Genomics luminary weighs in on US faith debate
Top geneticist asks the God question.
Is it really possible to combine dedication to science with belief in God? In a new book, prominent US scientist Francis Collins sets out his case for combining a strong religious faith with a zeal for the scientific method. But his views have already sparked debate, with critics suggesting that more talk of religion is the last thing that science needs.
Read the story here. And tell us what you think about combining science with faith.
Comments
There is no inherent conflict between belief in God and science. Science is the use of repeatable observation to discover things about the world. The conflict comes from the confusion on some people's part that "science" insists that everything has a naturalistic explanation. This is not so. Science is only a tool to study those things which are observable and repeatable, it doesn't somehow mean that everything has a naturalistic explanation. An atheist scientist will insist that all things have "natural" explanations, and is free to pursue such explanations. A theistic scientist is free to consider the possibility that some things do not have a naturalistic explanation. That doesn't mean that either has to give up a search for naturalistic explanations ... We just need to keep in mind that until we have comprehensive, FULLY UNDERSTOOD, naturalistic, explanations for everything (and one could argue that we appear to be a LONG way off given that we don't FULLY understand ANY perfectly "natural" phenomena at fundamental level (eg. matter, energy, gravity, electricity, magnetism, etc.)) then there is always the logical possibility that some things don't have natural explanations. To insist that they have, or don't have, natural explanations at this point, takes faith. And, in my opinion, it will continue to take faith for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: Mark M. | July 13, 2006 09:52 PM
What we practice is "natural science," and as such, it should limit itself to the natural world. There is no room for supernatural explanations in the science of nature. That is not to say that there is not room for the supernatural, nor that natural science is the only kind of science, but I don't think we need to start looking to God to explain the things we see, at least not when it comes to things like evolution. That said, I fully support Collin's attempt to legitimize the discussion of religion in the halls of academia. Just because theology falls outside the bounds of natural science does not mean that scientists are obligated never to speak on that issue. Science and religion are no more mutually exclusive than science and love. I doubt that science will ever be able to adequately explain love, but that doesn't mean that scientsts can never fall in love!
Posted by: Alessandro Gagliardi | July 18, 2006 06:21 AM
It sounds like we may agree to a significant extent Alessandro. I would like to explore a little more something you said … “There is no room for supernatural explanations in the science of nature.” I would ask, how do we determine what falls into the category of “science of nature”? For instance, the origin of life was either a natural or a supernatural event. Science, because it can only use repeatable, observable processes, will always be searching for a natural explanation for the origin of life. A plausible naturalistic explanation may never be found, but science will keep looking for one because that is all science can do (look for observable/repeatable explanations – such explanations would have to be naturalistic by definition). A theistic scientist is free to observe that science hasn’t yet revealed a plausible naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. The theist can go further and say, “science provides me with information about the wonderful complexity of even the “simplest” life forms, and given what we know about the complexity life through science, and what can plausibly be delivered by naturalistic causes (as we know them at this point through science), my scientific background knowledge leads me to strongly suspect that life was created supernaturally – even though this can never be proven by science ( since science can only find naturalistic explanations). So the atheist has faith that a naturalistic cause will be found, and the theist has faith that no naturalistic cause will be found.
The same sort of reasoning can be used with evolution (there is no reason that evolutionary theory should enjoy immunity from scientific scrutiny is there?). Many scientists are looking at the proposed mechanisms of evolution and are pointing out the short-comings of those mechanisms based on what we know from science. Anyone is free to propose new naturalistic mechanisms and subject them to scientific scrutiny; and skeptics of evolution are free to hypothesize, based on what we know from science, that sound naturalistic explanations will forever elude our grasp. Again, science will forever seek naturalistic explanations for the life we see around us, because that is what science does – it seeks naturalistic explanations; but that does not mean that the life we see around us has a naturalistic explanation.
Posted by: Mark M. | July 18, 2006 06:55 PM
When we think of evolution we think of continuance and the root element that directs change. When we add the words natural selection to this along with observations indicating that one thing came from the next we become enthralled with our insights. To the nitty gritty these are hard to refute only on nitty gritty issues-inconsistencies. Why does an individual take challenge to what appears sound from the evidence-what is(are) the discrepancy (ancies) of religion and science. i think mostly scientific deduction always seeks a unity-in analogy -the reverse of an atomic decay that proceeds one to two to four to eight etc atoms in a chain reaction-in example it refers to one instead of, in example an Adam and an Eve. ..always leaving a perplexing enigma that is referred away from as irresolvable and hence referred ultimately to spiritual belief. A scientist knows also he can only induce a forwards path from his deductions of the reverse path from the present; making science itself somewhat theological in nature-relying on imagination and emotion. Religion does not rely on a mathematization of the past, it centers on the spiritual, human behavior, learning and history. It is not any wonder that these two components of society do not always get along. In my interpretation, either is subject to false belief, with science the more vulnerable in this respect. The scientist has not yet reasoned, that his bowl of evolutionary ideas beginning somewhere -extending to present and ending in the future with the end of the life line of mankind, or of nature, must include from the outset of his endeavors, within the bowl of ideas, properties, objects and energy the words "beginning and end" as unknowns. A column of figures without and first and last figure cannot ever include absolutes, or define a total. This I imagine is difficult to do. However, it would reduces his science to that of exact observation-direct witness, net ratios. His new constructions also could not include an assumption of any one third party neutral witness. (i.e light with constant velocity). The notion "neutral witness"-center point, used only where it probably referred in it's first usage, in the name of a commonality, i.e. "spiritual fulfillment" - to the lessons of life, living, and the world.
