Templeton, atheism and the bulging postbag
sara abdulla
Friday, 12 September 2008 14:32 UTC
On 17 July Nature published an obituary and an editorial on John Templeton and his foundation, which funds research at the intersection of science and spirituality. This stimulated a letter on our Correspondence page suggesting that “the only contribution that science can make to the ideas of religion is atheism”. This has our postbag bulging in response.
What do you think?
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Anonymous
Cobb and Coyne are mistaken. Science is not about absolutes and truth, but about provisionals and hypotheses. Therefore scientists (at least as scientists, not as private citizens) have no business making absolute statements about religion. If scientists insist on doing so the only possible position they can adopt is agnostic (as Thomas Henry Huxley did) on the grounds that the existence of God is not something that science can address. The fact that Dawkins and others (including Cobb and Coyne) have seen fit to do just that illustrates a certain inability to spot elementary categorical errors, and thus does science a disservice, irrespective of what one might argue about the existence of God.
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I agree with that assertion, from the theory of evolution to modern debates, scientists have strived to prove religious notions wrong. The two can co-exist, if only religion can adapt to modern realities.
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Now doubt Anonymous is right (despite not being willing to give a name).
I can’t prove god doesn’t exist. And I can’t prove that the bottom of my garden is free of fairies. Neither hypothesis seem to me to be a fruitful way to spend time thinking about. But at least the fairies are (allegedly) benign, so I give them the edge
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Scientists have always been trying to avoid religious savour in their explanations of natural events. Any contamination from such perspective could easily hesitate into teleological thinking and can harm a correct logical reasoning. I’d like to point out that science and religion are not in “conflict that can never be reconcile” but work at different slanting levels: they will never reconcile because reconciliation must be out of science and religion scope.
Scientists commit a logical error if they think that science could teach atheism to religion, for atheism is still a way to make science speak in religious term, and we don’t want this to happen. As the National Accademy of Science has asserted, whether there is a purpose to the Universe or purpose for human beings are not questions of science.
Science must not imply any metaphysical materialism. Thus, if we want religion to be out of science matter we must keep our scientific theories out of religion. Don’t let scientific statements rule in a wrong or inappropriate context.
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Cobb and Coyne’s comments (and indeed Dawkins’ whole platform) demonstrate a lack of logic and scholarship.
Both science and religion make definitive claims on the nature of reality. Some of these claims are conflicting, some not. Surely, religious fundamentalism asserts preposterous claims regarding the physical world (e.g., new earth creationism, among many, many others). But to reduce the entirety of ‘religion’ to these most irrational claims does a great injustice to the more sophisticated formulations of modern religion that are engaged in meaningful dialogue with science. It also betrays a negligence of scholarship.
Science is the immanent methodology for asserting truth claims regarding the nature of the physical world. This fact has been articulated in sources ranging from papal encyclicals to Dalai Lama press conferences and is undisputed among serious scholars engaged in a science-religion dialogue.
Religion’s essential claim is that there is more to reality than the physical, material world. Some find this “spooky” claim inherently conflicted with science. It is not. “Scientific fundamentalism” will have us believe that the whole of reality is nothing but its physical, objective aspects. Yet, the conclusion that the nature of reality is nothing more than the reality of nature has no scientific basis. It is a thinly veiled metaphysical belief, no more grounded in objective, scientific fact than new world creationism. There is no fundamental conflict between science and religion, as Cobb and Coyne suggest, only a fundamentalism conflict.
“Scientific fundamentalism” (more properly, materialism) naturally leads to a belief in atheism. While there are many legitimate paths to atheism, science is not one of them. Atheism is no more the logical conclusion of science than is intelligent design: both are the result of subjective belief systems projected onto objective, scientific facts. Intelligent design is natural theology, atheism is natural atheology. Neither are science. The step from scientific fact to atheism is, indeed, a leap of faith.
Scientists and religious scholars are engaging in a radically progressive dialogue to consonantly plumb the nature of reality. We owe it to science to engage in knowledgeable, intelligent dialogue and avoid anti-intellectual heckling fueled by fundamentalist belief systems, religious or scientific.
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Modern science and mathematics have made clear that the cosmic “reality” has the properties of uncertainty, nonlocality, singularity, and noncomputabilty. Thus, proofs of an objective God must fail, yet logically there could be an Ultimate Subjective, if subjectivity exists at all. However, the failure of an objective proof of existence (of whatever is of the object of thought) is not the same as being able to prove its nonexistence.
