science vs religion or reason vs faith

[huckelberry]

Yeah...I don't think they're interested at all on whether science can answer everything. It seems their appeals to history, in their examples, show they aren't advocating for such. 3 of the researchers involved here are theologians. I don't worry too much about what's reconcilable, nor am i sure what you mean by the word in relation to this matter, but I do find it fascinating when religions have claims that are basically disproved by science and how religionist prefer to believe their religion over the data. We tend toward irreconcilable pretty clearly as that continues to happen.

stem, I realize that it is very true that there are people who decide to ignore evidence if it contradicts their religions story. I find some peoples ability to do that a bit amazing. Amazing as that is it is hardly the only response people have. I am not alone in observing that my understanding of religious stories respects evidence. I do not believe there was a world wide flood. The evidence is clear.

I found myself frustrated reading this article and quit about third of the way through. I might return to the toil. I found myself frustrated with the ambiguity in what they meant to be referring to with the category, religion. It sounded like trusting miracles sort of like expecting to be healed touching a piece of wood someone says is from the true cross. It is probably difficult to clarify the category due to its wide variety of occurrences and the many branches of its concerns.

I would incline to describe religion as the stories people share to form a basis for how people become human. Of course there is a good bit of variety in those stories and how different people use those stories. These naturally adjust to new knowledge and understanding. The stories come under criticism from new and different stories. Society has developed and expanded enough that the teaching process is no longer confined to traditional stories with the supernatural. So now the teaching and experience contained in supernatural stories compete and perhaps work with non supernatural stories.

I think a better question for secular society working with religion is how their stories might educate each other.

[Gadianton]

Does evidence actually play different roles in science and religion? Yes. Religion has traditionally leaned on eyewitness testimonials, narratives, symbols and personal, experiential evidence, and it strives for certainty and confirmation. In contrast, empirical science relies on controlled and repeatable experimentation, statistical uncertainty and the possibility of falsification. Might we generalize to say that religion relies upon experiential evidence while science relies on experimental evidence? This will be our hypothesis.

dumb. Two broad and complicated things aren't going to reduce to such easy just-so compartments. It's even catchy -- experiential vs. experimental!

[Physics Guy]

This may not be a great paper, but it's at least trying to be an academic paper, and you just can't read academic papers without paying attention to fine distinctions of meaning. Translating them roughly into casual speech usually eliminates everything that was either valid or original in the article, leaving nothing but noise and platitudes that everyone had already heard before the paper was written.

Academic literature is always like that. Reading it without paying careful attention to its nuances is like ordering a $200 bottle of wine and chugging it down mixed with cola. Maybe the wine is overpriced and the snobs who sip and swirl and enthuse about arrogant fruit notes are just kidding themselves, but if that's so, then paying $200 to drink it with Coke isn’t worthwhile, either. A lot of academic literature may well be pointless hairsplitting, but if that's so, it’s probably best to just ignore it.

[Res Ipsa]

This may not be a great paper, but it's at least trying to be an academic paper, and you just can't read academic papers without paying attention to fine distinctions of meaning. Translating them roughly into casual speech usually eliminates everything that was either valid or original in the article, leaving nothing but noise and platitudes that everyone had already heard before the paper was written.

Academic literature is always like that. Reading it without paying careful attention to its nuances is like ordering a $200 bottle of wine and chugging it down mixed with cola. Maybe the wine is overpriced and the snobs who sip and swirl and enthuse about arrogant fruit notes are just kidding themselves, but if that's so, then paying $200 to drink it with Coke isn’t worthwhile, either. A lot of academic literature may well be pointless hairsplitting, but if that's so, it’s probably best to just ignore it.

Excellent observations. I'm always interested in threads on the interaction of science and religion, but when I looked at this paper's abstract:

Regardless of the model for identifying the relationship between science and religion–conflict, independence, dialogue, integration–insufficient attention has been given to the way evidence is processed in each field. Whereas religious claims are based on experiential evidence, scientific claims are based on experimental evidence. Recognizing this difference, the independence or two-language model along with the ethical alliance model would be the most fitting basis for future religion–science interaction.

I knew it was going to take a ton of effort to understand what the authors are saying. Given the arbitrary limitation on science to "experimental evidence," I didn't think it was worth reading and so gave it a pass. Re-lurking now.

[dastardly stem]

I think a better question for secular society working with religion is how their stories might educate each other.

Thanks huckelberry. I don't think I see it much differently.

[dastardly stem]

Does evidence actually play different roles in science and religion? Yes. Religion has traditionally leaned on eyewitness testimonials, narratives, symbols and personal, experiential evidence, and it strives for certainty and confirmation. In contrast, empirical science relies on controlled and repeatable experimentation, statistical uncertainty and the possibility of falsification. Might we generalize to say that religion relies upon experiential evidence while science relies on experimental evidence? This will be our hypothesis.

dumb. Two broad and complicated things aren't going to reduce to such easy just-so compartments. It's even catchy -- experiential vs. experimental!

