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

What Scientists Are Doing Wrong That They Could Be Doing Right 139biologist 29 who teaches at a private university explained that he has a deistview of God and believes that a “watchmaker God . . . set everything up runningby a set of rules and then stood back.” A question I asked him regardingwhether he believes there is a conflict between science and religion sparkedhim to talk about his efforts to dispel this very notion through his teaching. Hethinks that, even outside the classroom, scientists should do more to talkabout the limits of scientific knowledge with the broader public. He knowsmany good arguments for the idea that science and faith do not have to be atodds with one another. And he “can see where . . . religion is going to be builton an inherent level of faith, regardless of how much science you know, and italways has been, and it always will be.” And he doesn’t “see where sciencenecessarily chips away at that at the end of the day.” To him science and faithare separate kinds of endeavors. This plays very much into Stephen J. Gould’sideas of science and religion as nonoverlapping magisteria, that scientificthinking and practice are in one realm while religious thinking and practiceare in another. 30Scientists talked about the ways in which science is deficient in helping toanswer questions concerning the meaning of life. Another biologist, 31 in hermid thirties, addressed the limits of science when I asked how she would answerquestions about the meaning of life:[Religion and science have] different operational values, but they are not at allincompatible. I mean the point of science is to select hypotheses and test themand try to reject them, and much of religion is actually about faith and applies tothings that are not necessarily testable at all. So they seem to be really differentrealms of knowing to me.Going back to the question of the meaning of life, she explained that thisis indeed where “biology falls a little short.” Pregnant with her first child, shefelt that the purely biological answer to life’s deepest questions was simplyinsufficient:We’re here to make more copies of our genes, but I also believe that we—ashumans with big brains and other capacities for ethical thought—have a muchbigger responsibility than that. In fact, making as many copies as we can is probablyjust about the worst thing that we can do for our global responsibilities.For this biologist, who teaches at a school in the West, there are other forms ofknowledge besides science that need to enter into developing answers to questionson the meaning of life. She explained, “My ethical position on why we are