Many people that I know have some funny ideas. At least, I consider them to be funny - some of them funny (ha! ha!), and some of them funny (strange!). For instance, one day, I was having a conversation with a friend that turned at one point to the subject of carbon dating. I asked him, "Do you know the idea behind carbon dating?" Boy, did this ever open up a can of worms!
Another person who was within earshot (I'm not certain of his relationship with me), and who is a dyed-in-the-wool bible-carrying-and-thumping fundamentalist Christian, jumped into the conversation. He said, "You know, the scientific community is hiding the fact that the carbon-14 method of dating items is completely unreliable!" Since my knowledge of the carbon-14 method was several years old, I shut up at that point, wondering where he had gotten his "information" from. At other times, I've had other deeply religious people let me know things like: "Hubble measurements have disproven the theories of when the universe was created" and that "geological and biological evidence now disprove the theory of evolution." My reaction these days? "Uhh.........huh." Often, I find myself smiling and nodding, just to keep from further damaging already strained friendships.
I react this way because it is obvious to me (finally) what is going on in the minds of these people. There are lots of things being taught in science class that religious people find upsetting in varying degrees. Carbon dating has been used to determine that the "Shroud of Turin" is only 700-800 years old, not nearly 2000. Astronomy shows that there are objects to be seen that are billions of years old, destroying the "calculations" of Bishop Ussher. Darwin's theory is a second, far more ominous threat to the creation story in Genesis. When these threats are taken together, the "faith of our fathers" is in real danger and believers feel the need to defend it. The only way to fight against the threat posed by scientific information is to try to discredit it.
But where does this threatening information come from? Just how dangerous is it, really? What is this "science thingy" anyway? And, why are Christian forays into the world of science so often rebuffed? Do atheists *really* believe that science holds all the answers to the mysteries of life? I hope to answer these questions here, in this page.
The heart of science as we know it is the scientific method. This method was developed during the Renaissance by such giants as Roger Bacon, Copernicus and Galileo. The basic idea of the method is to attempt through the use of logic to understand the workings of the natural world as it is observed. The implementation of this basic idea is rather involved, and I'll go into more details in a moment. However, I should point out at this stage that already, we come across 2 basic conflicts between science and religion.
The first conflict is the use of observation as a means of gaining knowledge. For many religious people, especially those who are "fundamentalists," their revered religious texts are the source for much knowledge. If something is recorded in scripture, it is taken as a pronouncement by deity and is therefore accepted without question. This is a very important point, and I'll revisit it later. The other point of conflict is the use of logic. Here, the basic point is the assumption that nature can be understood by a system of consistent, understandable rules. In all religions, the very basis for all beliefs is the existence of the supernatural - a realm of magic where natural laws are bent and ignored. Miracles abound in the worlds of religion, the causation of events that are impossible under natural circumstances. To accept the supernatural is to deny the validity of science.
Getting back to the actual details of the scientific method, we start with a hypothesis. This is a guess as to an explanation of something. It could be the relationship between Earth and Sun. It could be a question of whether flies grow out of dead meat, or why the wrens living on the various Galapagos Islands have differently shaped bills on each of the various islands. In each case, the scientist looks at the problem at hand and makes a guess (usually an "educated" one) at an explanation. Next, he figures out a way to test this guess. If the testing process confirms the guess, it may become a theory.
The next thing that happens is quite important. The scientist publishes his findings. The problem and hypothesis are described. The thinking behind the testing process and the results are included. Finally, the scientist explains why the theory under question should be accepted. Fortunately, this is not the end of the process.
After public disclosure of the theory comes a process of questioning and further tests. A member of the community has made an assertion concerning the physical universe. This assertion is not accepted at once - rather, it is questioned, examined and tested to see whether it is acceptable. Acceptance is never guaranteed. All scientists try to work as diligently as they can to ensure that testing and examination of any theory is as rigorous and complete as possible. If problems are found with a theory, they are also published. A sort of conversation takes place in the community of those who are trained in the body of knowledge that applies to the original theory. There are several possible end-results to this process. First, the theory can be accepted as stated. Next, the theory can be changed to cover information uncovered in the testing process that the original version of the theory couldn't explain. Lastly, the theory could be completely disproved and abandoned.
The most important thing to remember about this process is that rarely, if ever, is a theory ever granted the status of "Law." Few theories (if any) are accepted to such a degree that they are considered to be above questioning. The main criterion used when judging the correctness of a theory is whether it fits the observed data correctly. Of course, the process is not "perfect" as the history of science can readily attest. However, it is the best available at present, and corrections are usually made, though in some cases, they hae been years or even decades in coming.
In the case of astronomy, much of the work done is concerning finding out exactly where things are and what they're made of. As to the determination of how far away things are, astronomers use many different "yardsticks". For the closest extra-solar objects, simple parallax measurements are used. This is the only truly direct measurement possible, and it forms the basis for a series of other yardsticks. Thus, we know that Proxima Centauri (the dimmest of the Alpha Centauri 3-star system) is the star closest to our sun. It moves the most against the background of stars during any given 6-month period.
