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RELIGION versus SCIENCE

"A Scientific Fact!"

"The world is flat" oops, that was dis-proven
"The Earth is the center of the Universe" oops, that was dis-proven
"The Universe is beyond measure" oops, that's been dis-proven too

But everything else I want to believe is true.

Science is a disciplined, academic pursuit of truths of our material world. Religion is an interpretable tradition of spiritual faith. The process of religion may some times overlap and include truth, but this is not built-in to its design and purpose, nor is this a reasonable expectation to assume.

Some may assert that our religious beliefs can fit with science and vice-versa; that our concept of God and "creation" can in fact be synonymous with the facts of science. For example: the "Big Bang" theory might be perfectly compatible with the Genesis myth of our beginnings- that the scientific view can simply be the way that "God" did what He did. In order to believe this, we would have to approach the Genesis tradition (or any other religious approach) very loosely indeed, as merely an inference than a precise mapping. Clearly stated: If we choose to believe that our religious "truths" and scientific understanding can be one in the same, then our traditional concept of God is simply not big enough.

A principle difference between the traditions of science and of religion is that unlike religion, science is a constant evolution of checks and balances based on a relentless search of material truths based on evidence and review. Religion on the other hand, although it has its own processes of review, serves the installation and maintenance of faith- not fact. "Facts" are based on evidence and the scrutinized expectations of evidence as proof. Religion is a process of belief without proof. For religion to criticize the traditions of science is to deny all of the elements in a long line of tested and verified intellectual fact finding.

However, if you want to believe or disbelieve something, you will. There is no force large enough in our social existence nor our mental processes to surmount free will. Religious believers will always interpret and pick and choose the tenants of science in such a way as to merge with their comfort zones, simply because they want to- regardless of truth.

HISTORY OF THE SUPPRESSION OF SCIENCE

When celebrated Physicist Stephen Hawking was invited to the Vatican's council on the sciences, he was asked by the Pope if there was anything he would like to see. Hawking replied, he wished to see the records of the trial of Galileo.

The church condemned Galileo in the 17th century for supporting Nicholas Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe. But in 1992, Pope John Paul II issued a declaration saying the church's denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Hawking quoted the pope as saying, "It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."

The scientist then joked that he was glad John Paul did not realize that he had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began. "I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo," Hawking said during a sold-out audience at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

source: MSNBC

(more soon...)

THE DOVER PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL BOARD CASE

Christian creationists took their local school board to task over evolution text books in the school in the rural town of Dover, Pennsylvania. The case escalated, dividing the town and setting precedent in federal court where the creationists had to prove their ""Intelligent Design" theory was, in fact, legitimate science as they had claimed. They failed miserably, the case was ruled against them. The town went back to teaching evolution in the school. PBS's NOVA produced a comprehensive documentary on the case:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

CREATIONISM
The religious belief system of the origins of the Universe, Earth and Mankind, based on the scriptures of the old testament's Book of Genesis. Creationist adherents often find science a threat to their views and oppose the inclusion of scientifically based assertions that they feel contradict their faith-based beliefs. In particular, Creation theorists oppose Darwin's "Theory of Evolution" and the traditions of evolutionary biology that flow from Darwin's discoveries.

COMMON ARGUMENT TACTICS:

"GOD USED EVOLUTION"
     This may be true or not true. The moon may also be made of green cheese. I cannot personally prove nor disprove this either. Therefore, it is a moot point in discourse. However, there are certain passages in religious scripture that are often interpreted as mutually exclusive with the findings of science. Belief is a personal thing. If one wants to believe something, no matter how outlandish or in opposition to the evidence, one will. At least the inclusion of evolution into creationism is an attempt by religious believers to accept science somehow. Far worse is when the parties of religion deny the facts of science and evolution all together.

