The strange life and (alleged) death of “new” atheism

“New” atheism, the type of ascribed to Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al, began its short life (according to its Wikipedia entry as of the 12^th August, 2017) around 2006, when it is claimed the term was first coined. The writer/s of the Wikipedia article clearly doesn’t have a very good internet connection. Even a pretty cursory search of the web throws up abundant material demonstrating that the label has been around much longer. As for what is being labelled, even many atheists are unclear on what was really new about “new” atheism.

Let’s start with the label. Back in 1984 Robert Morey published “The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom” (he was not a supporter). But the term has a much older history than even that. A French Jesuit in the 1690’s wrote a book called “The New Atheism” against the philosopher Spinoza. In the 19^th century William James is reported to have used the term. Spinoza, Hegel, Nietzsche (all philosophers) probably thought they were up to something new, and would not be too troubled with the label atheist. Mind you, being philosophers, they’d probably want to embark on a long definitional discussion (of the sort that wouldn’t sell these days) and conduct extensive research. The intellectual attention span seems to have shortened considerably. Towards the end of the 19^th century, scientists like T.H. Huxley and Ernst Haeckel clearly fitted the mould of the scientifically educated and inspired atheism of Dawkins and Sam Harris. I’ve heard the term “new atheist” applied to them (and the other late 19^th century Darwinists), although I haven’t been able to track down its use in contemporary sources. However, it seems that neither the label, nor the thing labelled, is particularly new.

Some have argued that it was not so much the content of the New Atheists that was new and exciting, but it was their style (a classic example of style over substance then). It was the militancy, swagger and verbal dexterity of the likes of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens; their lack of respect for their theist interlocutors, and lack of deference for transparently fatuous arguments. Personally, I’ve always rather liked Richard Dawkins’ ability to turn a phrase. When it comes to his passion and skill in communicating science and its achievements, there’s much to admire. It’s when he wandered out of his area of expertise, and got on to the subject of religion, trying to smuggle his undoubted authority in the first realm into the second, he became less admirable (a view also echoed here). It’s not that he’s not entitled to anti-theist or more widely anti-religious views; nor is it that he’s not entitled to write and talk about them with a passion. It’s that when he does this, he has no special authority. Clearly the new atheists were observers of (some) religious practice and had strong views on the subject. But there was a lack of expertise on the issues they often tackled. Theologians, religious scholars and scholars of religion, and philosophers (including some who were by no means theists) pointed out this lack of expertise. But coming back to the issue of newness, in terms of the militancy and verbal skill of the “new” atheists, are the crop any more militant and skilful than Bertrand Russell (or a host of others from previous generations) in full flow?

It’s only fair to point out some atheists have contended that both the concept and the content of “New Atheism” is a straw man. Perhaps somewhat disconcerted by the naivety of some new atheist writing, some “old” atheists might be tempted to claim that “new” atheism is a bit of a theist hoax. But now another twist. As well as it’s disputed birth, and it’s somewhat ill-defined life, it now looks like its demise has been pronounced.

Throughout the internet, blogosphere and across the commentariat the question has been posed – is new atheism dead? In some cases death is pronounced with enthusiasm and comes as no surprise (eg Ed West in the Catholic Herald, “New Atheism is Dead”). In other cases (like here) its demise is perhaps tinged with more regret. For some the problem lies with the causes and views some of its prominent proponents have been linked with, although in the political sphere it has been called out for both right wing and left wing bias. The charge of misogyny has been levelled occasionally. A quick search will provide examples for anyone who’s interested, but this Phil Torres article provides an interesting starting point. Now again, a conspiracy theorist could claim that this is all some kind of theist plot. But the criticism is so wide ranging in terms of sources and content that this is scarcely sustainable. While I don’t want to appear overly gleeful, it is interesting that the new atheists do seem to be a bit friendless.

