Science and Religon

[hashi92]

How can scientest be religous? There are many scientist out there who are devout catholics or christians or whatever faith based religon. I find this very contradicting. How can u base your life on faith in a superior entity when your whole life is about discovering the truth through facts and experimentation.

[chezlaw]

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How can scientest be religous? There are many scientist out there who are devout catholics or christians or whatever faith based religon. I find this very contradicting. How can u base your life on faith in a superior entity when your whole life is about discovering the truth through facts and experimentation.

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In principle the two things don't conflict. Someone could have faith in god and still want to know the truth about god's creation through experiment.

Faith is credulous and science is skeptical. Maybe the two are incompatible but its hard to see why they must be. I think the evidence that they are incompatible is exagerated, on this board, by the number of post from people who take the bible as literal truth.

chez

[Lestat]

First, a religious scientist is the exception not the rule.

Second, it's possible to have an overpowering belief. If this belief is primary to all others, then you reconcile your other beliefs to fit within your primary belief. Have you read any theistic posts on here? If so, you'll notice that most are made by very intelligent and educated people who make a whole lot of sense until.... Backed into a corner over a religious contradiction. Then their primary belief takes precedence above all else and they simply refer you to a religious book, quote, or miracle, having run out of ALL rational explanations and can only resort to faith.

So it IS possible to be a religious scientist if your core beliefs are strong enough. There just aren't many of them.

[chezlaw]

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First, a religious scientist is the exception not the rule.

Second, it's possible to have an overpowering belief. If this belief is primary to all others, then you reconcile your other beliefs to fit within your primary belief. Have you read any theistic posts on here? If so, you'll notice that most are made by very intelligent and educated people who make a whole lot of sense until.... Backed into a corner over a religious contradiction. Then their primary belief takes precedence above all else and they simply refer you to a religious book, quote, or miracle, having run out of ALL rational explanations and can only resort to faith.

So it IS possible to be a religious scientist if your core beliefs are strong enough. There just aren't many of them.

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They can just treat the conflicting stories as parable (many religous non-scientists do this anyway). Its just the literal chaps...

chez

[imported_luckyme]

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They can just treat the conflicting stories as parable (many religous non-scientists do this anyway). Its just the literal chaps...


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Although it's true that religion is lower among scientists, the term is spread too thin. A scientist in a narrow applied field, say his role is finding/testing new plastics, is not in the same role as a scientist looking at situations that have broader implications. Theoretical scientists would be much less likely to be able to balance a religious belief into their worldview than a more mundane applied science ( for example, those that resemble engineering).

Iow, inductive scientists should be less attracted to religion than deductive scientists.

luckyme

[chezlaw]

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They can just treat the conflicting stories as parable (many religous non-scientists do this anyway). Its just the literal chaps...


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Although it's true that religion is lower among scientists, the term is spread too thin. A scientist in a narrow applied field, say his role is finding/testing new plastics, is not in the same role as a scientist looking at situations that have broader implications. Theoretical scientists would be much less likely to be able to balance a religious belief into their worldview than a more mundane applied science ( for example, those that resemble engineering).

Iow, inductive scientists should be less attracted to religion than deductive scientists.

luckyme

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Being a non-believer and at least 99:1 on the theoretical:engineer divide I'd be kinda happy if that what true but I can't see why it should be.

Unless physcologically being credulous about why and skeptical about how isn't possible (but pyscology is too much like engineering for me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).

Also in my experience engineers are the most induction bound people in the world.

chez

[Lestat]

Very good point. It depends on what branch of science is being practiced. You're not likely to find many religious physicists, or cosmologists. I read an interesting article and can't recall the magazine it was in.

In an effort to prove a point, some group came up with the names of 100 scientists willing to say that ID is a scientific theory. That sounded pretty impressive until the magazine then came up with its own list of 100 scientists who vehemently denied ID as a scientific theory. The kick was, the 100 scienists the magazine listed, all had a last name beginning with the letter "A"!

[chezlaw]

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Very good point. It depends on what branch of science is being practiced. You're not likely to find many religious physicists, or cosmologists. I read an interesting article and can't recall the magazine it was in.

In an effort to prove a point, some group came up with the names of 100 scientists willing to say that ID is a scientific theory. That sounded pretty impressive until the magazine then came up with its own list of 100 scientists who vehemently denied ID as a scientific theory. The kick was, the 100 scienists the magazine listed, all had a last name beginning with the letter "A"!

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hmmm ID is a how not a why and there's plenty of evidence against it.

Also, ID is used as a tactic by some religous folk to attack the teaching of science.

All in all it would be suprising if ID had much support amongst scientists.

chez

[imported_luckyme]

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Unless physcologically being credulous about why and skeptical about how isn't possible (but pyscology is too much like engineering for me

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Although psychology plays a part in everything, I was focusing on what their area of interest tells us about how they approach subject areas. Those who are juggling the data and searching for the underlying principles are in a different mindset than those working from general principles and extracting specific 'uses' of them.

A scientist applying accepted theory, say a chemist looking for new plastics is working within an established system. He's working from the known general knowledge within an accepted framework. A theoretical physicist, or a biologist trying to resolve some of the issues with the evidence evolution puts before him, is looking for the 'laws' or the theory that will explain/model what he sees ( once he can figure out what it is he is seeing).

It would seem that acceptance of religious claims would be more difficult for the inductives and easier for the deductives. With plenty of exceptions, natch, but there still should be a fairly clear change in the percentages.

luckyme.

[chezlaw]

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It would seem that acceptance of religious claims would be more difficult for the inductives and easier for the deductives. With plenty of exceptions, natch, but there still should be a fairly clear change in the percentages.

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I think I understand and agree with you. Just to check your talking about religous claims as to 'how the world is' rather than claims as to 'why it is'.

Such claims as the world isn't very old, miracles happen, prayer are answered ... stuff like that.

Reading Einstein, Hawkins etc I can't see anything in their mindset that conflicts with them believing in some god that created the world (although its clear they have no such belief).

chez