"MATERIALISM CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR EVERYTHING"
     Materialism is observational, Truth is contemplative. This is merely another deflection technique used to derail the issue. "What is the chemical composition of love?" and "How much does justice weigh?" are questions posed by religious creationists to try and characterize materialism and science as belief systems that pretend to answer everything. However, this takes science out of its respective field and applies it to other areas of inquiry in order to make it look faltering. This is like faulting Calculus because it cannot address issues of politics. Science is an ever expanding collective of knowledge based on evidence through inquiry. No one pretends it is any more or less than this, except those who oppose it because they fear it confronts and/or contradicts their own, pre-existing faith based reasoning.

"IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY"
     This is the idea used frequently by creation theory that some things are far too complex in their design to have evolved and therefore must have been created outright. Each example that has been brought to trial by "creation science" has been quickly dismissed by real science. A popular example is the bacterial flagellum. This is the motility organelle in microbial life forms used to propel them through the fluids they live in. Resembling very much the crank-shaft design of combustion engines, these finely tuned parts work like a tiny motor to spin the tail and create forward thrust. However, in comparative studies of similar, yet slightly advanced life forms, some of the same parts are seen, but performing different functions. As well, previous steps in evolution show these parts in development. Every time an example of "IR" is brought by the creationist movement, it is exposed as junk science and only serves to show the desperation on the part of these wish fulfilling attempts.

"THE SPECIES GAP"
     "Micro" evolution vs "macro" evolution. A popular argument from creationists against evolution is that there is no evidence for major jumps between species, or what is called "Macro" evolution. Well, this is because it happened over millions of years and is difficult to portray in singular examples. If we wanted to "prove" the transition from day to night, we need only stay up for 24 hours to observe it. Remember: for anything to become an academic or scientific "fact," it must be falsifiable. This means it must be (1) observable (2) testable and (3) repeatable. We could stay up all night and observe the sun and moon rise and set- and we could repeat this- but how would we "test" it? To create scientific evidence, we could set a camera on a tripod and with time-lapse photography, capture a visual record of the transition of day into night and back again. A test like this could also be repeated over and over until even the most hardcore of skeptics would accept the hypothesis as "truth." This kind of testing is, of course, impossible to apply to something like evolution through natural selection, unless we could stay up for 4 billion years with a camera, which might prove tiring. A better approach might be to visit a nearby museum of natural history and look at the fossil record, which scientists have poured and scrutinized in incredible detail. "But they only show drawings and flowcharts!" you might say. Well, until you bring me the million-years-camera and an adequate supply of coffee, the renderings will just have to do.

"FINE TUNING"
     (coming soon!)

"THE 'WAR' ON CREATIONISM"
     There is a popular misconception in the creationist set that religious based views are "under attack." Well, science cannot make exceptions to truth in order to assuage the feelings of the faithful, therefore, egos will be bruised when science and myth traditions conflict. In the right wing conservative religious agendas in America, where creationism and it's tactics thrive, we don't hear much complaint about science stepping on the toes of Muslims or Jews, let alone Shinto or Taoism or Buddhism, etc. It is testament to the insecurity of the creationist movement and its ideas that this "oppressed minority" schtick is used. As with other pop-culture moves by the religious right, terms like "attack on the family," or "attack on values," etc, etc, is an all too easy cliche that invokes responses that are purely emotional and not at all rationally based.

"A BIASED MEDIA"
     The media, like any other pursuit, becomes "biased" whenever it supports an agenda and is not trying to objectively pursue truth, wherever it leads. Accusing the media of a bias toward your opponent is an easy way to create doubt, a lack of clarity and a dynamic susceptible to spin. In every occasion where one side claims bias, it can be conversely accused of the other side. When Intelligent Design theory is debunked as junk science, advocates accuse actual legitimate, established science as corrupt and accuse them of "waging war on competitive science." The tactic is to co-opt "science" and purposely confuse the public alltogether.

   The only solution is to look to tried and true methods and parameters of agreement on how to collect, interpret, review and publish data as evidence. Calling the tenants of your argument "evidence" does not make it so. Pointing to the Bible as "evidence" is similar to saying the moon is made of green cheese because you know your opponent hasn't been there and can't prove/disprove it first hand. When you steer a debate into areas that cannot be defined, then there simply cannot be rational inquiry- and therefore- no adequate hypothesis or theory that is testable. This kind of discourse is moot.

