I have to agree with Jerry Coyne here: the program on Faith and Science at this year’s World Science Festival is a mistake. I went to last year’s Festival, and I have great respect for Brian Greene and Tracy Day for bringing together such a massive undertaking. It would be better if they didn’t take money from the Templeton Foundation, but money has to come from somewhere, and I’m not the one paying the bills. I don’t even mind having a panel that talks about religion — it’s a big part of many people’s lives, and there are plenty of issues to be discussed at the intersection of science and religion.
But it would be a lot more intellectually respectable to present a balanced discussion of those issues, rather than the one that is actually lined up. The panelists include two scientists who are Templeton Prize winners — Francisco Ayala and Paul Davies — as well as two scholars of religion — Elaine Pagels and Thupten Jinpa. Nothing in principle wrong with any of those people, but there is a somewhat obvious omission of a certain viewpoint: those of us who think that science and religion are not compatible. And there are a lot of us! Also, we’re right. A panel like this does a true disservice to people who are curious about these questions and could benefit from a rigorous airing of the issues, rather than a whitewash where everyone mumbles pleasantly about how we should all just get along.
I’m not as much of an anti-Templeton fundamentalist as some people are; I won’t take money from them, but I will cooperate with institutions and organizations that do take money from them, even as I grumble about it. (Money laundering as the route to moral purity.) But this event is a perfect example of the ultimately pernicious influence that Templeton has. I disagree with Jerry and others who consider Templeton money a “bribe” to people who are willing to go along with their party line; I have no doubt that Ayala, Davies, Pagels and Jinpa will express only views that they sincerely hold and would still hold in the absence of any monetary reward. What Templeton does is that it hands people with those views a giant megaphone. Francisco Ayala is a respected scientist who happens to believe that science and religion complement each other rather than coming into conflict; that’s fine, although somewhat unremarkable. But then he wins the Templeton Prize, and that exact same opinion gets plastered all over the media.
Panels like this one at the WSF are the same story. Maybe exactly the same event would have been organized even if Templeton had nothing to do with the Festival; but I doubt it. (Update: upon reflection, I don’t know what the process was by which the event was organized, and I shouldn’t cast dark aspersions in the absence of evidence. My real point is that I don’t think that the panel should have happened the way it did, and I don’t want to detract from that.) Plenty of science festivals and museums seem to get along perfectly well without discussing religion at all. And if you did want to discuss it, there’s no way that an honest investigation into how scientists feel about religion would end up leaving out some fully committed atheists who would be pretty uncompromising towards belief.
Four hundred years after Galileo turned his telescope on the heavens, it’s incredibly frustrating that we still have debates over whether the world can be described in purely naturalistic terms, rather than accepting that insight as an amazing accomplishment and moving on to the hard work of articulating its consequences. It’s a shame that the World Science Festival is helping to keep us back, rather than moving us forward.
Good post. Thanks.
It would be very rare for ANY panel at ANY conference to actually represent all views (even all major views). Show me a panel (or for that matter a professional journal), and I’ll find you a person with pertinent credentials who feels THEIR view isn’t being adequately aired. Methinkest you protesteth too much.
Yes, this is all too much… ARJ: All views? Strawman. All major views? Very rare for ANY panel at ANY conference to represent the major views? False, and still a strawman.
Sean, this is spot on.
ARJ, you might find this helpful:
http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/lady-doth-protest-too-much-methinks
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“And there are a lot of us! Also, we’re right.”
Indeed!
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I agree Sean. All points of view should be represented, even the view science and religion are not compatible.
Sean, when atheists take this attitude it turns away perfectly rational people like me. You are not the only person on the planet. Your views and those who agree with you are not holy and untouchable. When those intolerant phrases are spoken, the same bells and whistles in my head goes off as when I hear those kinds of thoughts from religious fundamentalist.
Life is complicated. These issues are complicated. You will never get everyone to agree, nor should you. There would be no forward motion on any issue if we all agreed to one view. Different views and conflicting ideas are the nature of this world and it is a plan that works. Not beautifully, not easily but it propels us forward.
I don’t say you should not loudly assert your position. You should. But when you take the position that anyone who doesn’t agree with you doesn’t have the right to loudly assert their position, you come into the religious zealot mindset that is dangerous road.
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We can get to an agreement point if we said instead of “Religions and Science are compataible” the following statment ” Believing in God and Science are compataible”
In general believing in God without considering religion doesn’t imply contradiction with for example evoloution,the age of the universe,..
The teachings of some religions is the source of contradictions with science.
Sean – While I agree with your perspective (let’s minimize the mixing of faith and science), I think you might be over selling the problem a bit with respect to The World of Science Festival. I counted quickly and saw 37 events (not including the street fair) listed for TWoSF. Perhaps I need to look more closely, but I only saw one event focused on the religion/science nexus. If TWoSF takes the Templeton Foundation’s money and then puts on one event discussing Templeton’s pet project, that doesn’t sound too bad to me.
It’s also worth pointing out that the event is “sold out”. Seems like there are plenty of people interested in the topic.
Regards – Todd
@ Non-Believer (June 1st, 2010 at 4:22 pm)
@ Todd (June 1st, 2010 at 4:50 pm)
You two are missing the point. The point isn’t that the “science and religion are compatible” perspective isn’t allowed to have a megaphone or even that “science and religion are compatible” perspective overwhelms everything else. The point is that, all else being equal, let’s let the science events be science events. After all, it is science that the public has a problem with. By and large the public is quite amenable to faith.