Perhaps it is because of their style after all. So very often the tone they adopted was one of disdain. But this seemed to spring from an almost wilful ignorance of their opponents various positions and arguments. Arguments for and against theism in particular and religion in general (particularly the organised sort) have flowed back and forth over a very long period. This longevity alone is suggestive that the issues at stake may be genuinely complex, and for all sorts of reasons. Of course if you pick the weakest caricature of the arguments you oppose, you’ll always be tempted to treat them with disdain. A starting assumption seemed to be that those of a religious persuasion were just so obviously stupid, that they deserved no kind of respect. Now it may be that there are things that are believed, which could count as religious, which are stupid. And there may well be religious people who are stupid, and who do and say stupid things. But it seemed as if the starting point for new atheists was that all religious views, and all religious people, were obviously stupid. This has no more traction as an argument than the contention that if I find a single stupid atheist, then atheism is clearly stupid. I have more respect for atheists than that, whether old or new. And its sheer unreasonableness probably did the new atheists no favours with a wide audience.

I admit that this may be perception as much as reality. If you were a theist on the end of, or an observer of, a typically robust new atheist critique, a sneer may have been detected where none was intended. If you were a fellow traveller with the alleged sneerer, you might just hear robust and triumphant argumentative thrusts. But given the friendlessness of new atheism, it would appear that more has been going on than the offending of sensitive theists.

Even if the death of “new” atheism has been somewhat exaggerated (to misquote Twain), a more respectful dialogue, one that is more comfortable with complexity and subtlety, and the need for hard thinking rather than just good put downs, would perhaps be a fitting legacy.

The Faith in Science

The blogosphere is a big and diverse place. There's all sorts of stuff out there (and here). One could spend one's life navigating it and responding to what one finds; there are things to enrage, engage or intrigue. I recently came across a blog post in the New Humanist blog written a while ago by Mark Lorch (Chemist and science communicator at the University of Hull) entitled "Can you be a scientist and have religious faith?". For obvious reasons this piqued my interest given that this is a question that seems to keep coming around, and is one that I've examined from time to time in my own humble corner of this vast landscape.

His post has an interesting starting point: "... I could never reconcile what I saw as a contradiction between the principles of the scientific method and faith in a supernatural god." Let us leave to one side the issue of whether "the scientific method" is real thing; Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar had his doubts (see his essay on "Induction and intuition in scientific thought", Pluto's Republic). Also of interest is his observation that, as a professional scientist in a University, he is surrounded by other scientists who have "religious faith". And not merely a formal or perfunctory commitment to religion. He's on about honest to goodness, fundamental, bible-believing type faith of the sort that really outrages the evangelical "new atheists" that Terry Eagelton refers to collectively as "Ditchkins". So here's some data indicating that I'm not particularly atypical and my views are not really out there (always a comforting thought). I'm not claiming that I'm typical, just that Christians who are "proper" scientists are not extinct or even on the endangered list (at least not yet). You would get quite a different impression form some quarters.

There were of course comments in the blog that were at first less welcome, if only because they seemed to betray a lack of thought and research. For instance: "Ultimately faith is the knowledge that something is true even though there is not evidence to support it...". There may be faith of this sort out there, but this is not the faith that the Bible writers call for, or that Christian believers exercise. Christian faith is a response to evidence. Yes it is a response that involves, at a certain point, a degree of trust, but that's no different to life in general and science in particular.

Starting with Francis Bacon, Lorch arrives at the conclusion that "without ever realising it, I too have a deeply-seated faith in my own (scientific) belief system." Glory be! Sense at last. Notwithstanding the problems with his definition of faith above,  I welcome his honesty about his own thought processes. The problem is, it's worse than he thinks (if faith being involved in science is a bad thing). One reason for his conclusion is the conviction that in science a thing called "induction" is involved. This appears to be a sound way of moving from observations/facts/results to new knowledge. But it turns out, no one really has an explanation for why it works when it works. But it does appear to work, so he's happy to stick with it, in the absence of convincing evidence. Hence, exercising faith. To be fair, I don't think this mysterious process of induction is why science works, and neither did Medawar (hence his essay on the subject). But there are other foundations on which science rests which we understand even less than "induction" and yet we're prepared to press on regardless. Take two examples: nature's uniformity and the principle of reproducibility.

I beaver away in my lab in Liverpool, collecting and analysing data, finding out stuff about vision and eye movement. Once I've completed a series of experiments, I write them up, and submit them to a scientific journal. The journal organises other scientists to review what I've written, there's usually a bit of back and forth, and eventually the journal agrees to publish my report of my endeavours. If we've all done our jobs, science creeps incrementally and imperceptibly forward, just a bit. We assume that what I've done in Liverpool could be done anywhere else (ie replicated) and as long as I've been honest and accurate) the result will be the same. This is because of the uniformity of nature. The same material and physical forces and processes that operate in my lab in Liverpool, operate in New York, Tokyo or Mumbai. But this uniformity, on which science rests, hasn't been established by some grand experiment, it just "is". It's assumed. But it's fundamental to the whole process. We take it as an article of faith.