"SCIENCE IS FLAWED"
     Science is a process that of course posits theories that sometimes turn out false. This notion is part of exactly what makes science reliable, because everything that is put forward as theory is subject to testing, scrutiny and peer review. We don't believe anything scientifically based by taking it "at face value," rather, it is a deductive process that only allows those ideas that past the test to prevail as "fact." The following explanation of scientific method is taken from http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node5.html

If scientific theories keep changing, where is Truth?

In 1666 Isaac Newton proposed his theory of gravitation. This was one of the greatest intellectual feats of all time. The theory explained all the observed facts, and made predictions that were later tested and found to be correct within the accuracy of the instruments being used. As far as anyone could see, Newton's theory was ``the Truth''.

During the nineteenth century, more accurate instruments were used to test Newton's theory, these observations uncovered some slight discrepancies. Albert Einstein proposed his theories of Relativity, which explained the newly observed facts and made more predictions. Those predictions have now been tested and found to be correct within the accuracy of the instruments being used. As far as anyone can see, Einstein's theory is ``the Truth''.

So how can the Truth change? Well the answer is that it hasn't. The Universe is still the same as it ever was. When a theory is said to be ``true'' it means that it agrees with all known experimental evidence. But even the best of theories have, time and again, been shown to be incomplete: though they might explain a lot of phenomena using a few basic principles, and even predict many new and exciting results, eventually new experiments (or more precise ones) show a discrepancy between the workings of nature and the predictions of the theory. In the strict sense this means that the theory was not ``true'' after all; but the fact remains that it is a very good approximation to the truth, at lest where a certain type of phenomena is concerned.

When an accepted theory cannot explain some new data (which has been confirmed), the researchers working in that field strive to construct a new theory. This task gets increasingly more difficult as our knowledge increases, for the new theory should not only explain the new data, but also all the old one: a new theory has, as its first duty, to devour and assimilate its predecessors.

One other note about truth: science does not make moral judgments. Anyone who tries to draw moral lessons from the laws of nature is on very dangerous ground. Evolution in particular seems to suffer from this. At one time or another it seems to have been used to justify Nazism, Communism, and every other -ism in between. These justifications are all completely bogus. Similarly, anyone who says ``evolution theory is evil because it is used to support Communism'' (or any other -ism) has also strayed from the path of Logic (and will not live live long nor prosper).

Science is also a process. That is to say, it often takes time to work out its theories and ratify them. When critics say "there is no evidence! There is no proof!" the reality is often that, there isn't any yet, but it is reliably forthcoming. Also, science is very specifically, an observational process of the material world. Religion on the other hand, very directly claims to answer everything- and to umbrella every other kind of understanding within itself, or else, eschew it completely. By definition, the unyielding nature of religion demands its adherents to take its failings on faith as much as its assertions. Because there is no evidence basis for religious understanding, religion can shift direction at will and its followers have to adjust. Science, again, is based on proof and all its assertions must conform to the parameters of natural law. The Catholic Church, for instance, can up and decide that "Limbo no longer exists," and everyone has to sort of just accept this and forget they once believed otherwise. There is no evidence either to the existence nor non-existence of such a faith-based concept as "limbo," so one must presumably, go with the flow as it were. Quite the opposite, when science discovers a theory in error, it is not indicted as an undermining of the system, but is celebrated as a step forward in understanding.

"DARWIN WAS FLAWED"
   Yes he was. Darwin was just a man, and as such, was of course full of flaws. No one looks to Darwin as a cultural leader or guru or deity. Again, creation apologists often place this criticism on rationalists as a debate tactic. As for the science however, Darwin's theories have been judged by a specific process of ongoing inquiry. Like most scientists, some of his theories proved false, however, his theory on Evolution through natural selection (as laid out in his famed book: Origin of Species) has proven true. Evolution theory has undergone the rigors of decade upon decade of scrutiny and peer review and has stood the tests and continues to do so. Darwinian Evolution is an accepted fact of science, like gravity or homeostasis or planetary motion or any other. Some of Darwin's insights regarding evolution have been fine-tuned by subsequent evolutionary biologists over time, but the basis of his theory and the overwhelming quantum leap in our understanding that it provides, is fully intact.