A conceivable beginning of scientific pursuits -truths-probably had no such fine line of question as the vast complexities discerned today demand. Religion, superstition, belief are today taboo topics for science, yet science probably evolved from the contrasts conflict, and observation-truth seeking originating from the other. how could it not resemble it on one hand and not come to perpetual inherent conflicts on the other.
In history it is always how we spend our time as it is on an individual level, and our time is dominated by the instinctual natures and directions of a struggle towards an of-itself-ness in conquest of those factors that retain us from a forwards path(which I think can be in any direction what so ever, as long as existence within a certain radius defined from the struggle-i.e. men pushing back and forth against a wall, each other-gains in its' gratifications.
It is often difficult to distinguish those emotions and actions that originate as existing for- self properties-innate proclivities of the cascade of cyclic feedback and learning mechanisms (gears in the non- continuous form) and behavior from exceptional emotional judgments-(poor judgment)/(bad behavior)(maybe of a common state/attitude of contemporary society)-i.e.-the certain rights and lefts with respect to survival from natural mechanisms from which we acquire knowledge. Assimilation of positive evolutionary directions require (slowly) acquired wisdoms on the nature of change verses the additive brick laying logic of science and observation.
Conceptualization of change and time perplex mankind from his first thought, as he does not(and cannot)see all of nature.. In my own interpretation, we seem to come to a consensus that nature has a unifying concept to it and we can ask(claim) if this is so ..what is(would be?) the perceived difference in the nature of the world on in depth probing, assuming that we know of the world before we begin to question? The obvious answer is none. We simply do not perceive it from our vantage points and are constantly pointing way beyond for evidences asked of facts seemingly explainable only by deduction..intellectual inductions of the future, in the name of logical deduction.
If life propagates in a tree like manner, parent to child, then the world is a tree and can be no different.
This fact is beyond curiosity or test(what would be the seed of a unique tree..of everything if everything is a place of seeds and trees.
Yet( pushingly-as if wishing to bully nature to call the point) we repetitively return to this issue- make further divisions- yet we already know that the straight lines of logic are not the same as the real world when we seek to ban gene cloning, or demand Americans get their own internal businesses in order before they trespass afar, or ask for nuclear non-proliferation, or enforce auto emission controls, or try to conserve parks and wooded areas...
If the world has this unification, an underlying unique concept, maybe we are bored with it, we have exceeded logic; as the need to seek (a unity, known unity) originates in the past from life's needs(the needs always of the same known tree).
If one thinks of animals with a apparent greater sense in this issue-they do not know money-it's symbolism and meaning in substitute for food, shelter etc. An animal can not do this-test nature in this way ,his problem solving cannot invent or construct notions about distant places beyond where he survives -it is my opinion in this matter, that neither can(should) the problem solving of aware sober men(really be different from that of an animal in basic instinct). Given the existence of a unity, in what men first know of all things, there are not two unities. In what mankind knows of his seeking to seek and why he seeks-vs. what he defines to seek-he appears to be emotional-an enraged infant-a drunken gambler. The exact basics of the world can hold no attracting mystery, are at the demarcation line where the self define his life problems. ('If I cannot have both your money and mine(i.e. have two of everything not to exclude the world itself)).
What place then does science legally own in the affairs of mankind if it(science) is falsely applied to lay the bricks of society for this purpose-even to discover and define itself only to continue on the same line.
With respect to this, where in does lay the difference between men and animals if we are to proclaim that the existence of a spiritual nature to men gives them a separate place in the world? What does an innate unity of things have to do with the other living things we share the world with? That we do not know the evolution of animals-how are we different? I think we can extrapolate to the fact, that, of the definition of animal, an animal is no more or less an animal than would be the definition of an animal of himself -a container can define no more than its' contents, as the same for man. And together..? always container and contents. If our spirit and learning grow and change the container is changed. If the soul were to be defined as the composite of all of the possible choices of all of the possible paths, walked and learned, past to present, that as light rebounds and reflects past to present, our thinking souls are, just alone, this vast (infinite) number that also defines the container-a fluid, thinking, seeking, feeling assembly of all that is-that has rebounded to and from us, of all the paths walked. There in passed to us, are only tales of evolution and history in this process, which reflects (upon)our (emitting)lives, only, as they stand from past history to present. Are we digging up the world in a search for naught?
Have we walked past the important clues given to our witness ?..maybe we have a greater circumference to our containers than meets our eyes, impinges on our senses and feeling-but is this not how men grow narrow/callous and unready when opportunity presents itself.
This, I think, as the only description of evolution (emission- reflection); all knowing is dependant on first hand witness-hence, on the human and animal life that habitat the world along with each of us, as the unique and holy sacred witnesses to the lessons of life and breath-the only present means for each of our spiritual endurance. It is evident in the nature of mankind’s contradictions and conflicts, resolutions, his scientific religious questions, pursuits , categorizations, that the paramount notions have escaped our lives.
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Posted by: Marvin E. Kirsh | October 13, 2006 04:39 PM