Is Science Merely Another Religion?
In public media and private conversations, one often hears the argument that science is just another religion. This is a powerful allegation. It levels the playing field. It says, essentially, everybody is entitled to an opinion, and you don't have any more basis for yours than I do for mine.
The problem is this: Those who preach that science is a religion fundamentally misunderstand the nature of science. First, they equate science with a body of content, a collection of statements about what is real. Second, they assume that scientists arrive at their conclusions in the same way that believers do: by embracing a set of beliefs and then seeking evidence that they are true. Both of these assumptions are wrong.
Scientific discoveries or conclusions are the public face of science. They get written into textbooks and popular books. They provide interesting material for the Discovery Channel and magazines like National Geographic or New Scientist. They guide our decisions about which medicines to take, which foods to eat, and which industrial chemicals to avoid. But at its heart science is not a set of answers. It is a method of asking questions.
The genie-like power in the scientific method of inquiry, the reason it has allowed us to develop Advil and five pound tomatoes and silicon chips, comes from something very small and simple. The scientific method pits itself against one of the most basic human mental weaknesses. Let me tell you first about this weakness and then what science does to guard against it.
All human beings are beings are vulnerable to what psychologists call a "confirmatory bias." This means that we all have a tendency, almost a compulsion, to seek information that confirms what we believe to be true. Without even trying to, we behave like lawyers rather than impartial judges. We look for information that fits our views, we remember it better than contradictory information, and we are more easily able to retrieve it from memory than information that might challenge us.
As psychologist Robert Wright put it:
The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.
Here are a couple of examples of this bias in action:
Almost forty years ago, researchers showed two groups of college students a movie of a baby dressed in unisex clothing. The students watched the child play. Some were told the baby was named Dana, others that the name was David. The students who thought the baby was a girl saw a child who was sensitive and timid. Those who thought the baby was a boy saw a child who was strong and bold.
Later experiments have shown that human adults can detect real differences in the temperaments of babies. But having a prior belief interferes with our ability to see what’s real. Was Dana/David on the sensitive, timid end of the spectrum or on the strong, bold end? We don’t know. But we do know that one of those groups of college students got mislead by what they thought they knew about the baby’s gender.
In another study, people with strong opinions on a social issue were presented with four arguments related to the issue in question, two for and two against. One of the arguments on each side was reasonable and the other was so unreasonable as to be ridiculous. Later, people were asked to recall all they could of the four arguments. Guess what they remembered best: the reasonable arguments in support of their position and the pathetic arguments against it.
It is easy to see how this might lead to a skewed sense of reality. If you are fortunate enough to start with accurate assumptions, you may get lucky following a confirmatory path. But if you start with ideas that are in any way off-target and then you only look for signs that lead in the same direction you can end up deep in an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole.
How does science pit itself against our powerful confirmatory bias? How does it help to keeps us out of mental rabbit holes? By forcing us to ask the questions that could show us wrong. A more formal way to say this is that scientific inquiry is built around asking disconfirmatory questions.
Imagine that Joe Jones thinks horse manure is the best fertilizer available for raising those five pound tomatoes mentioned earlier, and he wants us all to think the same. Now, if Joe is simply an ordinary guy with a passion for horses or fertilizer or tomatoes, he might simply point out all of the amazing tomatoes that he and others have grown in horse manure. Or he might call attention to wimpy little tomatoes that were grown by a neighbor who used a competing fertilizer.
Being human, Joe will be inclined to overlook his own tomatoes that don't reach the five pound mark or the particularly huge tomatoes that he heard were growing just down the road. He may forget to mention, even to himself, that he and his neighbor started with different seeds or had different watering schedules. If Joe is a manure salesman for a big horse barn, he will be even more inclined to distort the facts in this way. Even if he is a basically honest guy, he may fall prey to confirmatory bias.
If Joe is a scientist as well as a passionate believer in the value of horse manure, he will be inclined to distort things in the same way. Scientists, after all, are human too. But unless he wants to face ridicule from his peers, he doesn't dare tout the values of horse manure without doing a little more work. He has to ask himself: What if I am wrong and the awesome size of my tomatoes really is due to better light or seeds or water? I think it's the horse manure, but what tests can I set up that would catch me if I'm mistaken? He must then design an experiment that compares several sets of tomato plants. Each set, to the best of Joe's ability, must be exactly the same in every way except that one set gets horse manure and the others get the best competing fertilizers.
