Faith Versus Fact : Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (9780698195516)

by Coyne, Jerry A.

  Finally, there are some versions of even the Abrahamic religions whose tenets are so vague that it’s simply unclear whether they conflict with science. Apophatic, or “negative,” theology, for instance, is reluctant to make claims about the nature or even the existence of a god. Some liberal Christians speak of God as a “ground of being” rather than as an entity with humanlike feelings and properties that behaves in specified ways. While some theologians claim that these are the “strongest” notions of God, they have that status only because they make the fewest claims and are thus the least susceptible to refutation—or even discussion. For anyone having the least familiarity with religion, it goes without saying that such watered-down versions of faith are not held by most people, who accept instead a personal god who intervenes in the world.

  This brings us to the common claim that critics of religion accept a “straw man” fallacy, seeing all believers as fundamentalists or scriptural literalists, and that we neglect the “strong and sophisticated” versions of faith held by liberal theologians. A true discussion of faith/science compatibility, this argument runs, demands that we deal only with these sophisticated forms of belief. For if we construe “religion” as simply “the beliefs of the average believer,” then arguing that those beliefs are incompatible with science is just as nonsensical as construing “science” as the rudimentary and often incorrect understanding of science held by the average citizen.

  But this parallel is wrong in several ways. First, while many laypeople hold erroneous views of science, they neither practice science nor are considered part of the scientific community. In contrast, the average believer not only practices religion but may also belong to a religious community that may try to spread its beliefs to the wider society. Further, while theologians may know more about the history of religion—or the work of other theologians—than do regular believers, they have no special expertise in discerning the nature of God, what he wants, or how he interacts with the world. In understanding the claims of their faith, “regular” religious believers are far closer to theologians than are science-friendly laypeople to the physicists and biologists they admire. Throughout this book I’ll consider the claims both of garden-variety believers and of theologians, for while the problem of faith versus science is most serious for the regular believer, it is the theologians who use academic arguments to convince believers that their faith is compatible with science.

  I emphasize that my claim that science and religion are incompatible does not mean that most religious people reject science. Even evolution, the science most scorned by believers, is accepted by many Jews, Buddhists, Christians, and liberal Muslims. And, of course, most believers have no problem with the idea of supernovas, photosynthesis, or gravity. The conflict plays out in only a few specific areas of science, but also in the validation of faith in general. My argument for incompatibility deals not with people’s perceptions, but with the contradictory ways that science and religion support their claims about reality.

  I begin by showing evidence that the conflict between religion and science is substantial and widespread. This evidence includes the incessant production of books and official statements by both scientists and theologians assuring us that there really is compatibility, but using different and sometimes contradictory arguments. The sheer number and diversity of these assurances suggest that there’s a problem that hasn’t been resolved. Further evidence for conflict includes the high proportion of scientists in both the United States and the United Kingdom who are atheists, a proportion of nonbelievers roughly ten times higher than that in the general public. Also, in America and other countries, there are laws that privilege faith by giving it precedence over science, as in the medical treatment of one’s children. Finally, the existence of pervasive creationism, as well as widespread belief in religious and spiritual healing, shows an obvious conflict between science and religion—or between science and faith.

  The second chapter lays out the terms of engagement: the ways I construe science and religion, and what I mean by “incompatibility.” I’ll argue that the incompatibility operates at three levels: methodology, outcomes, and philosophy—what “truths” are uncovered by science versus faith.

  Chapter 3 takes on accommodationism, analyzing a sample of the arguments used by both religious people and scientific organizations to argue for a harmony between science and faith. The two most common arguments are the existence of religious scientists, and Stephen Jay Gould’s prominent idea of “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA), in which science encompasses the domain of facts about the universe while religion occupies the orthogonal realm of meaning, morals, and values. In the end, all accommodationist strategies fail because they don’t resolve the huge disparity between discerning “truths” using reason versus faith. I’ll describe three examples of the problems that arise when scientific advances flatly contradict religious dogma: theistic (God-guided) evolution, claims about the existence of Adam and Eve, and Mormon beliefs about the origin of Native Americans.

