Science and religion: compatibility and conflict

Religion has been on the losing side of a prolonged conflict with the secular world for the past two centuries. However, since the September 11 attacks by Muslim terrorists at the World Trade Center, religious terrorism has been regarded as the most dangerous threat to the Western world since the Soviet Union. Countless political leaders, scholars, and journalists criticized the aggressive Islamic fundamentalist doctrines which guided these Jihadist warriors into their suicide missions.

Many intellectuals drew parallels between the purification mission of Islamic fundamentalists and the apocalyptic obsessions of the U.S.'s own fundamentalist evangelicals, some of which were in important government office. Indeed, it appeared that religious fundamentalists from Christianity, Islam, and Judaism had hijacked important government offices, possibly bringing about the decline of Western Civilization into another Dark Age and reversing the tremendous gains made by the intellectuals and scientists of the Western World.

Review of Sources

The essays below all involve a science-religion dispute of some sort but focus on different aspects of it. Ruse, Demere/Walsh and Glynn all address the most controversial recent debate in the science-religion conflict: the validity and value of Creationism as a scientific theory. Begley addresses a much more abstract issue which is the convergence of science and religion in the nature of their inquiries. Finally, Zindler addresses the effect of Evangelical Christian doctrine on its adherents' decisions by analyzing the many follies of former President George W. Bush.

a. Michael Ruse -- Evolution and Creationism Both Contribute to Human Understanding

Ruse argues that science and religion, through constructive dialogue, could moderate the excesses of each other. Religion can moderate the hubris of scientific ambition and science can explain the technical workings of the universe. His most compelling piece of support in favor of Religion is Augustine's theory of creation, the metaphor of God planting seeds which were to grow living beings and populate the Earth. Evolutionism and Creationism are possibly compatible as he suggested with his reference to Augustine's "seed" metaphor.

b. Sharon Begley -- Both Religion and Science Can Reveal Life

Begley argues that science has reached the point where it is starting to ask the same questions that religion has been asking for millennia. Some areas of science have encountered phenomena for which they do not have the tools to explain, such as Einstein's discovery of the "spooky" processes of particles in the field of Quantum Mechanics. These discoveries alarm scientists because they defy, or at least complicate, many fundamental laws of the universe long considered absolute by the scientific community. Conversely, unexpected discoveries in the fields of astronomy and cosmology are helping us to make sense of our existence in the universe, providing valuable "solace and support" in an increasingly threatening universe.

c. Frank R. Zindler -- Religion Harms America

Zindler argues that Religion is harming America through the hand of George Bush, who is the epitome of the Evangelical Christian and who just happens to be President of the United States of America. Williams credits Evangelical Christianity as the source of George Bush's ignorance of science, which leads him to make decisions that damage the environment and stifle potentially groundbreaking medical research. She also credits the apocalyptic worldview expounded by Evangelical Christianity for his aggressive, destructive foreign policies. Unlike many other critics of George Bush, Zindler attributes George Bush's mistakes not to ill will or corruption, but to the ignorance of science instilled in him by the cocksure doctrines of Evangelical Christianity.

d. Patrick Glynn -- Creationism Should Be Taught Alongside Evolution

Patrick Glynn argues that removing Creationism from the school curriculum would stifle critical thinking. Glynn observes that dogmatic Evolution proponents make up the bulk of the anti-Creationism movement, who have repeatedly summoned the Constitution's separation of Church and State in order to keep Creationism out of public schools. He characterizes their legal wrangling as somewhat cowardly and evasive of the genuine scientific issues at hand. To prove these scientific disputes, Glynn cites observations from the field of Astrophysicists that the make-up of the cosmos is so perfectly suited to the sustenance of life that it almost has to have been designed. He also cites an insight gained from the application of Information Theory to Molecular Biology, that DNA is essentially information coded in matter, asking where such a sophisticated message could come from. Glynn concludes that fundamentalists exist not only in the Creationism Camp, but in the Evolutionism camp as well, regretting the unfortunate irony that Evolutionism Fundamentalists are attempting to suffocate constructive dialogue in much the same way Catholic Priests did in the past.

e. Thomas Demere and Steve Walsh -- Creationism Should Not Be Taught In Public Schools

Demere and Walsh argue that teaching a non-disprovable theory like Creationism would further weaken the already lagging Scientific literacy of American students. Demere and Walsh state that for something to be considered Science, it must depend on rational evidence and observation of natural events. Demere and Walsh conclude that the theory of Creationism does not meet this standard because it is supported only by religious texts and cannot be disproved on its own terms.

Conclusion

Most Personally Appealing Position

Regarding the broader relationship between Science and Religion, I agree most with Ruse, who suggests that a more abstract conception of Creationism such as St. Augustine's would not be completely incompatible with evolution theory. Ruse emphasizes the openness and expansiveness of Creationism. By citing St. Augustine's conception of God as planting seeds instead of creating man and woman, he distances Creationism from the old, discredited notions of God as an old bearded man in the sky literally created the first man and woman.

Ruse, however, fails to mention the simplest proof that the two theories are not incompatible: they do not attempt to explain the same things. Creationism is concerned with the ultimate origin of life whereas evolutionary theory only attempts to describe the process of development among species through time. They deal with different chapters of the human story. Accordingly, they are not incompatible; they are merely incongruent.

Strongest Position

Although I agree most with the spirit of Ruse's essay, I believe that Demere and Walsh have the strongest position because their arguments are well-organized, logical, and direct. Demere and Walsh make two distinct but mutually supportive arguments: that Creationism is not valid science and that teaching invalid science in science class will hinder the scientific literacy of students.

Though the arguments support each other, they are not entirely dependent on each other. Thus, the failure of one argument does not jeopardize the integrity of the other. In my case, I was skeptical of their second argument because I believe that America's lagging scientific literacy has much less to do with curriculum content than with infrastructure and motivation. However, I am still persuaded by their first argument that Creationism does not meet the methodological standards of science for the very reasons they stated: it lacks a means of verification and its claims, by their very nature, could never be disproven.