"TEACH THE CONTROVERSY"
     There is no controversy. This is another public diversion tactic. "Creationism" is not a scientific theory, so it cannot be compared or contrasted with an actual scientific theory.   Before Einstein put forth his now famed "Special Relativity Theory" there had been an assumption called "Solid State" theory. Einstein's himself had pursued solid-state theory, but his revelation on relativity replaced it. We would never think of teaching both Solid-State and Relativity theories in public schools just because they were once opposing ideas. We would never say "teach the controversy" because, in fact, there is none. This is also true with evolution and creationism. There is no controversy, so there is no basis for further discussion- especially where school children are concerned!

"BELIEVING IN SCIENCE IS A FORM OF FAITH"
     To descend into a deep discussion over the nature of "belief" and "believing" and what it means to "believe in something" is the school of epistemology (the philosophy/study of knowledge) and to be applied here- relevant as it would be- is to avoid and deflect the issue. Suffice to say, having a confident trust and belief in the process of scientific inquiry may not even be considerable as "faith" because science is based on evidence. Nonetheless, the point is taken that those who base their beliefs in facts of science may follow assumptions they perceive blindly, much like religious followers, this however, in no way discredits the facts of science. If this problem exists, it is a people problem, not a science problem.

"CARBON DATING IS NOT RELIABLE"
   (coming soon!)

"THE GRAND TRIXTER"
     Some creationist advocates when backed in a corner actually posit that proven science is created by Satan to mislead mankind. If you believe this, well... then i just dunno. One example is the prevalence of evidence toward evolution within the fossil record. People have proclaimed that fossils have been deposited by Satan for man to find and become confused by. Wow. Touched by his noodly appendage.

"INTELLIGENT DESIGN"

Intelligent Design or "ID" is an approach by creationists to try and produce scientific evidence for their argument in order to keep the evolution debate alive. When creationists could no longer ban evolution from being taught in schools; and when they could not get their own ideas put into schools, they invented Intelligent Design theory. Because the separation of church and state keeps creationist teachings out of public schools, ID inventors thought they might skirt constitutionality by proposing that their faith-based ideology could be represented with actual science- and therefore would have to be considered in debates against evolution. Nice try, but no. Court systems saw right through this desperation tactic and "ID" has been rejected judicially as well as being torn to shreds by the real scientific community.

However, proponents of ID have not given up and continue to developed new tactics to keep ID in the debate. By accusing mainstream, established science as having a bias, ID activists cry "discrimination" and character assassinate science to try and level the playing field.

1) By the very definition of "science," ID is NOT science.
2) Anyone can see the obvious connection to the creationist agenda and recognize the movement as a spin campaign.
3) When ID is tested with actual scientific inquiry, it fails. The main "evidence" that ID tends to propose is the "Lack of evidence" they accuse parts of evolution theory to have. This is like using a negative space as a positive shape. Its not even good logic let alone legitimate inquiry.
4) ID theory requires that its students have little or no knowledge of the general science around evolutionary biology and its methods of inquiry.
5) By trying to blur the debate by undermining established science, ID proponents damage our collective process of knowledge gathering. The ID argument interrupts regular inquiry and education; and wastes everyone's time.

"ID" SOCIO/POLITICAL HISTORY:

1) Creationists couldn't keep Darwin out of schools
2) Creationists couldn't get creationism in schools
3) Creationists tried to pass off creationism as "legitimate mode of science" with "ID" theory
    so as to circumvent the religion component.
4) After "ID" failed miserably, they tried the angle of "teach the controversy."
5) After all else failed, retreated to tactic of claiming the establishment to be "corrupt and beyond having a
    fair point of view." With the obligatory cries of "censorship," "politcal-correctness," and "liberal conspiracy"
    on the part of Science, the Judicial System and of course, the Media.

Thus the push remains: if you can't win the argument for your own side- then blur the argument for all sides, making it difficult for the un-initiated to take a position at all. Classic "spin campaign" 101.