Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

7
The Marriage of Science and Religion
Shaw and Science
It is difficult to imagine a notion more at odds with the respected, unquestioned
wisdom of our age than Shaw’s contention that Creative Evolution
provides a faith that is not merely consistent with science but true to the
spirit of science: a scientific religion. His argument is cogent, his reasoning
sound, and his premises almost unarguable, but his conclusions are still
dismissed out of hand. In a certain sense, Shaw was being even more scientific
than the scientists, while at the same time he was utterly out of harmony
with the way scientists now see the world. The fundamental difficulty
is that the metaphysics of deterministic materialism have become so
ingrained in our thinking that they are unconsciously accepted even by
those who attack science. No one, however—including Shaw—has presented
an alternative that is rigorous, systematic, and demonstrably in harmony
with the goals of science. We do not have a “science of spirit,” but it
is possible to provide a logical sound metaphysical basis on which such a
science could be built. Unfortunately, many walls of weighty received
opinion must be torn down and cleared away before this will become apparent.
There are three main areas of misunderstanding: the nature of science
and “true” scientific thinking, the “natural” relation between science
and religion, and finally the logical foundation of Shaw’s “vitalism” and its
susceptibility to scientific analysis.
Shaw and the Scientists
Shaw is commonly thought of as an outright opponent of science. Bertrand
Russell, for example, said flatly that “Shaw’s contempt for science was indefensible”
(Portraits 79). He went on to claim that the playwright’s passionate
opposition to vivisection was based on “not any sympathy for ani-