  The fourth chapter, “Faith Strikes Back,” tackles not only the ways that religion is said to contribute to science, but also the way the faithful denigrate science as a way of defending their own turf. The arguments are diverse, and include claims that science actually supports the idea of God by supplying answers to questions supposedly beyond the ken of science. I call these endeavors the “new natural theology”—a modern version of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century arguments that purported to show the hand of God in nature. The updated arguments deal with the purported “fine-tuning” of the universe—the claimed improbability that the laws of physics would permit the appearance of life—as well as with the claimed inevitability of human evolution, and the details of human morality that, it’s argued, resist scientific but not religious explanations. I also take up the notion of “other ways of knowing”: the contention that science isn’t the only way of ferreting out nature’s truths. I’ll argue that in fact science is the only way to find such truths—if you construe “science” broadly. Finally, I deal with believers’ tu quoque accusations that science is either derived from religion or afflicted with the same problems as religion. These accusations are also diverse: science is actually a product of Christianity; science involves untestable assumptions, and is therefore based on faith; science is fallible; science promotes “scientism,” the view that nonscientific questions are uninteresting; and—the ultimate redoubt of believers—the assertion that while religion has sometimes been harmful, so has science, which has given us things like eugenics and nuclear weapons.

  Why should we care whether science and religion are compatible? The last chapter answers this question, showing why reliance on faith, when reason and evidence are available, has created immense harms, including many deaths. The clearest examples involve religiously based healing, which, protected by American law, has killed many, including children who have no choice in their treatment. Likewise, opposition to stem cell research and vaccination, as well as denial of global warming, is sometimes based on religious grounds. I argue that in a world where people must support their opinions with evidence and reason rather than faith, we would experience less conflict over issues like assisted suicide, gay rights, birth control, and sexual morality. Finally, I discuss whether it’s ever useful to have faith. Are there times when it’s all right to hold strong beliefs that are supported by little or no evidence? Even if we can’t prove the claims of faith, isn’t religion useful as a form of social glue and a wellspring of public morality? Is it possible for science and religion to have a constructive dialogue about these things?

  I am aware that criticizing religion is a touchy endeavor (a classic dinner-table no-no), invoking strong reactions even from those who aren’t believers but see faith as a societal good. Beyond summarizing what this book is, then, I should also explain what it is not.

  Although I deal largely with religion, my purpose is not to show that religion has, on bala
nce, been a malign influence on society. While I do believe this, and in the last chapter emphasize some of the problems of faith, it would be foolish to deny that religion has motivated many acts of goodness and charity. It has also been a solace for the inevitable sorrows of human life, and an impetus for helping others. In the end, it’s impossible to perform the “good versus bad” calculus of religion by integrating over history.

  My main thesis is narrower and, I think, more defensible: understanding reality, in the sense of being able to use what we know to predict what we don’t, is best achieved using the tools of science, and is never achieved using the methods of faith. That is attested by the acknowledged success of science in telling us about everything from the smallest bits of matter to the origin of the universe itself—compared with the abject failure of religion to tell us anything about gods, including whether they exist. While scientific investigations converge on solutions, religious investigations diverge, producing innumerable sects with conflicting and irresolvable claims. Using the predictions of science, we can now land space probes not only on distant planets, but also on distant comets. We can produce “designer drugs” to target a specific individual’s cancer, decide which flu vaccines are most likely to be effective in the coming season, and figure out how to finally wipe scourges like smallpox and polio from our planet. Religion, in contrast, can’t even tell us if there’s an afterlife, much less anything about its nature.

  The true harm of accommodationism is the weakening of our organs of reason by promoting useless methods of finding truth, especially that of faith. As Sam Harris notes:

  The point is not that we atheists can prove religion to be the cause of more harm than good (though I think this can be argued, and the balance seems to me to be swinging further toward harm each day). The point is that religion remains the only mode of discourse that encourages grown men and women to pretend to know things they manifestly do not (and cannot) know. If ever there were an attitude at odds with science, this is it. And the faithful are encouraged to keep shouldering this unwieldy burden of falsehood and self-deception by everyone they meet—by their coreligionists, of course, and by people of differing faith, and now, with startling frequency, by scientists who claim to have no faith.

  In arguing that science is the only way we can really learn things about our universe, I am not calling for a society completely dominated by science, which most people see as a robotic world lacking emotion, empty of art and literature, and devoid of the human need to feel part of something larger than oneself—a need that draws many to religion. Such a world would indeed be sterile and joyless. Rather, I’d claim that adopting a more broadly scientific viewpoint not only helps us make better decisions, both for ourselves and for society as a whole, but also brings alive the many wonders of science barred to those who see it as something distant and forbidding (it’s not). What could be more entrancing than understanding at last where we (and all other species) came from, a subject that I’ve studied all my life? Most important, there would be no devaluating of the emotional needs of humans. I live my life according to the principles I recommend in this book, but if you met me at a party you’d never guess I was a scientist. I am at least as emotional, and enamored of the arts, as the next person, am easily brought to tears by a good movie or book, and do my best to help the less fortunate. All I lack is faith. One can meet all the emotional requisites of a human—except for the assurance that you’ll find a life after death—without the superstitions of religion.

