2009/03/30

Whether Science is compatible with Faith?

An article "MUST WE ALWAYS CATER TO THE FAITHFUL WHEN TEACHING SCIENCE?" in Edge is intriguing me to some extent, since it reminds me the discussion between us about religion and science in western culture.

There is a trend observed by Professor Jerry Coyne that when promoting the acceptance of evolution in USA you have to cater to the faithful. That's leading to the official position which various scientific organizations including the NAS and the NCSE have held:

Faith and science are compatible.

Several arguments to support this conclusion are:
  1. The most frequent reason is that many scientists are religious and many of the faithful accept evolution.
  2. Science investigates the natural world, while religion deals with the spiritual and supernatural—hence, the two can be complementary.
However, Jerry has opposed such kind of "cater-to-religion" stance and listed two disadvantages of it:
  1. By trotting out those "religious scientists", like Ken Miller, or those "scientific theologians," like John Haught, we are tacitly putting our imprimatur on their beliefs.
  2. The statement that learning evolution does not influence one's religious belief is palpably false.
Based on the evaluation of the past 25 years of effort, it is thought the USA will have to become a lot less religious before acceptance of evolution increases appreciably. Jerry believes the faith is incompatible with evolution and the scientists should leave the reconciliation of faith and science to theologians.

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