This is a silly example, but all scientific inquiry, however complex, is built around similar principles. If you think something is true, if you have a hypothesis that it is true, you have to submit your hypothesis to tests that could show you wrong. Science has a bunch of technical words and procedures that guide the way experiments are done. But they all come down to one thing: setting the traps that will catch us when we're wrong. If a statement is not falsifiable, if there is no way to show it wrong, then scientists won't touch it. They are not allowed to make claims about reality that are not subject to these rules of evidence.
Scientists are often wrong-- sometimes because they make misread the evidence, sometimes because they fail to ask all the questions that could show them wrong, sometimes because new technologies let us ask more questions, and sometimes because they so much want something to be true that they fall into confirmatory thinking in spite of all of the safeguards that the scientific method puts into place. But the great thing about scientific inquiry is that sooner or later, they get discovered. People don't just test hypotheses once; they test them over and over. One of the rules of science is that the tests have to be replicable. That means, someone else has to be able to do the test and come up with the same answers. It is hard to stay wrong for thousands of years when people keep asking the questions that have the power to expose their errors.
Scientific findings are simply hypotheses that have survived so many tests that doing more tests would be boring; nobody can even imagine a valid test that would produce different results. When a hypothesis has been tested this thoroughly, it gets treated as a fact. But scientific "facts" are tentative. If something is thought to be a fact and later is discovered to be wrong, science gets to work adjusting. Admitting you are wrong can be embarrassing. People try to wiggle out of it in all kinds of ways. But those are the rules. Science itself isn't threatened by these discoveries. They are to be expected. They mean that the scientific method is working.
How is this different than religion?
Traditionally, religions and other faith-based ideologies take a very different approach when it comes to deciding what is real and true. They start with a set of statements about reality and then work backwards from there, searching for evidence to support these beliefs. The beliefs, also known as doctrines or dogmas, put limits on what kind of evidence is allowable and which basic assumptions can be questioned. In other words, religions actually advocate a confirmatory strategy when it comes to their basic beliefs.
Evangelical Bible scholar, Gleason Archer outlined this approach in an essay entitled "Recommended Procedures in Dealing with Bible Difficulties." Here is what Archer had to say about the seeming contradictions in his Bible:
Be fully persuaded that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. . . . Once we have come into agreement with Jesus that the Scripture is completely trustworthy and authoritative, then it is out of the question for us to shift over to the opposite assumption, that the Bible is only the errant record of fallible men as they wrote about God.
It is a little puzzling that Archer talks about coming into agreement with Jesus, since the New Testament was not written when Jesus was alive. Nevertheless, Archer's point is clear. You must decide, first, that only a certain kind of explanations are possible –those in keeping with the Evangelical belief that the Protestant Bible is the literally perfect word of the Evangelical God. Then, the right approach to biblical difficulties is to search for explanations and evidence that support this point of view.
Archer's statement helps us to see the essential difference between religion and science. The heart of science is a process, a method of inquiry that then generates tentative statements about what is real. Science is not threatened if some of its statements are wrong. In fact, this is expected to be the case. On the other hand, scientists would be quite worried if someone could argue successfully that the scientific method itself was flawed.
For religion, the opposite is true. The heart of religion is not a process but a set of content – statements that are held to be absolutely true. Religion is not particularly concerned about how one defends these statements, and many processes or kinds of evidence are accepted: logic, experience, intuition, visions, or even dreams. A religion is threatened only if its beliefs are wrong.
From this basic difference, process at the core versus content at the core, come other key differences between science and religion.
For science, the thing that has stayed the same for a thousand years is the process. Although methods have been refined and more safeguards put in place, the hypothesis testing that is done by a modern physicist is essentially the same as the hypothesis testing that was done in the time of Copernicus or Galileo. But the findings of science have been corrected many times.
For religion, the thing that has stayed the same for thousands of years is content. The arguments or evidence defending this content can change, but basic doctrines of Hindus or Buddhists or Christians today are mostly the same as they were a thousand years ago.
