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Scientists & God
New York Times has a good longish article about scientists and their relationship to religion. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, so I thought I’d break the discussion into sections. Their article has a great opening hook:
At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: “Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?”
Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. “No!” declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals.
Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, “this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race.”
Anyway, what do you think: belief in God incompatible with science? I have a lot to say on the subject, but you go first.
UPDATE!
Here’s the URL, sorry! I was rushing out the door before…
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:16 pm
linkee-poo?
absolutely not! i think it’s so so silly that this is even an issue to us. i love science! i love the space program, i love quantum physics and chaos theory. but, all of that stuff is trying to figure out who made the house and why by thoroughly investigating the nails and planks. like, okay, this nail is made from iron and nickel, and this wall was made of oak planks, but why was the danged house built in the first place? did those planks somehow grow up around iron and nickel deposits that randomly appeared in just such a configuration?
i know a lot of talk at the moment concerns intelligent design, and i know a lot of otherwise open people who can’t hear that phrase without erupting into fits of apoplexy and getting all sweaty. i also agree that id probably shouldn’t be taught alongside traditional science ’cause it’s at odds with the scientific process (but if you think this is the biggest problem with public education, you haven’t been to school in a looong time). as an interesting theory though, i think id has a lot of merit! why not allow it to be taught as another option in schools? not in science classes, but maybe as an elective?
that hauptman dude is one arrogant bastard. of course, i haven’t won any nobel prizes, so who am i to talk?
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:21 pm
It’s a loaded question. A god is a male, metaphysical, human-like entity that has power over humans. God with a capital G is an all-powerful, all-ruling, male god. Which god are they talking about? Zeus, Vishnu, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Crom?
I think it’s unscientific to believe in any specific dogma, whether it’s a religious belief or a scientific theory. All models are wrong. Science means you are open to believe anything, without emotional hang-ups, if that thing can be demonstrated as true. Once you dogmatically believe in any model, which is by definition wrong, you close your mind to the actual truth.
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:28 pm
God is a concrete, specific idea. Whether God does or does not exist is not a question that inherently exists in nature. The burden of proof is on those who claim that God exists. Ancient texts don’t prove it, and they don’t put the burden of proof on the skeptics.
If you believe that science is simply a discipline that has its own arbitrary rules, you can believe whatever you want to. But if you believe that science is a powerful way of accessing external, objective truth, as opposed to whatever internal, subjective truths you are interested in (such as those that are much discussed on this blog), indeed, if you believe that science is the best and most powerful method we have of accessing objective truth, then God must be regarded as a matter of pure faith, something which is not specifically indicated by evidence.
As for the holy grail realm of internal, subjective truth, there isn’t a lot that science can accomplish. But there certainly is a lot of discourse about it, isn’t there!
August 23rd, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Oh yeah, I disagree with the guy’s statement that “belief in supernatural” is incompatible with good science. I think quantum physics blows that out of the water. I think just being alive blows that idea away.
August 23rd, 2005 at 5:00 pm
As a non-theist myself, I think people who believe in God are wrong, seeking comfort in a simplistic idea of the world. But that’s not the question here. The question is “Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?” not “Can you be a good scientist and a fundamentalist Christian?” or “Can you scientifically support a belief in the existence of God?” Religion, spirituality, seeking that which eludes human intelligence and reason, these are part of the human experience, hard-wired into our CNS, and one way or another, this search for something more is part of each one of our lives. So the real question seems to me: “Can you be a good scientist and a regular human being whose genetic-neurological spirituality-seeking directive is drawn to the belief in a deity?” and, although my genetic-neurological spirituality-seeking directive is not drawn to the belief in a deity, I would have to answer an emphatic “Yes, you can.” Theistic scientists merely have to separate their faith from their scientific work, and since the answers science has for us are (and always will be) so incomplete, there is plenty of room for that separation.
August 23rd, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Yes, belief in God and science are compatible. Anything is possible nowadays. If you had told me 6 years ago that the Twin Towers would fall the way they did on 9/11, I would’ve argued against it. But when they fell, I made up my mind from that day on to allow the possibility of ANYTHING.
People mistake belief in God for worship. I believe in a god, or a higher power, but do I worship him? No, unless you count sleeping in on Sundays as worship.
Do I have proof that God exists? No. But who cares? I don’t have any proof that the sun will rise tomorrow either, except for past experience and what scientists tell me. Hume’s empirical philosophy breaks this down quite eloquently, the fallacy of cause and effect.
