God and science are inherently at odds, or so goes the story with roots that reach back nearly 400 years to the Inquisition's trial of Galileo on su ion of heresy.
The ongoing effort of U.S. creationists to inject doubt about evolution into science classrooms in public schools is an example of that conflict, not to mention the polarizing arguments over the decades offered by numerous members of the clergy, politicians, and some atheist scientists and scholars including Richard Dawkins.
Now a new study suggests our minds are conflicted, making it so we have trouble reconciling science and God because we unconsciously see these concepts as fundamentally opposed, at least when both are used to explain the beginning of life and the universe.
But what is the source of this seeming "irreconcilable difference" - are we hard-wired for it, or is it tenacious cultural baggage?
The experiments
Experiments headed up by psychologist Jesse Preston of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her colleague Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago provide some data to support the argument that the conflict is inherent, or hard-wired. They found that subjects apparently cannot easily give positive evaluations to both God and science as explanations for big questions, such as the origin of life and the universe, at the same time.
In one experiment, 129 volunteers, mostly undergrads, read short summaries of the Big Bang theory and the Primordial Soup Hypothesis, a scientific theory of the origin of life.
Half of the group then read a statement explaining that the theories were strong and supported by the data. The other half read that the theories "raised more questions than they answered." All of the subjects then completed a computer task where they were required to categorize various words as positive or negative.
During the task, the word "science" or "God" or a neutral control word was flashed on the screen before each positive/negative word. For instance, right before the word "awful" appeared, either the word "God" or "science" was flashed on the screen for 15 milliseconds - too brief to be seen but it registers unconsciously.
This is a standard experimental psychology approach designed to measure latent, or automatic, at udes toward (or evaluations of) the priming word - in this case, God or science. Faster response times mean a closer association between two concepts, for example "science" and "great."
Preston and Epley found that subjects who read the statement in support of the scientific theories responded more quickly to positive words appearing just after the word "science" than those who had read statements critical of the scientific theories. Similarly, those who read the statement suggesting that the scientific theories were weak were slower than the other group (who read the theory-supportive statement) to identify negative words that appeared after they were primed with the word "God."
The results are detailed in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Financial support for the study was received from the National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Implications for science's influence
Preston says her research shows that a dual belief system, for instance the idea that evolution explains biology but God set the process in motion, does not exist in our brains.
"We can only believe in one explanation at a time," she told LiveScience. "So although people can report explicitly, 'Look, I've been a Christian all my life, and yes, I also believe in science and I am a practicing chemist,' the question is, are these people really reconciling belief in God and science, or are they just believing in one thing at a time?"
When it comes to the ultimate questions, it's really just one thing at a time, Preston says.
People rarely think about these problems, however, so most people live their lives without paying much attention to how the universe started or how life began, Preston said.
Behind the findings
However, Hampshire College science historian Salman Hameed says Preston and Epley's framing of the issues and interpretation of their findings are bound up in a particular view of science and religion known as the "conflict thesis." Yes, sometimes particular scientific and religious claims conflict, but there are numerous examples of individuals, such as Isaac Newton, who saw no inherent conflict between their scientific and religious convictions, Hameed said.
The experiment's results actually may reveal cultural forces - a specific way of thinking about science and religion - dating back to the 19th century, Hameed said, and these have shaped people's thinking about science and religion.
"If society has been primed that science and religion have been in conflict, and that is the dominant narrative, then maybe all we are seeing is the effect of that priming, rather than the actual conflict," Hameed said. Society and journalists like conflict stories because they grab attention, but science and religion interactions are more complex and defy over-simplistic oppositional categories, he said.
Preston agrees that there is a cultural opposition that we are all aware of, which may be a background context for her experiments, but she said religion and science have grown apart in the last few centuries because science developed theories that are inconsistent with doctrine.
"To the extent that culture is the culmination of history - all our ideas, knowledge, and traditions - the opposition that grew between religion and science is a part of our culture," Preston said. "But it is part of the culture because the contradictions are well known, and become part of our knowledge structure. The concept of zero as a number is also part of our culture, for example. The cultural opposition we see between religion and science is not a superficial opposition like dog lovers vs. cat lovers."
The history of the conflict
Some historians trace the idea that science and religion are in conflict back to Cornell University's Andrew White and New York University's John William Draper, proponents of the professionalization of science who wrote books in the mid-1800s that claimed there was an inherent conflict between science and religion, citing the Galileo affair as the classic case.
