Science vs. religion : what scientists really think - File PDF

56Crossing the Picket Lines: The Personal Faith of Scientistsscientists I talked with one-on-one had not attended religious services in thepast year. And of those surveyed, 31 percent who agreed or agreed stronglywith the statement “I am a spiritual person” had not attended religious servicesin the past year. In comparison, among those in the general population,only 14 percent of those who see themselves in the same way spiritually hadnot attended religious services in the past year. This comparison shows thatelite scientists might have a very different kind of spirituality than those inthe general population, one much less connected to traditional religiousinstitutions.Interestingly, scientists who are spiritual entrepreneurs often have the samekind of criticism of religion as highly religious people in the general populationhave of spirituality: it’s just too undefined, too open to interpretation. Religion,its creeds, and its holy books can mean anything. Spirituality, in contrast,because it’s open to being shaped by personal inquiry, has more potential toalign with scientific thinking and reasoning. 14Scientists in one sense are partakers of extreme Enlightenment thinking,which emphasizes that reason is in contrast to faith. This philosophy is thoughtto make a place in the world for science and the distancing of many majorresearch universities from their religious roots. Historian George Marsdenargues that modern elite universities were originally founded on Protestantbeliefs but that today, the “free exercise of religion does not extend to the dominantintellectual centers of our culture.” 15 Other scholars, however, see arenewal of religion on campuses, especially among undergraduates. 16 As I discovered,and as is surely becoming clear to the reader, spiritual-but-notreligiouselite scientists are a breed apart. Let us understand first the concept ofpostmodernism, an idea that means on its most basic level that many truths,even contradicting ones, are equally valid. It’s also extremely relativistic: notruth really exists at all apart from another. Postmodernism, in one form oranother, has touched nearly all academic pursuits in recent years. Science,however, as a pursuit of unique truth, tries to resist postmodernism. Most scientistsremain “modern” in the sense that they endorse wholeheartedly the ideaof science as objective and truth as existent. For them, the truth is out there,even if it’s as yet undiscovered. 17Yet the metaphysical seeking of these scientists is more postmodern, in away, than modern. Spiritual entrepreneurs are both traditionalists asregards their relationship to truth and revolutionaries in their manner ofreligious understanding and practice. They share with the spiritual- butnot-religiousperson on the street the same desire to cast off the shackles ofreligion. But they cling with devotion to the existence of objective andknowable truth.