Understanding that science is defined by process and religion is defined by content also helps us to understand the criticisms that scientists and religionists hurl at each other. Consider, for example, the recent battles between evolutionary biologists and fundamentalists from the three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). The biologists stand by their findings because no one has argued convincingly that their methods are flawed. On the other hand, they are highly critical of the methods used by their opponents, insisting, for example, that creationism or intelligent design is not science. The religionists, on the other hand, insist that science itself is flawed because its findings are wrong. The process must be a bad one because it is not producing statements that line up with what they believe to be real.
Understanding the difference between science and religion can also help us to distinguish the appropriate role of each.
Science has no means of making statements about questions that are outside the realm of its defining process. If we have no way to test a question, either with logic or evidence, then science cannot address it. Science, for example, cannot tell us what to value. We must make those decisions individually and together. This is why ethical discussions about science must involve both scientists and experts in other fields. It is why government bodies must make judgments about which uses of technology will get public support and even which will be illegal. Whether we can do something and whether we should are two different questions. Once we decide what is important, then science can provide us with crucial information about which course of action is most likely to help us meet our goals.
Religion, on the other hand, has found itself most in trouble when it makes statements about the natural world but then refuses to test them. Religious scholars and theologians express concern about this. The Dali Lama recently said,
In the Sanskrit tradition of Buddhism, if the Buddhist finds traditions that contradict the evidence, then those parts of the tradition need to be rejected, or interpreted differently. The tradition believes there is a liberty to change that which contradicts reality.
Some Christians have said the same about their own religion and have labored to distinguish what they consider the realm of faith from traditional teachings that may reflect pre-scientific misunderstandings of the world. Episcopal bishop and author John Shelby Spong explores these questions in his book, A New Christianity for a New Age. Cautious religious scholars suggest that religion, at its deepest, seeks humbly to channel our moral yearnings, our sense of wonder and joy, and our desire to make meaning out of life and death.
Calling science a religion makes it both smaller and larger than it is. It denigrates the unique power of science to uncover the cause and effect relationships that govern the world around us—the contingencies that have shaped our past and will shape our future. It also fails to recognize the limits of any method of inquiry. There will always be questions that we simply must ask our hearts. There will always be questions we cannot answer. And their will always be a need for random acts of kindness, senseless beauty, and wise decisions in the absence of certainty.
Valerie Tarico, Ph.D. is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth (www.lulu.com/tarico).
Robert Wright, The Moral Animal
Gleason Archer, The Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties
http://pooflingers.blogspot.com/2005/11/science-and-buddha.html
The problem is this: Those who preach that science is a religion fundamentally misunderstand the nature of science. First, they equate science with a body of content, a collection of statements about what is real. Second, they assume that scientists arrive at their conclusions in the same way that believers do: by embracing a set of beliefs and then seeking evidence that they are true. Both of these assumptions are wrong.
Scientific discoveries or conclusions are the public face of science. They get written into textbooks and popular books. They provide interesting material for the Discovery Channel and magazines like National Geographic or New Scientist. They guide our decisions about which medicines to take, which foods to eat, and which industrial chemicals to avoid. But at its heart science is not a set of answers. It is a method of asking questions.
The genie-like power in the scientific method of inquiry, the reason it has allowed us to develop Advil and five pound tomatoes and silicon chips, comes from something very small and simple. The scientific method pits itself against one of the most basic human mental weaknesses. Let me tell you first about this weakness and then what science does to guard against it.
All human beings are beings are vulnerable to what psychologists call a "confirmatory bias." This means that we all have a tendency, almost a compulsion, to seek information that confirms what we believe to be true. Without even trying to, we behave like lawyers rather than impartial judges. We look for information that fits our views, we remember it better than contradictory information, and we are more easily able to retrieve it from memory than information that might challenge us.
As psychologist Robert Wright put it:
The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.
Here are a couple of examples of this bias in action:
Almost forty years ago, researchers showed two groups of college students a movie of a baby dressed in unisex clothing. The students watched the child play. Some were told the baby was named Dana, others that the name was David. The students who thought the baby was a girl saw a child who was sensitive and timid. Those who thought the baby was a boy saw a child who was strong and bold.
