Essay Four - Is Science a Bigger Problem for Religion than Religion is for Science?

Our first discussion today touched upon how we each found the debate between science and religion to be. At first sight, this topic appears to be similar and fairly straightforward – certainly one readily amenable to group discussion. However, there are, at least, two ways of looking at this question. One can use this question in a quite specific way and assess the current state of affairs as we did earlier. Here one may ask whether people of faith are having a rougher time given what certain scientists (or scientists in general) are saying about things which impinge on religion or whether it's vice versa. Or one can use this question to look at the more fundamental issue of whether one of these two ways of looking at (to use a famous phrase) 'life, the Universe and everything' is inherently more problematic with regard to the other.

Does the uncompromising incisiveness of science cut injuriously into the softness of religion or does the softness of religion blur the crystal clarity offered by science? Or are they equally problematic one for the other? To be honest, personally, I don't know. Had the history of ideas perhaps taken a different turn, might science and religion now coexist under a single umbrella? Or was a split inevitable? That Darwin's ideas can be said to have helped push the two apart is an entirely reasonable suggestion whether or not that was his intention. Indeed, are science and religion different to the point of being incompatible or irreconcilable?

This year is also the fiftieth anniversary of C.P. Snow's Rede Lecture entitled 'Two Cultures' in which he argued that there was a breakdown in communication between the sciences and the humanities and that that could prove detrimental to finding solutions to problems faced by humanity. Are we here dealing with a version of the 'Two Cultures' – are science and religion two different forms of intellectual pursuit that need to coexist for the world's benefit – or, is the world better off if one or other took a back seat?

Perhaps the most obvious effect of religion on a scientist's work comes in the form of ethics. Here biologists – especially those working with human or animal material – are more likely to be singled out for attention. Physicists and chemists engaged in pure research are less likely to encounter public concern; although those engaged in weapons development might attract some attention – although even then it tends to be surprisingly little (perhaps because weapons, it is supposed, are aids to our survival).

Ethics – and ethical behaviour – is fine so far as it goes; I would certainly like everybody with whom I come into contact to behave ethically towards me – not that that is always the case. However, I find in ethics a problem.

Behaving ethically should also entail not behaving unethically – that is, one does certain things; one does not do certain other things. A problem arises, I believe, when not behaving unethically also entails not entertaining unethical thoughts – that is, one does not do certain things; one does not even think about doing such things. Not entertaining unethical thoughts potentially limits the human imagination. Is every thought that follows on from an unethical thought itself unethical? And, if it is just a thought, does it matter? Or must our thoughts, as well as our actions, always be pure? We can never be sure that there isn't something of great human benefit (and which is itself quite ethically acceptable) that can only be reached via first entertaining thoughts that are quite improper; quite unethical.

In the past, the suggestion of performing experiments in which human and animal germ cells are fused has proved problematic. Even though such chimeras would only be used for a brief period of time and even though they could never result in a fully formed creature of any sort, this has not stopped some from objecting quite vehemently on ethical grounds.

Indeed, few engaged in such work are likely even to wonder at what such a fully formed creature would be like – their focus is primarily on cell biology. It was the Australian artist Patricia Piccinini (1965- ) who did ponder this though. She perhaps helps us wonder what such a creature would be like, what it would be like to be such a creature and so, indirectly, wonder, in a different way, about what it is to be human. She, in this piece of work, has gone beyond the unethical to inform and perhaps even elevate our level of confusion.

Another distinction between science and religion that the question of ethics highlights is the way that science sees itself as value-free (or at least value-neutral) to the end that it must be guided by specially constituted ethics committees with outside specialists and not left to its own devices. Religion, on the other hand, is inherently value-laden and, furthermore, largely unregulated except from within and then not necessarily by those in the pews. Allied to this is the question of the acceptance or rejection of authority. Although there are doyens in science – as there are in every field – in science, what these figures say is not likely to be accepted simply because of who said it – all ideas must be testable. In science, there are no infallible, ex-cathedra pronouncements to which all must adhere.

This comes, not least, from the realization that all scientific knowledge is provisional; it is never complete or absolute. In 1920, at a lecture given at the University of Vienna, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) – surely the doyen of scientific doyens – made a lasting impression on the young Karl Popper (1902-1994). Popper, who went on to become a pre-eminent philosopher of science, was taken with how Einstein, having arrived at the theory of relativity, was now working hard on improving upon his ideas: not so much by making the theory of relativity better in itself but by finding a better theory that would, in fact, supplant it. That is how provisional scientific ideas are.

It appears odd, perhaps, to the layperson that scientific ideas should be like this. After all, these ideas are built on evidence, on collected data. The point is, however, that new ideas might always be found which fit the data better or new data obtained that requires our ideas to be reformulated in order to accommodate them. Yet, religions are not built on objective data at all. Typically, they are built upon a series of tenets – 'truths without proofs' as they have been described – enforced, as mentioned before, from within; by members of a usually self-appointed authoritarian hierarchy.

In addressing the question that heads this session, let us not idealize one or other discipline though; neither let us take either at face value. We must be evenly critical of how they are and of what they could be; what they can, can't and will never be able to do. In that respect, as well as considering the problems each poses for the other, we should also ask what each can offer the other that it can do its job better. What – and how much – can science offer religion such that religion can achieve its own ends? And what – and how much – can religion offer science to achieve its own ends?

To Consider:

• Of the questions raised throughout this essay – take your pick.