Science v. Religion?

Hi Guys:

I linked to this Stephen J. Gould essay this morning, but it was buried deep in a deep thread. Sleeping with the fishes so to speak. I read the entire essay at lunch. Like all Gould essays it is shockingly well written and provocative. As I'm sure you know, Gould was a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist professionally, but he is perhaps best known as an essayist who brought evolution to the masses. He was a humanist. Sadly, Gould died at the too young age of 60 a few years back. Gould testified as an expert for the plaintiffs in the landmark McLean v. Arkansas creationism trial. He even voiced himself in an episode of The Simpsons.

http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/SS05/efs/materials/FlatEarth.pdf

This essay was published in 1995. I think that Gould's summation of the complimentary and non-exclusive relationship between the institutions of science and religion, which may be found near the end of the essay, is both insightful and important.

Read the whole thing, it's really quite good.

Jim

Robert Provin said:

Here is a short review of Gould's NOMA concept that pretty much reflects the views of many scientists:

http://www.godslasteraar.org/html/gould_s_non_overlapping_magist.html

For my part, NOMA is a quaint fiction since many of faith feel science is in error when it contradicts their myths. The evidence does not count. Then they want to have their myths taught in our science classrooms, I suppose to correct the perceived errors!

Robert

Robert:

I would submit that you are making the mistake of thinking that most Christians think along the line of what Doug does. This is an error. Fundamentalist literalists are a small subset of Christianity, both worldwide and in the states. Your link did not work for me, but Dawkins' criticism of NOMA, which I read elsewhere appears to be: NOMA can't work because the religious can't resist mixing science and theology. That is a flawed premise.

J

Robert Provin said:

Jim Brown said:

Hi Guys:

I linked to this Stephen J. Gould essay this morning, but it was buried deep in a deep thread. Sleeping with the fishes so to speak. I read the entire essay at lunch. Like all Gould essays it is shockingly well written and provocative. As I'm sure you know, Gould was a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist professionally, but he is perhaps best known as an essayist who brought evolution to the masses. He was a humanist. Sadly, Gould died at the too young age of 60 a few years back. Gould testified as an expert for the plaintiffs in the landmark McLean v. Arkansas creationism trial. He even voiced himself in an episode of The Simpsons.

http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/SS05/efs/materials/FlatEarth.pdf

This essay was published in 1995. I think that Gould's summation of the complimentary and non-exclusive relationship between the institutions of science and religion, which may be found near the end of the essay, is both insightful and important.

Read the whole thing, it's really quite good.

Jim

Here is a short review of Gould's NOMA concept that pretty much reflects the views of many scientists:

http://www.godslasteraar.org/html/gould_s_non_overlapping_magist.html

For my part, NOMA is a quaint fiction since many of faith feel science is in error when it contradicts their myths. The evidence does not count. Then they want to have their myths taught in our science classrooms, I suppose to correct the perceived errors!

Robert

Robert,
I just now saw your link. Thanks. My skepticism is growing.

Great thread, I wish I had time for a more thoughtful reply, but here is a quick reaction: I think Gould was trying to reconcile his own religious belief with science. If I'm not mistaken, he was a practicing Jew, so he likely had to maintain this dichotomy in his own mind and NOMA is where he ended up. While it's true that science and religion mostly pursue different paths, they end up at the same ultimate destination, and that is the question of the existence of deities. Existence is a positivist claim that requires evidence to prove. There is no escaping that. In the meantime, science and religion can divide their concerns between the study of nature and the philosophy of spirituality, ethics and morals.
We could get into the emerging field of brain science that seeks to understand why we behave as we do. Hard-core criminals and violent people have been shown in many cases to have brains that are different than the rest of us. Are they still responsible for their actions? What are the true origins of ethics and morality? Does this science tread on the territory of religion and ethics? There is still room, even with NOMA, for conflict and overlap.