Its certainly a fair point to suggest they are generalizing way too much in trying to force these complicated things into neat compartments. But remember I'm dumb. I tend to get useful ideas from dumb stuff.

[dastardly stem]

This may not be a great paper, but it's at least trying to be an academic paper, and you just can't read academic papers without paying attention to fine distinctions of meaning. Translating them roughly into casual speech usually eliminates everything that was either valid or original in the article, leaving nothing but noise and platitudes that everyone had already heard before the paper was written.

Academic literature is always like that. Reading it without paying careful attention to its nuances is like ordering a $200 bottle of wine and chugging it down mixed with cola. Maybe the wine is overpriced and the snobs who sip and swirl and enthuse about arrogant fruit notes are just kidding themselves, but if that's so, then paying $200 to drink it with Coke isn’t worthwhile, either. A lot of academic literature may well be pointless hairsplitting, but if that's so, it’s probably best to just ignore it.

Mixing coke with expensive wine sounds interesting. Yes, I'd imagine there's is tons out there that is pointless hairsplitting and may need to be ignored, but the degree of usefulness to anyone is all subjective, really. Sometimes the implications say enough to offer more avenues of exploration, at least.

[Res Ipsa]

I think a better question for secular society working with religion is how their stories might educate each other.

Thanks huckelberry. I don't think I see it much differently.

I like this perspective.

[Gadianton]

You have to watch out for this one, Stem, because DCP every second Thursday is going to own it and say science and religion are two different kinds of knowledge and science has no bearing on "experience".

I think the biggest thing is that if you look up the "demarcation problem" you'll see that there are a couple centuries worth of debate here, none of which the authors were either aware of or thought relevant, but it's extraordinarily unlikely they are going to be the ones to have finally figured it out. If they have, God bless them.

Not dumb at all, reading that article got you to this thread, and now you can look up "demarcation problem" over at SEP. After that you may still think these guys are right but you'll have more context -- what has gone on before to determine the domain of science vs. everything else, namely religion.

[drumdude]

Here is a story that I think some of you might find of interest:



John and Martha Boice joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 7 June 1835. Three years later, they moved to Kirtland, Ohio. Then, in 1839, they began to move to join the Saints in Missouri, but they were driven back by a mob. So, instead, they moved to Illinois, where Martha became critically ill owing to poor diet and frequent exposure to the elements. She became bitter, blaming her illness on their having joined the Church, and she gave instructions that, in the event of her death, her children were to be parceled out for care to people in the neighborhood who were not Latter-day Saints.

For over two months, Martha lay bedridden in a one-room log cabin. On 14 February 1840, she died. She was laid out on a narrow bed that was draped in white, while, under the light of tallow candles, friendly women sat about sewing her white burial clothes and her grieving husband tended a fire on the hearth. Suddenly, she called out to him, saying “John. John, raise me up.”

John hastened to obey the command. He went to the couch where his wife lay and raised her up. She sat up on the board bed and said, “Don’t be afraid. I have been in the Spirit world but have obtained permission to return and to remain for two hours. I have come to rectify my mistake in willing away my children. You may keep two of them, the other will go with me. I made a mistake in growing weary of the Gospel. The Gospel is true. Joseph Smith is a prophet of the living God. You will do well to remain true to it all your life.”

She remained the two hours allotted to her, bearing testimony to the Gospel and praising God for the beauties which she had seen in the Spirit world and for the joy of being able to return. She then instructed them to proceed with her funeral as they had already arranged for the following day. Then she bade her husband to lay her down again. This he did, and then her spirit took its flight again. She was buried the following day and her little son, Thomas, was called away that same evening after a brief and sudden illness and he was laid by her side in a cemetery at Hudson, Ohio [which is approximately thirty-six miles to the south of Kirtland].

[From Samantha T. Brimhall, Boice Family History [ca. 1930], unpublished manuscript (Salt Lake City: LDS Church Archives), pages 1-3, as reproduced in Marlene Bateman Sullivan, Visits from Beyond the Veil: True Stories of Angelic Visitations (Springville, UT: Horizon Publishers, 2008), 27-28.]

KRR: "The Boice account is fascinating. Just wondering if we have confirming accounts of it, say, from the "friendly women" attending the body."

I doubt it, given the vagaries of historical documentation.

My general inclination on such things is not to place too much weight on any single story. But there are, quite literally, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of them -- and, if even one of them is true, naturalism (or, more specifically, physicalism or mind-brain identity) is false.

Here we have Doktor Peterson proving a materialist cannot explain the workings of the mind with stories from frontier Americana.

Science!