And this business of reproducibility is interesting too. Now it turns out that you could replicate my experiments without too much difficulty. It would cost a little bit of money (but not too much because I'm a bit of a cheapskate), some time and a bit of skill. But nothing too taxing. Nevertheless, rather than do this, people are prepared to take on trust that I've done what I've said I've done, and the result are sound. So, rather than repeat my results, they build on them and do something slightly different and new, to make another small advance. But what about an experiment like the one that established the existence of the Higgs boson? That took billions of euros, thousands of scientists, and large chunks of continental Europe. Are we waiting until another Large Hadron Collider is built before we accept the result? No, we take CERN's results on trust. We exercise (reasonable) faith. And, all of this in the presence of what some in science are talking about as the reproducibility crisis; when this type of faith has been abused by the unscrupulous or occasionally outright fraudulent.

My intention is not to undermine science in any way. It's simply to pint our that like most other areas of life, faith is key to it, not incidental. So, a double standard is applied by those who would like to bash my Christian faith, and claim that on the basis of science I must be suffering from some kind of reason deficiency. It turns out I'm neither alone, nor am I deluded. Mark Lorch appears to agree.

Back to that chasm....

The Nature Editorial that I was reflecting on recently, prompted other responses published in the correspondence section of the journal itself. Firstly, Frank Nicolas' letter simply pointed out that all scientists adopt a "methodological naturalism" when doing science, and basically welcomed the new openness that the Editorial discussed. What was perhaps more interesting were the comments on the letter. In one it was stated:

"Where it is not incomprehensible this is an empty piece of philosophical maundering which should, and doubtless will be, widely ignored". 

A second commented: "Religion is by definition not open towards science, given that it ignores evidence (or actually the absence of it)..."

I didn't find the letter incomprehensible, and the philosophy wasn't empty. It was a fair statement of an approach many of us take in the lab. Even those of us committed to the belief that underpinning each instant in time, and at each point in space, it's the power of God that keeps the universe in existence (Hebrews 1:3), don't invoke this power to explain the processes we study. And the explanations we come up with don't compete with Hebrews 1. I study (among other things) psychological processes reflected in eye movement behaviour. If I invoke a mechanism like "behavioural inhibition" to explain an experimental finding, it doesn't mean that I'm denying that neurons in the brainstem gaze generating network weren't involved. I'm just operating at a different level of explanation. And as I can't measure the "power of His Word" in the lab (and don't seek to), I would never invoke it in the paper I eventually write on what I've been investigating. It forms part of the background that gives rise to my beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and activity. I would claim we all have such background (metaphysical) beliefs. It's just that I'm explicit about it, and know when (and when not to) mention them.

So in the lab, I'm as much a methodological naturalist as the next scientist. The problem comes when folk start hinting, implying or claiming that natural explanations (those couched in terms of what we can see, taste, touch, smell, measure) are the only type of explanations that count. This, I think, lies behind the response to Frank's letter. It's a form of metaphysical naturalism which, to be fair, is the default position of many scientists. However, it, itself, is not science, it's a metaphysical position, and it brings with it a history and set of attitudes. If you claim that only natural explanations apply to everything, that's a statement of the same sort as God upholds everything by His powerful word. This doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong (although clearly I believe that it is). But it is equally true that it's not necessarily right, even if lots of scientists say it, and even if lot's of them also think that it's the only way to approach science specifically and life more generally.

Those of us with a religious and philosophical turn of mind accept the difference between the methodological naturalism we adopt in the lab and our other beliefs. We're open to thinking about the interaction between the science we do in the lab, and the kind of intellectual procedures it involves, and our other beliefs and attitudes. I think about how science informs me about the world (the world that God made and sustains); I reflect on what it tells me about Him. I think about how Scripture applies to what I do in the lab. These are not contradictory processes, although they do occasionally result in a bit of tension. What's interesting about the second of the two comments above is the claim that "Religion is by definition not open towards science" - not by my definition mate! In fact this statement suggests to me a closed attitude toward insights that both philosophy and religion can offer to the scientist. And it suggests a blind spot about the writer's own philosophical presuppositions and commitments.  