Many other stars have been measured by this means. Using these measurements, astronomers start to understand the things that can be learned from the points of light we see in the sky. From this body of information comes the series of "standard candles" used to establish the distances to objects too far away for direct measurements. Thus, Edwin Hubble and Vesto Slipher were able to determine that the spiral nebula in the constellation Andromeda was actually a galaxy of stars 2 million light years away from Earth. This determination was not arrived at randomly, and was not accepted without question. It took several years for this fact to be accepted by scientists, who made measurements and examined the data themselves to verify the discovery.
Certainly, there are areas of uncertainty when it comes to measuring the distances to the galaxies. The Hubble measurements of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M100) show it to be 150 million light-years away. This disagrees with most earlier measurements and it has thrown off the accepted system of measurements given for the Hubble constant, showing a need for re-working the theories of the size and age of the universe. Does this mean that religious assertions that the whole structure of astronomical theory is "wrong," leaving the Christian Bible as the only possible alternative? Not by a far cry. I refer you to the earlier statement about the distance to the Whirlpool Galaxy - 150 million light-years. When we look through our telescopes at this tiny smudge of light, we're seeing photons that were emitted by billions of stars 150 million years ago, meaning that this particular galaxy existed as we see it 150 million years ago.
The issue of dating objects based on radioactive measurements is a confusing one to many people, and I make no claim to being an expert on the details. The basic concepts being used are fairly easy to grasp. First, the theory states that the amount of carbon-14 (a radioactive isotope of the carbon atom) in the atmosphere is a constant figure. This statement is from a theory itself, and is under review itself. So far, it has stood up well enough to be accepted for the use in carbon dating. Since carbon is part of the normal process of living for all common forms of life on Earth, it is understood that all living things have carbon-14 in their tissues in the same proportion as it exists in the atmosphere.
Therefore, if an item that was once living tissue (plant or animal) is tested, the amount of carbon-14 found in the tissue, when compared to the amount of carbon-12 will allow a pretty accurate measurement of the time that passed between the death of the organism and the measurement. Of course, there are limitations to this particular means of measuring age. The fact that after maybe 20,000 years (this is a figure I've seen in other essays - I'm not certain about it at this time), all carbon-14 will decay from the tissue means that there is an absolute limit to how far back carbon dating can be used.
So we come to the Shroud of Turin. This is one of the many "sacred relics" knocking around Europe, kept under guard as "physical evidence" of things recorded in the Bible. Up until recently (1979), the church refused to allow this item to be examined by scientists. And with good reason, because the analysis done (under rigorously controlled conditions) indicated that the shroud is a "pious fraud" created in about 1350. The dating was done using different methods, including carbon-14. This is one big reason why the method is attacked by believers.
All the issues in the theory of evolution are complex, and I don't intend to explain every facet of it. A general overview, however is easy enough. The very basic concept of evolution is that any population of the same type of animal will change over a long period of time, apparently in response to changes in various conditions of the population's environment.
This happens because every population of organisms, when they reproduce, give birth to children that aren't exactly like the parents. There are variations in physical characteristics between generations, though nearly all these variations are meaningless in terms of evolution. Some changes, however, are significant. If the offspring is born with some characteristic that gives it a better chance of survival in the environment into which it is born, it is more likely to live long enough to find a mate and reproduce, or produce more offspring than creatures without the new characteristic.
This situation was observed by Charles Darwin and other naturalists during expeditions in remote areas of the world in the first half of the 18th century. The Galapagos Islands is the most famous place where the results of evolution can be observed. Birds of the same apparent lineage (the same basic body structure) have broken into several different populations, each living on divergent food sources - and the only difference in their physical structure is their beaks - each well suited to the gathering of the food each type lives on.
Now, evolution has been studied by many different scientific disciplines over the past 150 years. The scientific method has been used to examine the evidence gathered, and much knowledge has been gained since Darwin and his colleagues started the ball rolling back then. Biologists have worked and are working today to understand the physical mechanisms involved in the process of speciation. Paleontologists and geologists have worked incessantly to understand and record the history of life on the Earth.
Changes have been made to the basic theory of evolution to accommodate the new evidence found in the continuing research. Is the theory in danger of being thrown out because of these changes? No - the theory is being enhanced to explain the new data being uncovered. Please link to the Talk.origins archive for detailed information on the current state of the theory of evolution, as well as religious objections to the theory.
But what of the opposition by religious authorities to the theory of evolution? Why are so many people upset (after 150+ years) at a scientific theory? In the case of Christianity, the reason is easy enough to spot. The theory states that each specie of animal is descended, over a long period of time, from other species of different physical forms. In the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious traditions, the origin of humanity is told in the creation story found in the book of Genesis. This story is the very necessary basis for all of these religions. If the story of humanity's fall from perfection to "sin" is proven to be false, the whole structure of these religions begins to shudder and will fall to the ground in ruins.
