Can A Scientist Believe (Thirty Years Later)
presentation at Adult Forum by
Edward M. Arnett, R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus
November 24, 2013
Outline
- “Can a Scientist believe” Will’s question thirty years later
- Me and three others
- Some definitions (handout) Note pivotal issue of supernatural
- Science and religion
- Personsal
- Definitions
- Conflict model
- Draper
- US Scientific Elite (NAS poll vs US public)
- evangelical atheists
- Coexistence model
- some religious scientists
- American public
- Creationism
Discussion
“Can a Scientist Believe” title of First Adult forum proposed to me by Will Willimon (in 1985?).
Yes!
Scientists do believe that the natural material world around us can be understood through the application of causality and logical analysis to repeatable (public) empirical observations.
BUT
Science has nothing definitive to say to say about the many aspects of life that cannot be studied this way.
Obviously, the supernatural world cannot be approached scientifically.
Scientists do not have to think scientifically about everything!
Science and religion have cooexisted in tension in my head all my life.
I’ve participated in a church community since I was twelve. Baptised as an infant.
Attended worship 95% of Sundays. I’m one of only four members of the regular non-medical Duke faculty who go to Duke chapel. Where are the others?
I’ve read the Bible with varied degrees of appreciation, curiosity and skepticism all my life.
I say the creed with varied degrees of conviction. I believe in the trinity.
Am I a Christian?
I’ve been interested in chemistry since I was ten. I belong to the scientific elite.
The Warfare Thesis
A History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, 1874, By John W. Draper, Methodist Minister, first president of The American Chemical Society
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896 Andrew Dickson White, co-founder and first president of Cornell University.
Religion - A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency, and which is related to specific patterns of behavior.
Science- Knowledge about and study of the natural world based on facts learned through reproducible experiments and observations.
Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not part of science.
Science cannot comment on the role that supernatural forces may play in the world.
Supernatural - That which cannot be explained by science or the laws of nature: seeming to come from a god or magic.
Comparison of Survey Answers among National Academy of Sciences Scientists (400 in 1914 and 517 in 1998) return rates 70% and 60% respectively from Larson and Witham, Nature, 294, 394(1998).
THE SCIENTIFIC ELITE
| Belief in a personal God | 1914 | 1933 | 1998 |
| Personal belief | 27.7 | 15 | 7.0 |
| Personal disbelief | 52.5 | 68 | 72.2 |
| Doubt or agnosticism | 20.9 | 17 | 20.8 |
| Belief in human immortality | |||
| Personal belief | 35.2 | 18 | 7.9 |
| Personal disbelief | 25.4 | 53 | 76.7 |
| Doubt or agnosticism | 43.7 | 29 | 23.3 |
Perhaps surprisingly, scientists in the "hard sciences" such as physics and chemistry are significantly more apt to be religious than those in the “soft sciences” such as sociology. Psychiatrists are least religious. No data on people in the humanities.
Some "Evangelical Atheists"
Christopher Hitchens God is not great
Richard Dawkins The God Delusion
Note quotation from Albert Einstein, "The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle .... in their grudge against the traditional opium of the people cannot bear the music of the spheres."
Some quotations from Albert Einstein
"God does not play dice with the universe", referring to probability in quantum mechanics
"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"
"God is a mystery, but a comprehensible mystery. I have nothing but awe when I observe the laws of Nature. There are not laws without a lawgiver, but how does this lawgiver look? Certainly, not like a man magnified."
Intelligent Design?
He served on the board of the First Humanist Society of New York and was a strong supporter of Ethical Culture.
Stephen Jay Gould, eminent paleontologist, historian of science
Rocks of Ages Non- overlapping Magesteria
"Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people."
Francis Collins
Director of The National Institutes of Health and the National Genome
The Language of God
The Language of Life
Evolution- the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.
One of the best established facts in science. The central unifying basis of all contemporary biology and related fields.
Creationism - The religious belief that life, the earth and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being as described in the book of Genesis. Basically Bible Centered and anti-evolutionist.
American Public Opinion
All of the mainline churches support theistic evolution, but 75% of protestant ministers reject evolution, believe that Adam and Eve were literal people, 65% believe that the earth
is 6000 years old. 61% say that science does not conflict with their religion And 84% say that science has positive effect on society,
But: 46% of American public believe in Creationism
Of these 25% had postgraduate education compared to
52% high school or less, 32% believe in theistic evolution, 15% believe God had nothing to do with it.
Conclusion: many Americans are confused and poorly educated about both science and religion.
Some Comparisons of Beliefs of US Public
In over 1500 denominations
Different polls, apples and oranges, beware!
200120072011
| Christian | 71.7% | 78.4% | 59.4% |
| Atheist | ? | 1.6% | ca5% |
| Agnostic ? | ? | 2.4% | ca15% |
| No religion | 7.7% | 12.1% | 24.7% |
"Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society while in 2013 many of us find this not only easy, but inescapable?"
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Secularism is the practice of the absence of God.
Quote from Aldous Huxley?
Apologies to Brother Lawrence