Later experiments have shown that human adults can detect real differences in the temperaments of babies. But having a prior belief interferes with our ability to see what’s real. Was Dana/David on the sensitive, timid end of the spectrum or on the strong, bold end? We don’t know. But we do know that one of those groups of college students got mislead by what they thought they knew about the baby’s gender.
In another study, people with strong opinions on a social issue were presented with four arguments related to the issue in question, two for and two against. One of the arguments on each side was reasonable and the other was so unreasonable as to be ridiculous. Later, people were asked to recall all they could of the four arguments. Guess what they remembered best: the reasonable arguments in support of their position and the pathetic arguments against it.
It is easy to see how this might lead to a skewed sense of reality. If you are fortunate enough to start with accurate assumptions, you may get lucky following a confirmatory path. But if you start with ideas that are in any way off-target and then you only look for signs that lead in the same direction you can end up deep in an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole.
How does science pit itself against our powerful confirmatory bias? How does it help to keeps us out of mental rabbit holes? By forcing us to ask the questions that could show us wrong. A more formal way to say this is that scientific inquiry is built around asking disconfirmatory questions.
Imagine that Joe Jones thinks horse manure is the best fertilizer available for raising those five pound tomatoes mentioned earlier, and he wants us all to think the same. Now, if Joe is simply an ordinary guy with a passion for horses or fertilizer or tomatoes, he might simply point out all of the amazing tomatoes that he and others have grown in horse manure. Or he might call attention to wimpy little tomatoes that were grown by a neighbor who used a competing fertilizer.
Being human, Joe will be inclined to overlook his own tomatoes that don't reach the five pound mark or the particularly huge tomatoes that he heard were growing just down the road. He may forget to mention, even to himself, that he and his neighbor started with different seeds or had different watering schedules. If Joe is a manure salesman for a big horse barn, he will be even more inclined to distort the facts in this way. Even if he is a basically honest guy, he may fall prey to confirmatory bias.
If Joe is a scientist as well as a passionate believer in the value of horse manure, he will be inclined to distort things in the same way. Scientists, after all, are human too. But unless he wants to face ridicule from his peers, he doesn't dare tout the values of horse manure without doing a little more work. He has to ask himself: What if I am wrong and the awesome size of my tomatoes really is due to better light or seeds or water? I think it's the horse manure, but what tests can I set up that would catch me if I'm mistaken? He must then design an experiment that compares several sets of tomato plants. Each set, to the best of Joe's ability, must be exactly the same in every way except that one set gets horse manure and the others get the best competing fertilizers.
This is a silly example, but all scientific inquiry, however complex, is built around similar principles. If you think something is true, if you have a hypothesis that it is true, you have to submit your hypothesis to tests that could show you wrong. Science has a bunch of technical words and procedures that guide the way experiments are done. But they all come down to one thing: setting the traps that will catch us when we're wrong. If a statement is not falsifiable, if there is no way to show it wrong, then scientists won't touch it. They are not allowed to make claims about reality that are not subject to these rules of evidence.
Scientists are often wrong-- sometimes because they make misread the evidence, sometimes because they fail to ask all the questions that could show them wrong, sometimes because new technologies let us ask more questions, and sometimes because they so much want something to be true that they fall into confirmatory thinking in spite of all of the safeguards that the scientific method puts into place. But the great thing about scientific inquiry is that sooner or later, they get discovered. People don't just test hypotheses once; they test them over and over. One of the rules of science is that the tests have to be replicable. That means, someone else has to be able to do the test and come up with the same answers. It is hard to stay wrong for thousands of years when people keep asking the questions that have the power to expose their errors.
Scientific findings are simply hypotheses that have survived so many tests that doing more tests would be boring; nobody can even imagine a valid test that would produce different results. When a hypothesis has been tested this thoroughly, it gets treated as a fact. But scientific "facts" are tentative. If something is thought to be a fact and later is discovered to be wrong, science gets to work adjusting. Admitting you are wrong can be embarrassing. People try to wiggle out of it in all kinds of ways. But those are the rules. Science itself isn't threatened by these discoveries. They are to be expected. They mean that the scientific method is working.
