Science does not take the mystery out of living, and it does not create ethics. Rational humans give meaning to life by creating answers to these mysteries, and we all have to find some way to live. Religion is central to these processes for many people, and science won’t stand in the way. The general idea of getting together every week to think and talk about the mystery and how to live right is in no danger (quite the contrary, I should think).

What are in danger are the truth-claims that religions tend to make. Claims like virgin birth, divine origin for certain texts, and the like are clearly at odds with what we learn from science. Faith itself is inimical to the scientific method. In science, one does not believe in a claim without supporting evidence, and when contrary evidence to a claim appears, the claim must be modified or abandoned. Faith is directly contrary to both of these aims (see note below).

So, if we look at religion in terms of its function (dealing with the human condition, roughly speaking), it is clearly compatible with science. If we look at the specific content of religions in general, notably including faith, we find a conflict.

If you think that religion without the supernatural is an oxymoron, then you must conclude that each scientific discovery puts religion in a smaller and smaller box. However, I invite you think a bit more broadly (::cough:: outside the box ::cough::) and imagine what religion might be in the future.

From my perspective, the fear that science moves forward at the expense of religion is exactly wrong. As science advances and its worldview is adopted, religion must accept these changes. For some religions, this would be catastrophic, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, I think that this kind of change would create a much better kind of religion. The religion of today requires practitioners to act against their reason. If you agree with me that this is itself catastrophe, then you will also agree that the change I’m talking about would be welcome indeed.

Note: Most people of faith that I know find 'evidence’ to support their belief. I would respond that the sort of evidence they use and how they use it are clear distinctions between faith and science. If there are some who alter their beliefs in response to new information and consider that “faith”, well, that’s not what i’m talking about here.

Posted: August 19th 2009

See all questions answered by George Locke

Firstly, there is a sense in which science and religion clearly are compatible because there are plenty of scientists who are also religious.

However, there is a fundamental incompatibility between the way science and religion reach their respective conclusions. Science arrives at its conclusions based on evidence. Religion arrives at its conclusions based on faith.

So how do religious scientists square the two? They compartmentalise. All of us do this to a certain extent, but religious scientists have to do it even more: when they are doing science, they think like a scientist, with all the rigorous insistence on evidence that science demands; and when they are 'doing’ their religion, they allow themselves to believe certain things on faith.

So far, so good. For me, this would pose an inconsistency that I would feel the need to challenge myself on, but I have no difficulty accepting that there are plenty of religious scientists who manage to live with it and keep the two ways of thinking quite distinct in their minds.

The problem with Francis Collins is that he is not one of these scientists. He does not keep the two ways of thinking distinct. He does not think like a scientist when doing science, and like a religious person when doing religion. He thinks like a religious person when doing science too. He has made pronouncements about scientific reality based on his religious faith – and not just when giving a talk at his local church, but when speaking in his capacity as a scientist, at science conferences.

Sam Harris quotes some slides Collins used at a scientific conference. In declaring as scientific truth that God fine-tuned the laws of physics and directed evolution so as to arrive at us, and in declaring as scientific truth that our moral sense comes from God, he is making statements that go far beyond that for which there is evidence. In other words, these statements are deeply unscientific.

Collins is about to control a $30bn science research budget, yet he thinks he already has the answers to a number of the questions that science is now actively researching. Collins has declared certain questions to be answerable only by God and to be out of reach of science: yet some of these questions are, right now, being researched and evidence is beginning to emerge that points to a non-God answer. Collins has already declared this to be impossible. Not only is this deeply unscientific, it has to raise concerns about how he will base decisions about what research will or will not be funded in future. In particular, he has declared that 'atheistic materialism’ must be opposed at all costs. Well, what if a research project were proposed which could potentially demonstrate that our thinking processes, including the way we moralise, can be explained entirely in terms of neural activity? This would be a finding of enormous impact and scientific significance. Yet Collins has already said such a thing must be opposed at all costs – so would he permit such research to be funded, do you suppose?

He has also said that no matter what evidence science could show to the contrary, he would continue to believe in God. That is his perfect right, of course, but again, it wouldn’t be religion being compatible with science, it would be religion denying science, because science, by definition, goes where the evidence leads.

So are science and religion incompatible? I think at a fundamental level they are, because it is not possible to reconcile the insistence that you need evidence before making statements about reality with the insistence that you don’t need evidence for making such statements. Yet I accept that many people, through compartmentalisation, manage to accommodate the two, and I don’t think that’s a major problem. But Collins takes the methodology of faith and applies it to science. In a man who is about to take up arguably the most important science post in the world, that, I think, is a very major problem indeed.

*Edited to remove annoying capital letters and to give a more realistic example of potential research that Collins’s comments suggest he would oppose.

Posted: August 8th 2009

See all questions answered by Paula Kirby

It really does depend on what you mean by compatible.

The very existence of Francis Collins in his current frame of mind, and others like him, proves that it is possible for very religious people to do good scientific work, and for very scientifically-minded people to believe in the supernatural. So the short answer is that religion and science are compatible in some sense.

There isn’t a complete harmony, however. Collins’ work is not informed by his religion in any way except perhaps in terms of motivation. Being an evangelical doesn’t help him in the lab.

When he does speak out about science and religion, he constantly does so in terms of the supposed limitations of science. There are certain questions, he says, that science can’t answer. (Some of these questions are actually being worked on by scientists as he says it.) He uses the fine-tuning argument among others as support for God, thus discouraging research into the natural origins of the universe. In short, he has to hobble science in order to make room for religion.

Religion and science can co-exist in a mind much like Muhammed Ali and George Foreman co-existed in a boxing ring. They can get in there together, all right, but at least one of them has to come out the worse for wear.

Posted: August 7th 2009

See all questions answered by SmartLX