As we have seen, the particular discoveries in the world of science are quite damaging to the accounts of events found in the Bible (in particular) and other religions (in general). Astronomical data shows that the universe is far too large and too old to have been made exclusively for humanity to live in, as most religions imply.
Carbon dating is just one of the methods used to destroy claims of some "evidence" brought forward by religious authorities attempting to prove the truth of their claims.
Evolution is the current top bugaboo of the religious fundamentalist community. All religions claim that humans were specially created by god(s), though different reasons are usually given. The evidence of biology and paleontology shows that humans are not so different from other animals. This sweeps away much of the underpinning of the religious structures (the doctrine of "original sin", for instance), and this is unsettling to them.
From another perspective, science provides many benefits. The biological research that is used to test evolution theories has provided many insights into human biology, allowing major advances in the fields of medicine and psychiatry. The necessity for accuracy in astronomical instruments make possible precision manufacturing techniques in all sorts of industries. Astronomy itself is the main reason for man's understanding of physics, including relativity and quantum mechanics. Without these theoretical groundings, micro-processing chips would never have become possible. The search for methods of dating objects has enhanced the accuracy of archeology, giving us a more accurate understanding of our world's past, whether in the realm of history or paleontology.
As we have seen, science is a process, ruled by logic and constant examination. It is a generations-long search for all knowledge by a group of individuals who have one concern: finding answers to questions. Laymen like myself may not be able to understand all the concepts used or expressed in a scientific theory, but the information is available to all who care to take the time to investigate. Every effort is made to make the process open for examination. Questions and concerns are allowed, and encouraged, in the community of those who are able to understand the issues involved.
Contrast this with the world of religion. Here, knowledge is dealt with by authority, not consensus. In many instances, the religious texts are considered a more important authority than any other, having been "revealed by insert name of god here". Laymen are under pressure to accept the pronouncements from the hierarchy within the religion's structure without question. Questioning of most items in religion are limited to a narrow range of possibilities - stepping out of the boundaries is discouraged and often punished.
In the Christian world, in particular, ideas about science are approached in the opposite manner from the way science is practiced. Christians look to their ultimate authority - nearly always the Bible - to determine what is "true." They then search for evidence that will confirm this pre-conceived "truth." This process is quite similar to the scientific method in this respect. The beginning is at a hypothesis, followed by testing. However, in the scientific method, the data is more important than the hypothesis, whereas in the Christian method, the hypothesis is supreme, and the data can be ignored, if it gives "inconvenient" results.
This "inverted" view of science is, to a large degree, the reason why Christian scientists make so little impression on the scientific community.
This question is a common one, coming from Christians. One thought that I expect lies behind this question is that atheists have science as their religion, and are as dedicated to the knowledge gained by science as Christians are dedicated to the "knowledge" of the Bible. That this is not so should be evident to anyone who understands the scientific method. The basic, unspoken commandment of all religions is "Thou shalt not question!" (I think this may be a quote from one of the books in the "Dune" series - I'll attribute it as soon as I find the reference). The scientific method thrives on questioning and debate.
But there is a deeper question concerning the issue of religion. Religion is not just a proposed answer to the question of origins or how the universe works. It is also a means for making sense of our lives as individuals in a world of other individuals. Those who follow a religion have access to a wealth of wisdom gathered over a period of millennia on how to get along in life. Surely, this wisdom is worth something?
In the case of all religions, the answer to this question is that it's a mixed bag. Rules for peaceable living are always established on how to deal with accepted members of the community. This must always be the case, otherwise, the communities involved would not last long. Examples of this abound, as charismatic, zealous religious leaders appear and try to establish their own small communities and religions, only to have them break apart or come to grisly, violent ends. Other problems occur when communities of religious people attempt to live next to different communities. Here, the record of religions are fraught with the most spectacular social failures in human history. Witness the relationships between Hindus and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims, Muslims and Christians, Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians, and Protestant Christians with other (different) Protestant Christians.
When it comes to atheists, we have free rein in our relationships with other people. This doesn't mean that atheists are immoral or amoral. Rather, it means that we have the ability to look at the methods for living found in the writings of all religions, plus the writings of wise, non-religious people (otherwise known as "philosophers") and glean the best they have to offer. Using the lessons gained from personal experience (and the study of other peoples' mistakes - better known to laypeople as "history"), atheists are able to make sense of life without the sterile logic most people perceive as being the heart of science.
I have made my best effort (at this time) to explore the questions I feel lie at the center of the relation between science and religion. In my opinion, science is a superior, more reasonable and rational approach to many of the questions we have about us and the universe we find ourselves in. It can't (as far as I know at this time) supply answers to all of humanity's needs, for we are a complex group of animals with many different needs.
I make no pretense at knowing the answers to all problems. I do enjoy the search for new answers. Any comments concerning this article are welcome, so long as they are courteous and well-thought-out. Such e-mail will be answered with matching courtesy and (I hope!) thoughtfulness. Any e-mail I consider less than helpful or nice will be either trashed or kept for my archive of electronic stupidity, depending on my judgment of the content.