How is this different than religion?
Traditionally, religions and other faith-based ideologies take a very different approach when it comes to deciding what is real and true. They start with a set of statements about reality and then work backwards from there, searching for evidence to support these beliefs. The beliefs, also known as doctrines or dogmas, put limits on what kind of evidence is allowable and which basic assumptions can be questioned. In other words, religions actually advocate a confirmatory strategy when it comes to their basic beliefs.
Evangelical Bible scholar, Gleason Archer outlined this approach in an essay entitled "Recommended Procedures in Dealing with Bible Difficulties." Here is what Archer had to say about the seeming contradictions in his Bible:
Be fully persuaded that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it. . . . Once we have come into agreement with Jesus that the Scripture is completely trustworthy and authoritative, then it is out of the question for us to shift over to the opposite assumption, that the Bible is only the errant record of fallible men as they wrote about God.
It is a little puzzling that Archer talks about coming into agreement with Jesus, since the New Testament was not written when Jesus was alive. Nevertheless, Archer's point is clear. You must decide, first, that only a certain kind of explanations are possible –those in keeping with the Evangelical belief that the Protestant Bible is the literally perfect word of the Evangelical God. Then, the right approach to biblical difficulties is to search for explanations and evidence that support this point of view.
Archer's statement helps us to see the essential difference between religion and science. The heart of science is a process, a method of inquiry that then generates tentative statements about what is real. Science is not threatened if some of its statements are wrong. In fact, this is expected to be the case. On the other hand, scientists would be quite worried if someone could argue successfully that the scientific method itself was flawed.
For religion, the opposite is true. The heart of religion is not a process but a set of content – statements that are held to be absolutely true. Religion is not particularly concerned about how one defends these statements, and many processes or kinds of evidence are accepted: logic, experience, intuition, visions, or even dreams. A religion is threatened only if its beliefs are wrong.
From this basic difference, process at the core versus content at the core, come other key differences between science and religion.
For science, the thing that has stayed the same for a thousand years is the process. Although methods have been refined and more safeguards put in place, the hypothesis testing that is done by a modern physicist is essentially the same as the hypothesis testing that was done in the time of Copernicus or Galileo. But the findings of science have been corrected many times.
For religion, the thing that has stayed the same for thousands of years is content. The arguments or evidence defending this content can change, but basic doctrines of Hindus or Buddhists or Christians today are mostly the same as they were a thousand years ago.
Understanding that science is defined by process and religion is defined by content also helps us to understand the criticisms that scientists and religionists hurl at each other. Consider, for example, the recent battles between evolutionary biologists and fundamentalists from the three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). The biologists stand by their findings because no one has argued convincingly that their methods are flawed. On the other hand, they are highly critical of the methods used by their opponents, insisting, for example, that creationism or intelligent design is not science. The religionists, on the other hand, insist that science itself is flawed because its findings are wrong. The process must be a bad one because it is not producing statements that line up with what they believe to be real.
Understanding the difference between science and religion can also help us to distinguish the appropriate role of each.
Science has no means of making statements about questions that are outside the realm of its defining process. If we have no way to test a question, either with logic or evidence, then science cannot address it. Science, for example, cannot tell us what to value. We must make those decisions individually and together. This is why ethical discussions about science must involve both scientists and experts in other fields. It is why government bodies must make judgments about which uses of technology will get public support and even which will be illegal. Whether we can do something and whether we should are two different questions. Once we decide what is important, then science can provide us with crucial information about which course of action is most likely to help us meet our goals.
Religion, on the other hand, has found itself most in trouble when it makes statements about the natural world but then refuses to test them. Religious scholars and theologians express concern about this. The Dali Lama recently said,
In the Sanskrit tradition of Buddhism, if the Buddhist finds traditions that contradict the evidence, then those parts of the tradition need to be rejected, or interpreted differently. The tradition believes there is a liberty to change that which contradicts reality.
