Not “vs” but “and” (so get over it).

I still occasionally come across talks entitled (to give but one example) “Religion vs Science: Can the two coexist?”; as of writing, the YouTube snippet of this lecture I stumbled upon had racked up 1.2M views. This title is fairly typical of a way of talking about science (somehow defined) and religion (somehow defined) that sees them as typically and inevitably in conflict. In its strongest form this conflict thesis is ahistorical (and in some cases anti-historical) taking this to be a steady state. It is the way things are now, and essentially the way they have always been, and it is the way they must always be. In its weaker forms there is often some acceptance that while this may not have been the way things were at some time in the past, the relationship inevitably developed into one of conflict and conflict is now the only possible way to describe the interaction of science and religion (or faith) by anyone who is in any sense mature in their thinking. This is so misconceived that it is difficult to know where to begin in refuting it. But let’s begin at an obvious place which will come as no surprise to any regular reader of these posts (you know who you are!).

The idea of an inevitable clash has been constantly undermined by the large numbers of serious people who, both now and in the past, have happily combined both a commitment to science (some at very exalted levels) and religion, specifically Christianity. My suspicion is that if you were familiar with Indian science you would find devout Hindus who were scientists, and in other parts of the world devout Muslims, similarly active in science. But I will stick with what I know best, and that form of religion that arguably played a vital role in the emergence of what we might call the experimental sciences. Because, as it happens, I am one such example.

I confess that during my career I was never particularly publicly prominent, I never chaired august scientific institutions, I influenced not one decision of national or international scientific public policy. But I was clearly a professional scientist, trained the way scientists are trained (a first degree in Physiology, PhD in Neurobiology, various postdoctoral jobs in other people’s labs), did all the things scientists do (as evidenced by the expected publications, many of which can be search for on the web and are open access), progressing as scientists progresses (I won a Welcome Trust Vision Research Fellowship earlyish in my career, set up my own lab, subsequently obtained substantive University posts, was a trainer of other doctoral scientists, etc). Yet I am also a Christian, and of kind some find to be most objectionable, variously labelled fundamentalist, evangelical, Bible-bashing and so on. It is true that occasionally a few other scientists tried to convince me of some basic contradiction between the two designations “scientist” and “Christian”. But a moment’s pause always demonstrated that the problem was with their definitions and modes of thought. Usually either their understanding of what science is and how it works was lacking (a surprisingly frequent occurrence even among scientists), or their familiarity with Biblical Christianity was low or non-existent. Caricatures of both science and Christianity are not hard to find and with them apparent contradictions and conflicts. But on closer inspection these turn out to be more apparent than real.

Note that I am not making the reverse mistake of claiming that it is impossible to find some who say that they personally find that there is a conflict between science and Christianity (like the lecturer mentioned at the outset), or that there are no examples of those who were “keen Christians” who report “losing their faith” because of science. What I am claiming is that there is ample evidence that this is neither necessary nor inevitable, and that I, with others, constitute that evidence. Because I have always worked in universities, I have always lived in University towns, and worshipped in churches found in such places. So it is perhaps not a surprise that there were always others around, who were educated to a similar level in science (although not always working as professional scientists) who like me found no obvious conflict in our personal thinking. There might be parts of the country where such creatures are thin on the ground. But I am neither rare or special. In my current church (which is admittedly large by UK standards, and is in a city with several universities) I can think of several science PhDs, across disciplines. Such is the contemporary scene I survey. But the reality is there have always been those who quite happily combine science and faith, without compromising either.

The historical situation is perhaps even clearer than either my personal case or the more general contemporary picture. This is slightly more contested ground, but those doing most of the contesting are often ignorant (sometimes wilfully so) of the actual history. Professional science as we know it today is a 19^th century development, but it emerged from 17^th century political, religious and philosophical ferments. Of particular interest are some of the key early players, particularly those who championed “experimental”, as opposed to “rational”, science. Experimental science in England (often called natural philosophy at the time) was actively promoted by such figures as Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), leading (at the time of the restoration of the Monarchy) to the establishment of The Royal Society of London in 1662. What is interesting about Bacon, and some of his acolytes like Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600-1662), is not merely their Christian sympathies, but the distinctly Puritan and Calvinistic framework that they operated within. This was even detectable in later characters like Robert Boyle, John Locke and even Isaac Newton (although Newton was famously heterodox in his theology). It was not merely that many of these men were shaped and educated in a world dominated by Protestant Christianity; many were themselves ardent believers (although by no means always Puritans), who saw in science as much as a theological exercise as anything else. Those named are not isolated examples; they could be multiplied. No conflict here then, at this early stage (at least not between science and religious belief).

There is another interesting historical example of peaceful coexistence worth noting: “The Declaration of Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences”, 1864/5. The date is significant. Signed by 717, including 66 Fellows of the Royal Society, this was a response to the furore that had raged following the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in 1859. The Declaration made clear that the signatories regretted “..that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our own times into … casting doubt upon the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures”. This made no sense, because “physical science is not complete” (nor it might be added is our understanding of God’s revealed truth). Contradictions between science and the Bible should be left “side by side”, and ultimately would be reconcilable because there is only one world, and ultimately one source of truth (ie God). If (or when) we find contradictions between scientific and Biblical views, the problem is likely to be in either the evidence (which is only ever partial) or our interpretation of the evidence (which can be no more perfect than we are). But the wider point to be made here is that at a key juncture in the 19^th century, the notion that there was a necessary conflict between the two, was by no means the only, or perhaps even a majority view among scientists.