The “conflict between science and religion” is limited to the conflict between competing fundamentalisms (i.e. literalisms). There is much religious and spiritual expression which is not fundamentalistic. Science has an important continuing role to play in fostering reconciliation between science and religion, by helping an oft-perplexed public make the necessary distinctions between objective (physical) experience, and subjective (mental) experience, giving due respect to both essential aspects of being human.
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After reading the commentary, “Atheism could be science’s contribution to religion,” by Matthew Cobb and Jerry Coyne concerning the Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation (‘Templeton’s legacy’ Nature 454, 253-254, 2008), I was equally perplexed. Attempts to explain the material world through revelation may cause friction with scientists but in like manner so do attempts by some philosophical naturalists, speaking in the name of science. Upon reflection, if science embraces the limited goal of explaining the natural world by natural causes, science must also lack the tools to articulate a position describing whether there is a universe beyond the familiar one of matter and energy. The fundamental conflict is not caused by religion making claims about the nature of reality but the blinded position that science can uncritically accept assumptions of metaphysical ideology and call them “contributions that science can make.”
The work of the Templeton Foundation has not been monolithic. It has not attempted to align itself with creationism or intelligent design, but does offer a forum for those who are scientists and theologians interested in studying big questions that need to be addressed. The outcome of such work will never seem to bring science and religion any closer if predictions, such as Cobb’s and Coyne’s, are embraced uncritically. The only contribution science can make to the ideas of religion is not atheism. Atheism can never be the fruit of the scientific endeavor as it is not something that can be measured and codified by scientific experimentation. Science cannot decide the reality or non-reality of God by a superficial deciphering of the natural world.
I think a more fruitful position would be to let the dialogue between science and religion have “voice” and not make proprietary claims about the only contribution that science can make. Maybe science will not only deepen our understanding of the cosmos but also of God. Perhaps theology requires new expression in evolutionary terms opting for a God that is not above the world but in the midst of the world. Might it be that a deeper understanding of creation is not contradictory to the evolving cosmos but a reality making it possible for a deeper understanding of humans as organically related to the
entire cosmos? -
I have not yet read the PNAS article posted in the latest Research Highlights (Nature 18 September 2008, p166)but if it is confirmed that the oncogene Xmrk in the swordtail fish Xiphophorus cortezi really does owe its protection from selective elimination to the reproductive advantage it confers on males, then I do think that special creationists might do well to ponder this and other such remarkable findings. I have difficulty in accepting that scientific facts (whatever these are) are neutral to our value systems. This example illustrates the need for us to take seriously the nature of genetic pleiotropy – a very useful term that is absent even from the school advanced level biology syllabuses that I am familiar with. Would it not be more appropriate for school sixth forms to start to lay a proper scientific foundation for understanding the physical universe we live in – to include those who chose not to pursue science? When I think how very little most school-leavers know or understand about geological time, I do wonder whether time spent on such issues might not be a better preparation for informed adult debate than much of what goes as PSE in the school timetable.
Michael Thain (retired biology teacher, and part-time author) -
Cobb and Coyne seem completely unaware of the fact that many important aspects of modern science – above all the search for contingent order that lies at the heart of all scientific research – have historically been closely linked with and substantially shaped by monotheistic religion. In other words, religion of a specific type is partly responsible for making science such a highly successful enterprise.
As for the many contributions of science to religion, perhaps the most important one is this. We live in a very special universe, not only one that is hospitable for life but also one that we can actually comprehend, sometimes even very deeply. This is a startling fact that cries out for a deeper explanation, and many of the finest scientists have found a satisfying answer in religion. Theism not only makes good sense of our good sense, it also provides a transcendent basis for morality and our sense of beauty, especially in mathematics – itself so extraordinarily effective for probing the depths of nature. If the universe is in fact the thoughtful construction of an intelligent and subtle creator whose mind is not entirely unlike our own minds, then it is not such a rude shock that we can comprehend its comprehensibility and subtlety. Cobb and Coyne, however, are apparently content with the answer that there is no answer, but surely it is wholly in keeping with the spirit of science to offer a better one.
Edward B. Davis, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of the History of Science, Messiah College, Grantham, PA 17027, tdavis@messiah.edu, 717-766-2511, ext 6840
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., 5908 Tudor Lane, Rockville, MD 20852, francis.collins@gmail.com, 301-641-0104
Owen Gingerich, Ph.D., Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138, ginger@cfa.harvard.edu, 617-495-7216
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Science is clearly an agnostic activity, but it cannot be atheism because science is not religion. Atheism, like other religious concepts, is a belief system based on faith.
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