Some Christians have said the same about their own religion and have labored to distinguish what they consider the realm of faith from traditional teachings that may reflect pre-scientific misunderstandings of the world. Episcopal bishop and author John Shelby Spong explores these questions in his book, A New Christianity for a New Age. Cautious religious scholars suggest that religion, at its deepest, seeks humbly to channel our moral yearnings, our sense of wonder and joy, and our desire to make meaning out of life and death.
Calling science a religion makes it both smaller and larger than it is. It denigrates the unique power of science to uncover the cause and effect relationships that govern the world around us—the contingencies that have shaped our past and will shape our future. It also fails to recognize the limits of any method of inquiry. There will always be questions that we simply must ask our hearts. There will always be questions we cannot answer. And their will always be a need for random acts of kindness, senseless beauty, and wise decisions in the absence of certainty.
Valerie Tarico, Ph.D. is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth (www.lulu.com/tarico).
Robert Wright, The Moral Animal
Gleason Archer, The Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties
http://pooflingers.blogspot.com/2005/11/science-and-buddha.html
Comments
Is Science Merely Another
Religion?
Maybe Science could also be called a Religion who really knows? Do yoy?
re·li·gion –noun
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7. religions, Archaic. religious rites.
8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.
—Idiom
9. get religion, Informal.
a. to acquire a deep conviction of the validity of religious beliefs and practices.
b. to resolve to mend one's errant ways: The company got religion and stopped making dangerous products.
But hey. If science is a religion, what does it worship?
1) On the other hand, scientists would be quite worried if someone could argue successfully that the scientific method itself was flawed.
This is no different from the dogma of religious belief. It suggests a confirmatory bias for the scientific method.
2. Science cannot tell us what to value.
In fact, science is beginning to address the source of morality and values. If science is not allowed to address these subjects, then it is merely being limited by scientific dogma.
These two arguments from you suggest a religious/dogmatic approach to science, and undermine your claims.
Science begins with questions.
In Religion you start with the assumption that you know everything,
and that your doctrines are always right.
Religion begins with answers.
Sciences as it's often done,with articles of 'faith' and bones of 'saints', being people who could NOT questioned, almost certainly is a religion. Science creeps at it's edges while temples of tenure and marble towers along the lines of Eco's 'Finis Africae' hold sway for long periods...
Rocks that fall from the sky? Preposterous! Newton's Laws an approximation? Insanity! People lost their jobs and reputes over proposing such things... but the mavericks were right and the people who buried them remain unexecrated. Newton tried to trash Liebnitz, Hooke died in penury. Edison trashed Tesla. Martyrs for questioning 'the faith'...
Science is not MERELY another religion, but it often becomes one in spite of itself. And then, especially if it's in the areas of genetics or social engineering, let us all fear!
Love Grandpa Harley.
Strict adherence to the scientific method doesn't reflect a religous mindset, except that it reflects a hypothetically arbitrary value on knowing, explaining, and controlling the events and experiences that shape our lives. Beyond that, scientists have evolved rigorous adherence to a certain set of rules and procedures because they work. They allow us to make predictions and to change the course of our history, and they do so with greater accuracy than any other method yet discovered. If they did not, they would be abandoned.
Grandpa Harley -
You are right that there are very political human battles within science just as there are within religion. But I am talking about the essence of the practice itself. At its heart, science is self correcting, which is why even the scientists with gargantuan egos are no longer posturing over the same issues that their predecessors wagged their willies over 500 years ago. The methodological heart of science allows it to move forward despite the "religious" tendencies of scientific practitioners.
I will leave you with a question that you didn't articulate upon - sacred taboos.
Do you believe there are such things as "sacred taboos"?
Where or how did you hear about Jesus?
Let me presume either from a book(the Bible) or another religious fundy.
Now if the Bible God represents universal truth, how come not everyone knows this universal truth?
How come this universal truth has to come from a book written by men?
Neither a God nor Jesus never wrote any part of the Bible.
http:www.jesusneverexisted.com
On another thread you wrote " I could sit here and show all the evidence in the world..." regarding jesus.
PLEASE, show us the evidence. You wouldn't want us to think you were just making it all up.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 clearly states "prove all things". So please Mike, prove you are not lying to us and show us this evidence.
Think of what a witness to christ you would be by providing irrefutable evidence!
perhaps you would be taken more seriously if you did not call people "silly" for posting something that questions your assumptions.