  Nevertheless, I won’t discuss how to replace religion when—as I believe will inevitably happen—it largely disappears from our world. Solutions inevitably depend on the emotional needs of individual personalities, and those interested in such solutions should consult Philip Kitcher’s excellent book Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism.

  Finally, I don’t discuss the historical, evolutionary, and psychological origins of religion. There are dozens of hypotheses for how religious belief got started and why it persists. Some invoke direct evolutionary adaptations, others by-products of evolved features like our tendency to attribute events to conscious agents, and still others the usefulness of faith as a societal glue or a way to control others. Definitive answers aren’t obvious, and in fact may never be forthcoming. To explore the many secular theories of religion, one should begin with Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell.

  I will have achieved my aim if, by the end of this book, you demand that people produce good reasons for what they believe—not only in religion, but in any area in which evidence can be brought to bear. I’ll have achieved my aim when people devote as much effort to choosing a system of belief as they do to choosing their doctor. I’ll have achieved my aim if the public stops awarding special authority about the universe and the human condition to preachers, imams, and clerics simply because they are religious figures. And above all, I’ll have achieved my aim if, when you hear someone described as a “person of faith,” you see it as criticism rather than praise.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Problem

  For we often talked of my daughter, who died of the fever at fall.

  And I thought ’twere the will of the Lord, but Miss Annie she said it was drains.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  There are no heated discussions about reconciling sport and religion, literature and religion, or business and religion; the important issue in today’s world is the harmony between science and religion. But why, of all human endeavors that we could compare with religion, are we so concerned with its harmony with science?

  The answer, to me at least, seems obvious. Science and religion—unlike, say, business and religion—are competitors at discovering truths about nature. And science is the only field that has the ability to disprove the truth claims of religion, and has done so repeatedly (the creation stories of Genesis and other faiths, the Noachian flood, and the fictitious Exodus of the Jews from Egypt come to mind). Religion, on the other hand, has no ability to overturn the truths found by science. It is this competition, and the ability of science to erode the hegemony of faith—but not vice versa—that has produced the copious discussion of how the two areas relate to each other, and how to find harmony between them.

  One can in fact argue that science and religion have been at odds ever since science began to exist as a formal discipline in sixteenth-century Europe. Scientific advances, of course, began well before that—in ancient Greece, China, India, and the Middle East—but could conflict with religion in a public way only when religion assumed both the power and the dogma to control society. That had to wait until the rise of Christianity and Islam, and then until science produced results that called their claims into question.

  And so in the last five hundred years there have been conflicts between science and faith—not continuous conflict, but occasional and famous moments of public hostility. The two most notable ones are Galileo’s squabble with the church and his sentence to lifetime house arrest in 1632 over his claim of a Sun-centered solar system, and the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” involving a titanic clash between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan over whether a Tennessee high-school teacher could tell his students that humans had evolved (the jury ruled no). Although both of these incidents have been recast by accommodationist theologians and historians as not involving genuine conflict between science and religion—it’s always construed as “politics,” “power,” or “personal animosity”—the religious roots of these disputes are clear. But even setting these episodes aside, there are many times when churches decried or even slowed scientific advances, episodes recounted in the two books I’ll describe shortly. (Of course, churches sometimes promoted scientific advances as well: during the advent of smallpox vaccination, churches were on both sides of the issue, with some arguing that it was a social good, others that it was short-circuiting God’s power over life and death.)

  But th
ese episodes of conflict didn’t give rise to public discussion about the relationship of science and religion. That had to wait until the nineteenth century, and was probably ignited by Charles Darwin’s 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species. The greatest scripture-killer ever penned, the book demolished (not deliberately) an entire series of biblical claims by demonstrating that purely naturalistic processes—evolution and natural selection—could explain patterns in nature previously explainable only by invoking a Great Designer.

  And so the modern discussion that science and religion are at odds, with science having the stronger weapons, began with two books published in the late nineteenth century. Historians of science see them as having launched the “conflict thesis”: the idea that religion and science are not only at war, but have been perpetually at war, with religious authorities opposing or suppressing science at every turn, and science struggling to free itself from the grip of faith. After recounting what they saw as historical clashes between the church and scientists, the authors of both books declared science the victor.

  The pugnacity of these works, unusual for their time, was fully expressed in the first: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1875) by the American polymath John William Draper:

  Then has it in truth come to this, that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice—it cannot have both.

  As the quote implies, Draper saw Catholicism, rather than religion as a whole, as the main enemy of science. This was because of that religion’s predominance, the elaborate nature of its dogma, and its attempt to enforce that dogma by civil power. Further, in the late eighteenth century, anti-Catholicism was a dominant strain among the American gentry.