you seem grimly determined to sustain an anti-religious bias based on your preconceived notions and without regards for any evidence that those notions might not coincide with reality. Yes, in some times and some places (even here and now) there are those who would suppress scientific inquiry - but pretending that those represent all times and all places doesn't mark you as intelligent.... Starting with your accusations of invisible enemies, and running thorough the sophistry and strawmen you mistakenly believe to be 'reasonable' questions, the evidence is abundant that you're as closed minded and bigoted as you mistakenly believe all religions are.
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Actually, he simply portrayed Religion and its place in Science an History in a way that doesn't jive with your cartoonish and bigoted understanding of it.
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Insightful)
Odd, I read it as how I read a lot of counter arguments by a bunch of religious nutjobs. He was often reading way more into what the author said, than was actually said, and then arguing against that. It read like reactionary knee-jerk of someone trying to defend his own weak too-extreme position.
It's annoying because I'm sick enough of arguing against those on the other side of the board.
I can't believe I wasted 5 minutes (Score:2, Interesting)
reading this. Remind me, what was the question?
Re:I can't believe I wasted 5 minutes (Score:5, Funny)
"Did Jesus have feathers?"
Lovely insight into a thoughtful and generous mind (Score:3, Insightful)
As a practicing scientist myself (neurobiology) I am always interested in how other scientists came to their science, and in particular, I love hearing about the early, often incredibly vivid experiences that nudged (or shoved, in some cases) them towards a scientific career. I find it interesting that it's often a book (or magazine)--something that the child can interact with at their own pace, without helpful "instruction" from some well-meaning adult.
When I'm elected Pope ... (Score:4, Funny)
The biggest problem (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problem is that religious people have a 'belief' without no scientific evidence, and seem to ignore that (or use psuedo-science to prove it) - they just 'believe'. Sure, religious people can be scientists as they then use scientific measures, but it rarely works the other way around - I mean, how many religious scientists use methods to determine their belief? None.
Religion should not ever be associated with science, as it makes a mockery of proper science.
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The biggest problem is that religious people have a 'belief' without no scientific evidence, and seem to ignore that (or use psuedo-science to prove it) - they just 'believe'.
The word you are looking for is Faith, not religion. Faith can be independent of or tied to any religion. Scientists that shun religion typically put their faith in science - especially with respect to how the universe was created; in essence science is their religion, yet they would not admit it.
Science cannot prove how the universe was formed. it can give many hypotheses, but cannot prove it. Taking any of those hypotheses and saying "this is how it was done" is not science, but scientific religion.
Sure, religious people can be scientists as they then use scientific measures, but it rarely works the other way around - I mean, how many religious scientists use methods to determine their belief? None.
The
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{the religious right needs to recognize that the tend to assume no time gap between Genesis 2 and 3.}
Therein lies the problem. A scientist wouldn't need to tie in the bible, but the other way around - he would try to age the bible and it's authentication.
A religious scientist, on the other hand, needs to prove the bible is the holy grail to authenticate his belief (or faith, or whatever).
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Yeah, numbnuts. It's called "faith".
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Religion is more than Bible stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion is a lot closer related to the social sciences and as such isn't tested the same way that we would test a hypothesis in chemistry of physics. The real test of religion is, do my beliefs make me a better, happier person? If so, then the test comes back positive then I can say that the religion is good for me. Even if at the end of my life I were to discover that my religion was completely false and that there was no God I would still be glad that I practiced religion. Having a set of ethics that I subscribe to, encouraging me to treat others kindly, to be a good parent, to be honest, to work hard, complete with a support group has made me a better person.
Religion doesn't have to be a repressive organization. If the religion is trying to get you to adhere to certain standards out of fear of some punishment then the religion can't possibly make your life better. However, if the religion develops in you love for your fellow humans and all creatures and makes you want to be better out of love, then it is a good thing.
Sorry for such a long response but I get tired of the non-religious classifying religion based on the few loud-mouths that seem to crop up on TV or the internet. Religion doesn't have to make a mockery of proper science since both are addressing different questions. And yes, I am an actively religious scientist.
science grew out of religion (Score:2)
and vice versa
the original priests were astronomers who figured out that the celestial bodies behave in predictable patterns and linked it to the seasons and the growing season. in a world where most kings didn't know how to read they were thought of as being able to talk to Gods. How else would they know when you should plant your crops?
Maybe Someone Can Help (Score:5, Interesting)
Did TFA or TFS ever mention how the varied Arab cultures were the kings of science for around eight hundred years that (from what I understand) ran concurrently with religion? Library of Alexandria, anyone? Mathematics? Astronomy?
If it wasn't mentioned, then why not? Anyone have a guess?
It's not all christianity.... (Score:2)
For another viewpoint on the compatibility of science and religion see Sir Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks's http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Partnership-Jonathan-Sacks/dp/0340995246 [amazon.co.uk]
It's quite in line with classic jewish thought (e.g. Maimonides).
Dunning-Kruger all the way around (Score:4, Insightful)
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So you would prefer news that is reaffirmation for atheists about how they can feel better about themselves and rationalize their idiotic beliefs in the face of narrow examples from a vocal minority.
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"Hunters"?