The problem with science is that it spends too much time on things that fit the general rule and not enough time on the exceptions to those rules. The problem with religion is that no one agrees upon doctrine. If you polled a typical congregation on their beliefs, you’d be surprised at the number of contradictions.
I am interested in the moments when spirituality and science intersect, like recent studies of the brains of Buddhist monks as they meditate. The findings are that a good portion of the brain is highly active during these meditative states. This brings up the question: is this part of the brain responsible for our notions of God, or did God create this portion of our brains?
I don’t care if I ever learn the answer to it. But I have a feeling that the answer is somewhere in the middle, in the Twilight Zone between reason and faith.
August 23rd, 2005 at 7:33 pm
[…] Jeffrey from Sisyphus and the Cuckoo Clock Speech raised a really good question in the comments to a previous post. Actually, it wasn’t so much a questi […]
August 24th, 2005 at 2:36 am
i love science, so it’s heartbreaking to watch her being pack-raped by her supposed defenders. and with clumsy thrusts from undersized intellects, at that.
as a scientist, the instant i hear the question i have a dozen more, like: can you be a good scientist and believe in love? can you be a good scientist? what is good? what is god? and so on. it’s very telling that a nobel laureate (employee of the month) rushes in and answers definitively without examining the numerous assumptions underlying the question.
hmm, he answered so fast it is revealed to be a reaction based on faith. his faith in his version of the world.
right on, dan, because any scientist worth their salt knows that ultimately, everything rests on at least one assumption. and the assumptions are left alone provided that they don’t conflict with experience, or at least it’s supposed to work that way. but ask these same “scientists” if you can be a good scientist and believe in the big bang, and they’ll all nod vigorously like the sycophantic fuckwits they are. good little scientists, have a lolly.
yes, that’s what ran was saying about the importance of anomalies in conspiracy research. same thing.
(hey, what if that’s all god is, an anomaly? no wonder science can’t see the evidence, anomalies are fudged or ignored.)
science is under threat from foolish believers. wearing labcoats doesn’t make it ok.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:04 am
It’s tragic that things like “intelligent design” and, even more nauseating, the new “intelligent falling” theories make us all skeptical and suspicious of anything spiritual or religious. Science and the supernatural are both trying to understand and describe the world. They just use different languages. I think that both disciplines have much to give each other. Unfortunately, some people are trying to hijack legitimate inquiry, both scientific and spiritual, to force social conformity. I think they should be tickled to orgasm until they lighten up. Just one woman’s opinion.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:15 am
Hahaha. That’s hilarious Joyce. Anyway, you know the intelligent falling thing was just a spoof, right?
August 24th, 2005 at 11:27 am
[…] na get weird!
God, the Anomaly
In my bit on science and God, James wrote: The problem with science is that it spen […]
August 24th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Intelligent falling was a spoof! Thank heaven, no pun intended.
August 24th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
oh i meant “their” intellects, of course, but y’all knew that. (and why do i always seem to be fighting invisible entities? are they nothing more than straw men? all right, enough of this silliness.)
an argument against “believer” scientists could be that having a part of your world view based on faith, and another part based on proof, disassociates the mind in some “bicameral mind” type of way. maybe, just speculatin.
but jeffrey’s excellent rescue of “belief” from the clutches of “the insane”, made me realise that a few bad apples had ruined belief in god for everyone, and that belief in god does not necessitate the insanity that seems to be associated with it so often. a similar situation befalls science. but there is nothing inherently wrong with either belief in god or science, especially since they both, when at their finest are elegant instruments of inquiry and application (but only when we treat them like ladies, is that right joyce?).
and further, if belief in god is an intuitive thing, what kind of scientist suppresses their intuition, whether it be neurologically determined or a matter of choice? because as james points out, the point of intersection of belief and science offers the greatest promise of revelation and change. that stuff with the monks is really cool. but look how quickly science rushes to downplay research into that point of intersection, like with reich, psychedelics, etc
perhaps a kind of symbiosis? maybe you don’t care, but that’s goin to keep me awake at night! and that makes me wonder, aren’t the best scientists at least a little bit unhinged? to ask the questions nobody has asked and to imagine the world differently. might not an insane belief in god actually make a better scientist?
come to think of it just one word sums this whole thing up rather nicely: Newton.