So can the two, science and religion (or faith, or belief) coexist? Personal, contemporary and historical considerations suggest that they have, they are, they can and they will. 

Scientism

If “new atheism” (NA) is, if not dead, perhaps terminally ill, then one of the contributory factors to its demise is the scrutiny that its supporting doctrines have come under. Whether cause or consequence, NA has always been closely linked with “scientism”. Scientism is not science, does not work in the same way as science, and does not (or should not) have the same authority as science. A bit like NA itself, it’s not new; it has probably been around in one form or another as long as science itself. But it really began to emerge in the late 19^th century with the desire of some in science to paint the only possible relationship between science and other disciplines, or between science and religious faith, as a war in which there had to be a winner and a loser. It kicked around in the background for a while, probably pooped up in many undergraduate science courses, and came to public prominence more recently as a supporting pillar of NA.

What is it? Definitions abound, but at its heart it’s an understandable (and now familiar) view. The only truth that counts is scientific truth, and therefore the scientific method is the only means of discovering truth. A series of classic statements can be found in Peter Atkins short essay “Science as truth” published in in 1995. Speaking of science, Atkins claims that “There appear to be no bounds to its competence… This claim of universal competence may seem arrogant, but it appears to be justified.” All religion (grouped with studies of the paranormal) is dismissed as an “obscurantist pursuit”. Science is the “greatest of humanity’s intellectual achievements”; in contrast he thinks it a defensible proposition that “no philosopher has helped to elucidate nature”! I commenced my own scientific journey in 1979 when I began my science degree at the University of Glasgow. There were certainly some lecturers to us first-year biology students who weren’t backward at dropping such sentiments into their lectures. I now suspect that this was because their own historical and philosophical education was sadly lacking. As student, I found such views baffling; as a scientist, more than thirty years Iater I find them embarrassing.

There have been and are lots of responses to scientism. Some have come from those of a theological disposition. I rather like John Polkinghorne’s comment on scientism (in “Theology in the Context of Science, p46), that it is “the rash and implausible claim that science tells us all that is worth knowing, or even that could ever be known. Embracing that belief is to take an arid and dreary view of reality..” . Polkinghorne writes as a theologian and former (distinguished) physicist. For a wide ranging and eloquent critique from a scientist’s standpoint, read Austin Hughes’ “The Folly of Scientism”. Hughes writes for more than just the sake of an argument. He has a real concern that scientism’s overreach will eventually cause science big problems: “Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole.” With contemporary attacks on expertise ringing in our ears, and with science now worrying within about the reproducibility crisis, I think he’s right to be concerned.  

Part of Hughes’ case is that philosophers are far from innocent when it comes to the scientism. Some schools of philosophy provided a major impetus to it (ie the logical positivists), while others colluded in its rise. It always bemused me that 19^th century theology gave up the tussle so easily. But philosophy being philosophy, scientism didn’t have it entirely its own way. At least now there does seem to be something of a fight back going on whether it’s Roger Scruton’s approach from art history, or Peter Hacker’s more analytical analytical critique.  

To my non-philosophical mind, many of those objecting to scientism seem to be united in a common reaction to the ignorance of those who promulgate scientism. This is a version of the disdain for other approaches that has been so much a part of NA. From their different perspectives, scientism’s critics have pointed out that it often derides and dismisses ideas that are never fully defined or fairly discussed. Some have objected to its selective memory when it comes to the history of science itself. Others have pointed out that it has a habit of blundering to other areas of academic endeavour, oblivious to important concepts and developments, constructing weak arguments and reaching fallacious conclusions. Particularly in popular accounts, this leads to a series of illusory battles against straw men, which of course, are convincingly won.  

It’s always struck me that this is something that often marks NA’s attacks on religious belief. Of course if you take the very weakest form of an argument it will be easy to defeat it. Having defeated the weakest form, it’s a short step to the claim that all arguments of that type are also therefore defeated. Showing that diverse beliefs in fairies, Santa Claus and large lizards controlling earth from the moon are irrational is not likely to be that relevant to debunking beliefs in well attested and evidenced ancient events that believers claim to have transformative power today. Such debunking may be possible, but it was always likely to take much more careful work than many in NA were apparently able or inclined to do. And the sheer logical inappropriateness of the natural science to do this work, was clearly lost on them.

As with the reported death of NA, it’s unclear to me what the fate of scientism will be. As Hughes argued, its fate will likely have important effects on science itself. As a scientist, I’m committed to the scientific endeavour, and think that within its area of competence science offers the best way to answer certain types of questions. But it can’t answer every type of question. For that we need the tools of philosophy, history, anthropology and the rest. And for that most important type of question (the why rather than the how)? If I were you I’d turn to Scripture rather than scientism (or even science).  