And then there's the implication that somehow the scientist who is a believer can only be a believer by ignoring stuff. I've commented on issues around facts and faith elsewhere on this blog. Religious belief, at least in Christianity, is not irrational, it is the opposite. It's not about ignoring anything. You might not like the conclusions drawn from the evidence, but please don't claim that either evidence was not involved, that it was not weighed or that counter evidence was not considered.

It would appear that in the  minds of some then, there is indeed a chasm between science and religion. I invite the interested observer to investigate further to discover whether this is myth or reality; to be open to the evidence.

Can I be a Christian and…? The downfall of Tim Farron

We’ve had to cope with yet more tragedy in recent days. After terror attacks in Manchester and London, now the news of massive loss of life in a tower block fire. But another, seeminly more trivial event, caught my attention on Tuesday evening – the resignation of Tim Farron as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. At the outset of the general election campaign, he was persistently and specifically questioned about an issue not in his party’s election manifesto, and not likely to feature in upcoming legislation. The issue of whether he thought “gay sex” was a sin, became sport for the media and a distraction to his party’s campaign. It was partly on the media’s radar because he is known to be a Christian (in the confessional as opposed to the ethnic sense), and while his voting record on LGBTIx issues is fairly consistent, he abstained on a final vote on the Same Sex Marriage Bill in 2013 (having voted consistently for the legislation up to that point), a decision he later said he regretted. The reaction to both his resignation and his resignation speech is instructive.

Some have gloated and some have provided a more nuanced commentary. On one hand it’s claimed we have seen prejudice and medievalism driven from the public sphere, on the other that tolerance and liberalism are now proven to be in decline rather than in the ascendancy. Before throwing in my tuppence worth, I’ll make clear my own perspective and commitments.

I too am a Christian - a term that needs further qualification. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Bible, which I take to be the Word of God. I am convinced the Bible is both an ordinary and an extraordinary book. It’s ordinary in that it is composed of words, and has to be read and interpreted like any other book. It’s extraordinary in that these words are the means by which the God who is real communicates to 21^st century men and women. As with all words, the ones in my English translation of the Bible have to be interpreted, and that entails a degree of work and commitment on my part. Unlike the words in any other book, behind and within the words in my Bible, is the Living God.  He is not the words, and the words are not Him, but He communicates by means of them. Words can be misinterpreted of course. When I do that with the Bible, it is because I am limited and fallible, and sometimes just plain lazy. That is my failure, not God’s. All of this leaves room for disagreement among followers of Jesus and there are some areas of “twilight” in what Scripture says and what Scripture means. But, to quote Dr Johnston, the fact that there is twilight doesn’t mean I can’t tell night from day.

All of this matters because it is words, and partly Bible words, that contributed to Tim Farron’s downfall. I’m clear that God in His word is clear on matters such as human sexual behaviour and marriage. The views that I hold, based on a rational reading of Scripture, used to be the majority view, and were the consensus view on such matters for centuries. But no longer; I am now in a minority. It’s unclear the extent to which Tim and I agree on what the Bible teaches on these issues. I don’t know him personally, and have no inclination to speculate. But, despite many of his public statements, his voting record in parliament and his work on LGBTI issues in the Liberal Democrat party, the commentariat appear to assume that he thinks certain things, and on the basis of this assumed pattern of thought, he has been stalked, outed, criticised and condemned.

David Laws, not a stranger to controversy and the odd political resignation himself, was revealing in his article on the topic: ..”you cannot be a leader of a liberal party while holding fundamentally illiberal and prejudiced views". Never mind Farron’s voting record and tireless party work. Laws continued that the LD election campaign had been “undermined by the outdated opinions and views which Tim clearly holds”. It appears from this article that Mr Laws thinks that even if I accept that the law should treat he and I equally, I am not entitled to even think (let alone argue) that he or anyone else is immoral on the basis of my “outdated” and “irrational” beliefs. Exactly which methods should be used to expose my beliefs (if I should I keep them to myself) or to what extent I should be penalised for believing stuff he finds offensive, or whether I should be coerced to think differently – all this remains unsaid and unclear. Re-education camps perhaps? Sounds a bit illiberal to me.