And thanks for reminding me to donate a few dollars to ExC when my Yule moneys come in. As for this site being "prayed out of existence," I think it more likely that you yourself will experience computer problems and fall off the 'Net. (IMs a quick prayer to the Computer Gods)
Now, back on topic: As someone has already noted, science is not religion because its "beliefs" are constantly being updated. Sun goes around the earth? No; the earth goes around the sun. Circular orbits? No; elliptical ones.
The scientists of one era are not saints or prophets. If someone improves on a theory, the old theory is not kept around for posterity's sake. The new theory is used, and the old one becomes a notation in the "history" section of a science textbook.
Compare that to religious tradition. Words several thousand years old are claimed to be valid and unchanging even when they're obviously wrong. And how are discrepancies handled? Not "Let's see which is true", but "You just have to have faith".
The essence of science is not delimited to just its methodological "practice". Essence used in this context deals with "intent" as well. The intent one pursues science, surely skews the experimental findings of a research project.
A method is a tool, however, "how" one uses the tool, and how they ascribe the use of that tool, can in fact become dogmatic and non-self-correcting in certain circles.
Therefore, there is reluctance to change, on both sides of the fence. Separating science from religion, using reluctance to "change", or the "rate" at which change takes place is an attempt to support a conclusion using fuzzy math.
Science as well as religion can be considered dogmatic standards and world views, based on the "intent" or "perception" of the one holding the view.
For instance, Albert Einstein spent the better part of his later years in life, researching from a non-reductionist view. He was ostracized by most if not all of his entire academic field. He was seen as a dreamer, and non-conformist. His community failed to advance science and assist him, because of their dogmatic views, based on reductionist philosophy - which has failed in many ways.
The western world and its science are founded on many underlying philosophical precepts that have been challenged and found wanting, in many areas. This brings me to another point.
Science and its "many" areas. When one says, "Is Science Merely Another Religion?” it’s a generalized comparison. Which branch of science and which specific facet of religion?
Trying to draw specific conclusions/answers using generalized questions, doesn't necessarily lead to accurate observations.
The APA as well as many highly publicized religious foundations is guided by "ethical" codes. What makes one different than the other; they both conform to the laws of the nation in which they find themselves. For instance, the Catholic religion in Italy is not the Catholic religion experienced in the U.S. As well, the APA may well have standards and ethics in place in the U.S. which are not accepted by professional psychological communities overseas.
Consider the macro-environmental impact on both science and religion, and they are both forced to operate under similar conditions, especially in ethos.
So, it appears one need to define something "germane" to science and religion that totally conflicts as a variable. It's why I proposed the earlier question, and received a non-response.
"Do you believe there are such things as "sacred taboos"?"
Science, generally speaking, doesn't adhere to personal space, all is open to inspection, and there are no taboos too sacred to touch. If there were such, the clinical psychologist would never be able to approach a religious child and ask them about certain religious rituals that may or may not be abusive. Therefore, science at this point, talks to what "is", not what "should be"; the law takes care of the later.
Religion for the most part, does adhere to personal space, and in fact, many times attempts to exert its influence on everyone around them. This personal space and protective measure is what has allowed much abuse to exist in the church. No one should dare challenge the religious authority, right. Some things are just "too" taboo; don't mess with someone's god, or religious belief.
Outside of the huge definition gap, that separates science from religion, a person can attempt to use "dogmatism" as a method of forcing an apple to become an orange so that science and religion are equal in some facet is faulty reasoning – based on this “topical thread”.
This thread proposes "Is Science Merely Another Religion?", if dogmatism becomes a main point in someone’s argument, then the question becomes… "Is Science Merely Another Dogmatic Belief System?"
And... Personally, I would have to say that the later question is much more interesting than the first.
One day, you might understand.
Einstein, for example, was thought to be religious but was really godless. He was consumed by science. He's a good example of someone who uses science "religiously."
However, like most things in life, you can do anything religiously which would comply with the definition but still does not make it "a religion." In fact it makes you addicted to that particular thing.
