Daniel C Peterson wrote:Of course they are compatible. People with doctorates in real fields (i.e. not the humanities) do a lot of apologetic work.
Archaeologists, Biologists, Astrophysicists etc. All of them are working on understanding the world that God created. If the two were not intellectually compatible, this would not be so.
Welcome back, Dr. Peterson, (I trust that it is really you.)
There is an important difference in approach for physical scientists when working in their secular profession as compared to when they are working in their religious calling as an LDS apologist. A great deal or partitioning and compartmentalization must occur before the transition can be made.
In the enterprise of science, one generally is engaged in generating evidence through observation or experimentation, and using that evidence to look for, compare, evaluate and test possible answers. It is an "evidence looking for answers" process.
In the enterprise of religion (and especially apologetics), one is engaged in generating answers and looking for confirming evidence. Apologetics is an "answers looking for evidence" process.
Pure science eventually gets one to the right answer about how that world works. Pure religion almost never does.
So when you claim that there is "intellectual compatibility" between science and religion, you may be expressing a wish, or demonstrating that you have hope or faith that this is the case. But it clearly is not so.
Religion and science are diametrically opposed, by definition. One is based on credible, reproducible physical evidence, logic and reason - and the other is based on myth, willful ignorance, unfounded belief, irrationality, and in the case of Mormonism, on some pretty tall tales that can be readily identified as such.
Seems that we have been here before, have we not?