The open and tolerant society that allowed campaigners to overturn the consensus view on legislation relating to issues like homosexuality and abortion was rooted in and shaped by a Biblically informed world view. It appears as society moves ever further away from this, I’m not even to be allowed to think differently from the new consensus, never mind to debate or campaign for change in a different direction. Liberalism apparently has its limits.

So much about politics, political leadership and illiberalism. But occasionally, I hear the question asked: is it possible to be a Christian and a scientist? After all, to be a Christian one has to be irrational. You have to believe stuff against reason, or at least not think too carefully about it. There are irrational beliefs (ie beliefs held either without evidence or in the teeth of evidence). But I am a Christian because having weighed the evidence and found it compelling, I have responded to it. Or not so much responded to it, but to Him. Because Christianity is at root a relationship with a person, not an information processing exercise. And having become a Christian, everything (including reason) is involved in being a Christian. And being a Christian, one exciting way of understanding the world around me, is to use the methods of science. In doing that, all I am doing is further exploring what ultimately God has done and is doing. Where others assert conflict, I find that these are more apparent than real. No choice between science and scripture is necessary. In happily being a Christian and a scientist, I’m doing nothing new, and I'm not alone. I’m following in a long and distinguished line.   

Hubris and its rewards

The dust is beginning to settle but it's unclear what the outlook is. We had an unexpected outcome to the general election in 2015. Then we had the Brexit result. That was closely followed by the Trump election in the US. Now punditry has taken  another kicking in Thursday's general election. Even at the end of the campaign the received wisdom pointed to a clear Conservative victory. Things hadn't entirely gone their way, but an overall majority, probably increased from what they achieved in 2015, was still expected. Then came the exit poll. We were back in hung parliament territory with no party holding an overall majority. And that's how it panned out.

It turned out that policy discussion trumped personal attacks, the young turned up and voted, and the campaign mattered. To a certain degree earnestness, consistency and principles, almost overthrew cynicism, cash, messaging and manipulation.

To an ordinary voter (ie me), it looks as though the Tories simply thought they had it in the bag and concluded they didn't have to try too hard. They didn't provide a clear and properly costed explanation of what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, and how they wanted to do it. They went with soundbites and slogans (remember "strong and stable"?). At least Labour had a stab at a proper manifesto. They had a go at the numbers. They attacked the Government's record and proposed a clear alternative. But instead of engagement we got evasion. The Prime Minister's no-show at the leader's debate, while completely understandable, came to symbolise that evasion. And her performance at the leaders' question time was at times patronising. I can only assume the Tories thought that the election was done and dusted; all they had to do was keep their heads down (or hidden away), not make mistakes, and all would be well. But then came the mistakes with important policies poorly constructed and explained, and in one case quickly amended mid-campaign.

On the opposition side there were ideas to be critiqued and attacked. There was a record (although not a government record) to be scrutinised, and criticised without smears. But they just didn't engage. They were determined to play the man and not the ball, and tried to reduce the whole game not so much to a game of two halves, but a game of two centre-halves. The British parliamentary system is a team game. But the Tories reduced it to I, me, my. And the I in question proved to be less capable than a lot of us had thought. Why? How?

Hubris is that form of pride that contains the seeds of its own downfall. Not all pride leads to a downfall, but hubris does. Its the claim of the boxer to be the greatest before he's felled by an uppercut in the fifth round. It's the cynicism of the politician, who's already moving on to "more important matters" before a vote is counted. Post Brexit, post Trump, you'd think they would have learned their lesson. Apparently not.

Actually the issues facing the electorate at this election were complex and profound. They were hardly aired at all. We were badly served. The result is a weakened government with an unclear mandate. But, if the politicians learn that ideas and worked out policy, explained in grown up terms, are what the electorate is after, then it won't have been a complete waste.

It is all a reminder (again) of the wider world and bigger issues, that life throws up. The judgements to be made and the evidence to be considered in deciding whether to place my "x" against a name, and which name to place it against, were quite different to what I do in my day job. But what is equally true is that it's into exactly this kind of situation that Scripture speaks. From the messiness of human lives lived out as worked examples, some good, some bad, lessons are to be learned. And from the God who ultimately creates and sustains those lives, and who calls us to live them in a particular way, the standard is set. And He has been crystal clear on the subject of hubris: "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble".