I only now took the time to read your essay on science, and I must say that it's well done. Thanks for posting it. I particularly like your emphasis on the methodology of science being a counterbalance to confirmation bias. I have long held that "the scientific method" can be seen as a set of rules that together rather effectively mitigate our natural tendencies to mistake subjective opinion for objective evidence. Falsifiability and repeatability, for example, keep us from erecting grand edifices that stand on nothing but imagination. Transparency via peer-reviewed publications makes it unlikely that leaps of faith will go undetected for very long. Making verifiable predictions ensures that a theory is anchored in this world, not a hypothetical world that has been wished into existence. And so on. If you take these checks away, humans will almost immediately drift into elaborate fantasies, as evidenced by the panoply of religions, each defending and embellishing its own intricate (and imaginary) edifice.
On another topic, I'd like to mention something that has always perplexed me about the claim that science is just another religion, or its variants, such as "evolution requires a huge amount of faith." I see these claims as not merely attempting to level the playing field, but doing so by hurling words like "faith" and "religion" as pejoratives! That is, the religionist who makes such a claim is inadvertently displaying some degree of contempt for concepts that, one would think, they would hold in high regard. In essence, they are attempting to bring science *down* to the level of a religion. Does this not demonstrate at least some hidden ambivalence toward their own belief system?
Imagine the situation reversed. For example, suppose I attempted to discredit a religious worldview by saying something like this: "Your faith is nothing more than a highly objective weighing of evidence coupled with critical thinking. Thus, your religion is really a science in disguise!" First, how many people would take that as a rebuke? Second, if I intended it as such, wouldn't that show that I had a low opinion of evidence and critical thinking?
Curious, is it not?
To the Christian visitors here: Please feel free to give your perspective on this. I've tried to get religionists to explain this to me, but have yet to receive a cogent reply. In fact, here is a little exercise for you. Can you come up with a similar statement that, if uttered by a scientist, would denigrate some religios precept for being "scientific" without degrading science in the process? Am I missing something here?
There really isn't a "god" in a supernatural religion, but yet they worship such a word and call it a belief :-)
Deism, generally speaking considers Nature to be The Supreme Creator. The Natural sciences, generally consider that humanity is a product of Nature and is subject to Nature's Supreme laws. Neither the Deist nor the scientist per se worship Nature, yet they revel in the beauty of such and attempt to become more intimate with that relationship in much the same way.
Any religion, that chooses to accept a Natural God, does in fact marry themselves up with those fields of study that seek a similar relationship.
Generally speaking, when people talk of religion in the west, they are talking about religions who promote a supernatural deity. If someone wanted to cut out the those belief systems that are Naturally inclined, the question proposed should be "Is Science Merely Another Supernatural Religion?" :-)
AM: "Einstein, for example, was thought to be religious but was really godless. He was consumed by science. He's a good example of someone who uses science "religiously."
Nature :-)
AM: "However, like most things in life, you can do anything religiously which would comply with the definition but still does not make it "a religion." In fact it makes you addicted to that particular thing."
If a person is addicted to the thought of a god, does that make them religious? What if that god is a Naturel concept? :-)
WOOO HOOOO! You guys got me in a tizzy with this one.
You get yourself in a "tizzy".
Science can't save you and make you whole again.
It can and does, every day, science saves lives and makes people whole,
My Lord and My Savior is the only Savior on this planet.
You must not be looking very hard.
There are Thousands of "saviors" on this planet, who is your lord BTW?
While science crumbles under scrutiny lol, When?,
Science IS scrutiny you dolt,
Jesus continues to be the Rock in my life and millions of others around the world!
so you smoke your jesus in a glass pipe untill you get the nerve to rob a hooker?
I'm about to start some prayin up in this bad boy.
You are in a "bad boy"? Are you usualy in a boy?
I'm about to pray this website out of existence! Good luck
I especially pray for you all before you meet your maker.
What "maker"? I'm not an artifact, I'm a Person,
Christ is Lord!
yes and Bey is Lord! and Grand Duke
is Lord!
Let it sink in for a while.
let what sink in ???
So Mike Godfrey, are you able to actualy do anything usefull?
I'm not sure the pope would give the answer even if he had it, he still wants to be worshipped :-)
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