The affair led to the astronomer's house arrest on su ion of heresy (not heresy itself), starting in 1633 until his death in 1642. Galileo argued that the Earth revolved around the sun, based in part on his telescope observations, counter to Church teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe.
But science historians, including John Hedley Brooke, have questioned the conflict thesis, and others have poked big holes in simplistic interpretations of the Galileo story. For instance, some historians point out that Galileo, a practicing Catholic, didn't want to oppose the Church, but rather to update its views and prevent it from losing ground to Protestant scholars. Also, the Church ultimately sentenced Galileo, who had many political enemies in the church, on a technicality.
Galileo redeemed
Ultimately, Galileo has been mostly redeemed, thanks to the ongoing efforts of scientists and, in the end, some clergy.
The International Year of Astronomy kicked off this month as a year-long celebration of astronomy timed to coincide, in part, with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded observations made by Galileo with a telescope.
In 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for Church errors during the past 2,000 years, including the trial of Galileo.
And in May of this year, according to the Associated Press, some Vatican officials will attend an international conference on the Galileo affair.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...ninnerconflict
How can faith and skepticism not be diametrically opposed? It's pretty hard to tiptoe a line between believing in something because you believe in it and believing in something because there is physical evidence. Claiming the two core ideas aren't in direct opposition and can somehow be reconciled just because you want to believe both is intellectually lazy.
Those who claim to have faith yet fear science, have no real faith at all.
RandomLie Can't even admit WC7 was Bombed a few years back, and yet he wants us to believe something that happened 400 years ago?
RamdomLie open your eyes about 9/11 if you want to be taken seriously.
Just the other day I was thinking about how Spurstalk.com should really start a thread about religion some time soon.
All we need now is MiamiHeat to rent another dooms day DVD and come in here talking like he's Nostradamus.
BUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
You're welcome.
Heh, let me know how all of those predictions about Bill Clinton declaring martial law using the millenium bug as an exuse panned out for you there, Alex.
It was kinda fun watching the viens pop out on your forehead on that ty cable access show you had in Austin at the time.
Still being chased by mysterious black helicopters?
RandomGuy are you single?
The Bible is not a science text but a religious one. Finding scientific truths that counter the Old Testament does nothing to lessen my religious faith. Just because science can explain a process does not mean that God did not create it.
I love the way the ignorant atheist want us to believe they know what happed 450 billion years ago and yet they can't even tell you what really happend on 9/11.
Additional InformationRandomGuy are you single?
Age:
38
Biography:
Accounting student, army vet, father, husband.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=1813
No, ma'am. I haven't quite updated my bio in years, but that last bit hasn't changed.
Actually, the "ignorant atheists" think the universe is only about 14 billion years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
Still waiting on mono's thoughts...
Do you plan on, or have you played Braid, baseline?
From the Thomistic point of view, what's intellectually lazy is to conflate two distinct orders of assent: revelation and reason.
Etienne Gilson:
"To have faith is to assent to something because it is revealed by God. And now, what is it to have science? It is to assent to something which we perceive as true in the light of natural reason. The essential difference between these two distinct orders of assent should be carefully kept in mind by anybody dealing with the relations of Reason and Revelation."According to scholastic theory, the objects of science and faith are not the same.
Thomas Aquinas:
"it is impossible that one and the same thing should be believed and seen by the same person...it is equally impossible for one and the same thing to be an object of science and of belief for the same person"As emphasized in the OP, the conflict narrative is of fairly recent vintage, the "scientific" evidence in the OP itself is based on the pseudo-science of psychology, and Baseline Bum's insistence that there is a necessary or logical contradiction of science and faith seems to rest on semantic laziness rather than analytic rigor. Both can be called "belief," but that hardly means the two operate the same way, or aim at the same objects.
Aquinas is a religious apologist whose arguments for the existence of god are awful; they're even worse than Descartes'. Kudos to you for cutting and pasting a couple of lame passages though.
We're not talking about ontological proof here. We're talking about the difference between faith and science. Your disrespect for faith is evident. Per contra, Aquinas wasn't content to defend faith, but made room for science in his philosophy. And not being content to have merely made room for science, he insisted on its importance and founded schools to perpetuate it.
The debt you scientistic assholes owe Aquinas is huge. Without the scholastic emphasis on reason, logic, empiricism and Aristotle, European science doesn't even begin get off the ground. By spitting on him you spit on yourself, you ignorant .