A chasm … that cannot be bridged?

These days, not being a cosmologist, materials scientist or molecular biologist, the only bits of “Nature” I read with any expectation of understanding are the editorial, news and comments sections (although this blog post points to an exception). Commenting on a planned meeting between a group of families affected by Huntington’s disease and the Pope, the following sentence from this week’s editorial caught my eye: “There is a chasm between religion and science that cannot be bridged”. And it was further stated that it is the Vatican’s traditional philosophy that “the scientific method cannot deliver the full truth about the world” (Nature Editorial, 18^th May 2017, 545:265). Hmm. Where to start?

Let’s start with the assertion of the existence of this unbridgeable chasm. Note that it is an assertion rather than the conclusion of a carefully constructed argument, or a hypothesis supported by any kind of evidence. It is not an assertion that would be have been supported by pioneers like Kepler, Newton, Boyle or Faraday or for that matter contemporary scientists such as Francis Collins, John Gurdon or Bill Newsome (do a web search on the names if they’re unfamiliar). Now of course all of these folk could be just plain wrong. The fact that they are likely to reject a proposition does not make it untrue. But with all due respect to the Nature leader writer who asserted the existence of the chasm in the first place, she (or he), while having a background in science is unlikely to have the experience and insight of those listed above. For my own part, I don’t claim any great insight either. But I am a scientist and I don’t accept that such a chasm either must exist, or does exist in any meaningful way.

What is probably rearing its head here is the conflict metaphor for the relationship between science and religion. This is the notion that science and religion compete for the same explanatory territory, but do so in fundamentally different ways, with different conclusions and therefore inevitable conflict. It’s a fight with a winner and a loser. Actually, some claim that the fight concluded some time ago, with science the clear winner, and the obscurantist forces of religion decisively routed and driven from the field. These notions, while they have been around for a while, are more recent than you might think.  Colin Russel, the historian of science, argues that the conflict metaphor was pushed as part of deliberate campaign by the likes of T.H Huxley in the second half of the 19^th Century (see Russell's excellent “Cross-currents” for a discussion). Huxley, along with a relatively small group of fellow belligerents interpreted the history of science up to that point as a fight with religion; since then others have happily promulgated the same view. But both in Huxley’s own day, and today, this was only one way to see the relationship between religion and science.

Science has actually often attracted those who are committed to God’s revelation in His book (the Bible), who also wish to study his handiwork in the created order using science as a tool. There are occasionally tensions between the two, but by and large the book of God’s words, and the book of God’s works complement each other. Indeed there is often an interplay between the two. And where the tensions look more like contradictions, these are often to do with the fallibility of our science or our theology. Interestingly, from the outside, the tensions often look a lot worse than they are. So an atheist scientist, with no great interest in Scripture, might misquote and misapply Scripture to claim a major problem where none exists. It is equally possible to conceive of scientifically uneducated and uninterested believers claiming that some scientific discovery has to be rejected because of an apparent contradiction with the Bible. In both cases, a proper understanding of both the Scripture and the Science often dissolves the “contradiction”. So where is the chasm? There isn’t one.

Occasionally those who are scientists and believers (while I mainly mean Christian believers, the same applies to others) are accused of thinking in one way in the lab and in another way at worship and of keeping these two areas of thought separate.  And I don’t deny that I’ve come across this phenomenon, although not for a while, and not usually on the part of professional scientists. But it’s neither necessary, nor is it particularly healthy; and I reckon this it’s not sustainable in the longer term. I’m the same person whether I’m trying to work out why we get multimodal distributions of fast eye movement latency (the subject of a paper that I hope will appear soon) or why Jonah so misunderstood the God who called him to go and preach in Nineveh. Rationality is required in both cases to make progress. If pushed, and you asked me which of these two puzzles is most important to me, I’d say the later. But for the following reason:  science is what I do; my faith is about who I am. As a professional scientist, one day I’ll retire and put away my eye tracker. But I won’t be retiring as a Christian. This is why my faith (by which I mean the content of belief rather than the act of believing) is more important to me than my science. And the science is for now; faith is for eternity.

This brings me to one of the important distinctions between science and (Christian) faith. John Polkinghorne (originally a particle physicist, but who then trained for the ministry and became a theologian) wrote “Many scientists are both wistful and wary in their attitude towards religion. They can see that science’s story is not sufficient by itself to give a satisfying account of the multi-layered reality of the world (Theology in the Context of Science, p84)”. Science’s success stems from carving off bits of the universe that it can get to grips with. But it is a mistake to insist that this is all there is, or that this is the only kind of stuff that matters. It’s folly to believe that scientific explanations are the only ones that a true or valid. While a pigment chemist and colour psychophysicist could legitimately tell you a lot of interesting things about the Mona Lisa, that’s not all there is to say on the subject. And not all of the pertinent information you would need to “understand” the Mona Lisa  is scientific information.

So it’s not just the Vatican that thinks that the scientific method can’t deliver the “full truth” about the world. There are many scientists, including many non-religious ones, who believe this too. Certainly, this one does.