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

130Society and Broader Publicshigher level of the sciences . . . are atheists, and the question is, do we hide ourviews?” He went on to say that the situation becomes particularly acute if partof scientists’ role in the public transmission of science is to engage with religiouspeople. “Suppose we don’t have any respect for people who are religious,like I don’t, for example,” he pondered. He wondered aloud whether he oughtto claim to have respect for religious ideas anyway, for the sake of public science.He wonders how he would respond in good conscience if people were toask him if evolution and religion are compatible. On the one hand, he postulatesthat he could simply say, “Well, many people find them compatible, andthat shows that they’re compatible.” On the other, if he were to be completelyhonest, he would say, “I think they’re incompatible. You can hold them [both]as views, but I think you’re being a hypocrite if you do that.” At the end of theday, “There are two ways that you can answer that question. One of them willwin you friends; the other one won’t. But the second answer to me is morehonest.” This biologist brought up a serious impediment to engaging the generalpublic with issues related to religion and science: If as a scientist you thinkthat religion is the enemy and that religious people have nothing to offer, howcan you then enter into productive dialogue with them? His colleagues mightsuggest that this scientist should at least develop a nuanced idea about religion.He is right that when compared to those in the general population, more of hisfellow biologists at top research universities are atheists and are not a regularpart of religious communities. He is mistaken, however, that there are almost notheists among his colleagues. (Over 30 percent of biologists at top universitiesactually have a firm belief in God.)As discussed previously, scientists often have a limited vocabulary fortalking about religion. This is evident in their unsubtle lumping together ofthe variations in religious belief. It is clear, for example, from listening to thisbiologist—and indeed most of the scientists who see religion as having a negativeimpact on science—that the religious threat they fear refers to a specifictype of religion, fundamental Protestantism. For example, a chemist 8 mentionedthat his babysitter is a “born-again Christian.” He said that he and hiscolleagues talk often at conferences about the potential threat of this type ofChristian (presumably he means fundamentalist) to the broader disseminationof science. Although he was raised a Catholic and is currently raising his childrenCatholic, this assistant professor, who teaches at a prestigious midwesternstate university, explained that “these new Christians are a little too extreme . . . .They’re pretty fanatical, and that’s what worries us the most, that the sciencesare going to have so many constraints that, for example, even funding for stemcell research” will be at risk. This chemist is a religious scientist himself, yet hedid not offer another way—a more Catholic way, for example—of seeing the