It's quotation, you arrogant jerk. I have the ing books and I've read them. You should try it yourself sometime. But you're probably content to continue insult what you know next to nothing about. Kudos to you for having more balls than brains.
How does revelation from god fit in with the need for evidence and for skepticism when there is none? How does it fit in under reproducible experiment? Saying faith aims at different objects of truth than science is a cop-out, as is clearly not the case right now with the fundamentalist movement this country is currently suffering through.
I notice a pattern here at spurstalk. When you question GOD or the Bible your an Intelligent person who wants real answers and wants to know all the facts, as you question everything your not labeled some weak minded religious nut. Your now considered a deep thinker and a person with a higher IQ that wants to know more.
But yet if you question anything about 9/11 and why wtc7 came down at free fall speed your now a tin foil hat wearing anti American conspiracy nut with a very low IQ. You can question GOD just don't question Bush.
why is that I wonder.
I KNOW I just didn't see someone equate belief in God with belief in some ty conspiracy theory.I notice a pattern here at spurstalk. When you question GOD or the Bible your an Intelligent person who wants real answers and wants to know all the facts, as you question everything your not labeled some weak minded religious nut. Your now considered a deep thinker and a person with a higher IQ that wants to know more.
But yet if you question anything about 9/11 and why wtc7 came down at free fall speed your now a tin foil hat wearing anti American conspiracy nut with a very low IQ. You can question GOD just don't question Bush.
why is that I wonder.
"I beleive in God, and you guys are mean to me."
"I beleive in a conspiracy theory, and you guys are mean to me."
Boo- ing-who, get a helmet, SpongeBob Dumbpants.
By making the belief in these two things equal, you have just insulted anybody with any religious faith. Way to go. I gaurantee you my belief in God is a of a lot more meaningful to me than your ed faith on conspiracy websites.
Seriously dude, what the is up with you personally? It is your mission in life to beleive in stupid just... because?
I can beleive in God and Jesus and not have to buy everything in the bible as 100% unvarnished truth based on what others TELL me to beleive about the bible.
It seems to me that you aren't some "questioner". You are exactly the opposite. You find something that sounds good to you and let everybody else tell you what to believe about that.
You believe in God, so you let all of these emotionally and intellectually stunted jackasses tell you what is required to beleive in God like "you have to think the universe is only 10,000 years old, mouse, otherwise you aren't a good Christian". Bull . I am a good Christian because of a lot of other things that have nothing to do with beleiving in THAT particular idea.
The same goes for your belief in this conspiracy bull . You want to be skeptical of the government, and that is fine and good, but then you read all of these ty conspiracy theory websites and let them tell you "you have to beleive in this to be a good skeptic of the governemnt"
You take what normally is a good thing, like faith in God or honest skepticism of the government, and warp that into some "i have to beleive in every stupid thing that people tell me about my beliefs to be a "good" beleiver."
You don't quesntion things, you just go along because it makes you feel good, sorry, and don't pretend otherwise. You aren't a martyr or some avenging intellect "questioning" the way things are, you are simply someone who lets other tell you what to beleive.
Sorry if I had to burst your bubble about that. I have no doubt that this won't really change your mind about following along with what others tell you because you have no doubt convinced yourself oftherwise, based on what I read here and in that other long-ass thread.
It is just sad to see someone who so obviously beleives that they are one thing when they are so obviously the opposite.
Why believe a book written by man. Still, you have to appreciate the timeless wisdom from a peoples that old.
Why believe that humans are anywhere close to knowing enough of science to disprove God.
You are going to die within the next 100 years. Even if science has some crazy break through and connects the dots, you will be long dead. Sit back and just enjoy the show.
I used to believe science until I finally found it just kind of well-polished religion, now I would rather to believe in God.
Those scientist disguise the presense of aliens who are actually existing in the world and living with us. I would like to keep silent but I still can't help saying that we have been fooled by those scientists who have made NO progress on that front, though they are pretty dynamic on bed.
The two aren't the same. The authority of revelation is supernatural; if it were sensible, or susceptible to proof or empirical demonstration, it would no longer be revelation. That is why Aquinas insists the same thing cannot be believed (in the sense of having faith) and seen by the same person. The object of science is the certainty of the five senses, and the truths that can be derived from it; the object of faith is a suprasensible God.
You call it a cop out. I call it philosophy. Religion is not the night in which all cows are grey. The Thomism I've cited is different in kind from fundamentalism. For it, the unity of faith and science is truth; for fundamentalism, God and scripture alone are true.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