Of peacock tears, cows and global warming

First of all, a potential fake news alert. A story concerning retiring judge Mahesh Chandra Sharma of the Rajasthan State High Court went viral this week. Some of the reported quotations attributed to said judge follow:

“The peacock is a lifelong celibate. It never has sex with the peahen. The peahen gets pregnant after swallowing the tears of the peacock.”

 “(Mother cow) is the only animal that inhales as well as exhales oxygen.”

 “Cow urine has the miraculous property of destroying any kind of germs. It provides strength to mind and heart. It stops ageing,” he said, adding that its horns “acquire cosmic energy“.

 “Houses plastered with cow dung are safe from radio waves.”

The reporting of these comments provoked a bit of an international media storm, well divorced from the initial context. The judge was hearing a case involving the care of cows in government shelters. Not a big issue you might think. But you would only think that if you were not an Indian Hindu, to whom cows, their status and treatment, matter a whole lot more than to your average Westerner. While as far as I can see the judge exists and said these things, a bit of care still has to be taken in interpreting the comments. After all, the original judgement was handed down in Hindi. That said, and taking them at face value, it’s a reminder that there are people and places that have been bypassed by a couple of centuries of scientific progress.

Ignorance is neither innocent nor harmless. It also has a close cousin – denialism. Particularly within healthcare and medicine, there are a number of denial movements which have either cost, are costing or will cost lives. HIV denialism took root in South Africa for a while, and with political support from former president Thabo Mbeki, delayed the introduction of antiretroviral treatment. According to a study by Chigwedere et al (2008)¹, that delay may have cost 300,000 lives. Currently, lives are being lost because of the activity of the anti-vaccines movement. Parents are being persuaded not to have their children vaccinated, whether against measles in the US and Europe, or polio in Africa and parts of the sub-continent, in the face of scientific evidence and consensus. This all takes on a further worrying complexion when the deniers team up with purveyors of snake oil and sugar water, and seek to provide “alternative” remedies, usually at a profit. Like alternative facts, alternative remedies rarely have any positive effects.

In the West what is interesting is that this decline in the public traction that scientific evidence seems to have, at least in some quarters, parallels the decline in the influence of Biblical Christianity, or more particularly the values that flow from it. Arguments have raged for a while about the influence of these values on the rise of science. For all that the conflict metaphor has come to dominate at least the popular conception of the relationship between science and Christianity, it was in “Christian” Europe that the modern scientific enterprise emerged, having faltered in the Muslim world after a good start. Among others Hooykaas² claimed that this was no accident. Perhaps we’re now in a position to begin observing what happens as nature becomes remythologised (seemingly a problem in Rajasthan) and a personal commitment to truth is devalued.

In addition, this week saw international ructions as result of President Trump announcing that the US would pull out of the Paris climate change agreement. This is further evidence of the success of a denial movement, partly motivated by commercial and industrial interests. Again there’s a weight of scientific evidence to be processed, not all of which is unequivocal. Few of us have either the expertise, the time or the inclination to examine the evidence for ourselves and therefore remain relatively ignorant of it. And there’s a small, but apparently influential group of dissidents, who reject both the scientific and the current political consensus. They cite alternative evidence, or provide alternative interpretations of the evidence. And of course, given our relative ignorance, we can fall prey to their efforts. Sometimes, we’re happy to cooperate in this if it supports our prejudices, or looks like it’s in our local, personal, narrow economic self-interest.

Of course, even if the science were 100% clear on one side of the argument (it’s probably more like 95%), in areas where political action is required, there are other considerations that have to come into play. History, economics, fairness and more besides go into making political decisions. That said, the evidence that humanity is warming the planet in a damaging way, while complicated, is fairly compelling.  If the consensus is wrong, then lots of money will be spent to achieve ends that while probably useful we could equally well live without. But if the consensus is right, but proper action is undermined by the deniers, then the consequences will be catastrophic in some places, grim in many others and expensive everywhere. But of course, because the consequences will unfold over a long period of time, the deniers will be long gone.

Maybe the truth of the matter is that ignorance is never bliss. But the only alternative is hard work educating the next generation and for that matter hard work informing ourselves.

1.       Chigwedere P et al (2008) Estimating the lost benefits of antiretroviral drug use in South Africa. J. Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 49(4):410-5. [Link]

2.       Hooykaas R (1972) Religion and the rise of modern science. Scottish Academic Press.

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.