The telling sign in these sorts of events is the omission of any mention of conflict between science and religion. I don’t think a science event need necessarily bring this up, but if faith must be invoked, it is grossly negligent to advocate only the peaceful coexistence.
@JJE
I don’t have a problem with the basic position Sean has written about. I understand why he feels that there should be representation of the – lets keep these things separate. My point is the tone of intolerance over someone who’s opinion differs from his is getting media coverage. That sounds like only one world view counts and its his and people who think like him. That’s the world view that fundamentalists have.
That is the kind of thinking doesn’t solve problems and will not bring about the result we hope for. It will just divide camps and increase animosity. It narrows the focus on attacking the others instead of working toward a larger process of teaching critical thinking more broadly so that people will respect and recognize rational thought. Long term strategies will change these cultural and intellectual divides. Short term sniping will make that more difficult and only add fuel to the fundamentalists.
Good post.
About one of the panelists, Elaine Pagels. I have read quite a bit of her work and, speaking for myself, she appeals to the skeptic. She is a very good historian and linguistic having worked with the Nag Hammadi scrolls (similar to Dead Sea scrolls but from Gnostic Christian Sects and not a Jewish Sect). She has ruffled a lot of feathers in the traditional camps by questioning the defeat of Gnosticism by the “official” church, described the history of how Satan was invented, and similar topics. Sure her scholarship is religious, but she is definitely a good scholar.
I agree that this is a mistake: the Templeton Foundation has no place at a festival of science, no matter how much they are willing to pay. It may be stating the obvious, but religion is based on faith – i.e. belief without reason – and is fundamentally incompatible with science which is based on rational thought and testable knowledge. The Templeton Foundation’s mission seems to be to blur the distinction between faith and science (at least in the minds of the general public) – an insidious and ignoble goal, in my opinion.
@ Non-Believer
“My point is the tone of intolerance over someone who’s opinion differs from his is getting media coverage.”
His post is not intolerant nor does it have a tone of intolerance nor does it criticize religion. In short, your objection is without a target, period. Which part of Sean’s post exhibits “intolerance” (or any of its synonyms: bigotry, narrow-mindedness, small-mindedness, illiberality, parochialism, provincialism; prejudice, bias, partisanship, partiality, discrimination; injustice)?
As I pointed out, you missed the point and you continue to miss the point. The point is that such festivals seem to be great without addressing faith and its compatibility with science. And if a presentation at a science festival DID decide to broach the subject, at the very least it should present the balance required when there is no consensus conclusion within the community that is hosting the presentation. In the scientific community, there is certainly no consensus that religion is compatible with science. So why present it as if there were consensus?
I also take exception to this statement:
“It narrows the focus on attacking the others instead of working toward a larger process of teaching critical thinking more broadly so that people will respect and recognize rational thought.”
There is no narrowing of focus and Sean’s post in no way attacks or supports attacking anybody, religious or otherwise. Where does Sean attack someone or suggest that attacking someone is O.K.?
“Short term sniping will make that more difficult and only add fuel to the fundamentalists.”
Who is sniping? Certainly not Sean. Unless you are merely using metaphorical language like “intolerant”, “attacking” and “sniping” to simply mean “disagreement or difference of opinion”, you are way off base. If you are just using metaphors, then I completely reject your objection. The moment you forbid airing differences of opinion is the moment you kill science.
Unless of course you are arguing that the only difference of opinion that need be suppressed is the one that suggests that religion and science are strongly conflicting views of the world. And again, that bit of special pleading doesn’t pass muster.
I think some very fascinating science lies at the intersection of science and religion, especially as science is exploring the ability to build computer simulations of physics + replication + evolution. 1) In every case where both a metaworld and an embedded virtual world are within the purview of science, there is a creator. 2) In such a chaotic simulation, what is the minimum metaworld input (revelation) needed to nudge the direction of evolution toward emergent love. 3) Is there a way out of the Darwinian trap other than salvaging a few virtual creatures into the metaverse. Some of these ideas are addressed in the novel “Darwin’s Dove”. In this sense, science and religion seem quite compatible, but perhaps only to those who write physical simulators or genetic algorithms.
It is tiresome reading posts complaining that Sean is strident and that atheists use “invective”.
All he is saying is that a panel discussing Faith and Science should not consist of all panelists who are believers. After all, a large majority of scientists are atheists (APS, AAAS, etc). Whenever an atheist even mildly criticizes religious belief as irrational, he/she is accused of being rude, aggressive, using invective. Faith and religion are almost unique in getting a free pass about being criticized. Even non-believers have been brainwashed into thinking it is just bad form pointing out that core religious beliefs are crazy.
Is Davies actually a “believer”?
“It would be better if they didn’t take money from the Templeton Foundation”
Sean, do you also think scientists shouldn’t take money from defense sources (DARPA, Office of Naval Research, GCHQ, etc)?
“those of us who think that science and religion are not compatible. And there are a lot of us! Also, we’re right.”
So no dogmatic assertions there then!
Re Francisco Ayala
On a thread on another blog, someone claimed that Prof. Ayala, in an interview with a Spanish newspaper in 2000, admitted to being a non-believer. This would make him a Mooney type accommodationist, rather then a Ken Miller/Francis Collins type of accommodationist.
Funny … no mention of the Pontifical Academy of Science’s working group on Atherosclerosis which met earlier this week.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/2010/atherosclerosis_booklet_08.pdf
Very well said, Sean.
I’d find it disappointing not to have the “science & religion don’t mix” view omitted even if this was outside of a science festival.
I wonder how much of this is sold out by people hoping to line up during question period and bring the incompatibility issue up.